2021-01-05 | Stupid Tricks
With one of the categories for this blog being Stupid Tricks, it shouldn't be a shock that I'm often interested in rather odd things. So, let's combine this with baseball and channel my inner Jayson Stark!
Some of the greats in the sport include Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, and Willie Mays. What do they have in common, other than being members of the Hall of Fame? They all started and ended their Major League Baseball careers playing in the same city, but for different franchises. Ruth in Boston, Foxx in Philadelphia, and Mays in New York.
So I got to thinking, what other players of note qualify for this distinction? Baseball Reference has a spectacular tool for nerd questions like this, and I started out looking for cities that I knew had multiple franchises in a short time span.
Seattle was first up, given both the Pilots and Mariners played there within an eight year span. Sadly, no one qualifies in this city. Diego Segui comes close, but he played before his Pilots days for the Athletics in both Kansas City and Oakland!
This is embarrassing, but I didn't know off the top of my head that Hank Aaron was the only Milwaukee Brave to end his career a Milwaukee Brewer.
Speaking of Kansas City, does that town qualify?
It does! Ken Sanders and Dave Wickersham both started their careers with the Athletics and ended with the Royals. Sadly, though they both played in the early 60s, they were not on the same Kansas City Athletics team.
This would have been a triple had Aurelio Monteagudo not played a final season with the California Angels.
So it turns out this phenomenon is amazingly frequent. Washington, DC, definitely qualifies with Johnny Schaive having played for both Washington Senators--and only the Washington Senators--over his five year career.
But here's a question for you!
Was there a player that only played for two years, for two franchises, both named the Washington Senators?
Yes, there is, and his name is Rudy Hernandez.
But what if I told you there's someone else, who goes even weirder in only playing in two games. That can't possibly exist, can it?
He can. His name is Hector Maestri, who played in one game for the team that would be the Twins, and one that would be the Rangers... and he even managed to only pitch two innings for the original Senators.
Baseball!