Baseball book

larryallen73

Had the pleasure of meeting the author of this book the other day. It's a coffee table type book dedicated to players who played their entire career for one team. 177 of them out of 18,000 by his count. Looks beautiful too! Great item for the baseball fan in your life.

https://amazon.com/Hometown-Heroes-Franchise-Baseball-Century/dp/1942306210

Coinstartled

Only 1% have played a career with the same team? That is remarkable as it seemed the farm team players of the 1960's stayed on forever.

SDSportsFan

I just wonder how the author defines "career". Surely there have been more than 177 players in the entire history of baseball who have played for one team only, when counting ALL players to make it to the big leagues. Think about all the players who only came up for "a cup of coffee", or spent only 1-2 years in the majors. At what point does a stint in the major leagues become a "career" (in the author's mind); is it 2 years?.....5 years?.....10 years?.....or even longer?

Edited to add: In looking at the one page that is available on the Amazon preview, the shortest "career" listed by any of the players is 9 years (Jerry Coleman and George Selkirk). Interestingly, both players' careers were shortened by wartime military service. So, it appears that anyone who played fewer than 9 years (or more likely 10 years, absent any military service) in the majors, isn't considered by the author, to have had a "career" in the major leagues.

Steve

Coinstartled

I searched about 30 names of Tigers. Most were from the 68 championship team and a hand full from 1984 plus a couple of legends.

Qualifying were: Gehringer, Trammell, Kaline, Whitaker, Stanley, Freehan, Gates Brown, and John Hiller.

Among those that did not included Ty Cobb, Hank Greenberg, Mickey Lolich and Willie Horton.

SDSportsFan

@Coinstartled said:
I searched about 30 names of Tigers. Most were from the 68 championship team and a hand full from 1984 plus a couple of legends.

Qualifying were: Gehringer, Trammell, Kaline, Whitaker, Stanley, Freehan, Gates Brown, and John Hiller.

Among those that did not included Ty Cobb, Hank Greenberg, Mickey Lolich and Willie Horton.

Well, Cobb also played for the Philadelphia A's, Greenberg spent his final year in Pittsburgh, Lolich also pitched for the Mets and Padres, and Horton also played for Seattle, Toronto, Texas, Cleveland and Oakland.

Steve

dallasactuary

When I think of the Cardinals, the names that come to mind first are Musial, Gibson, Brock, Ozzie, Dean, Schoendienst, Frisch, Simmons, Pujols and Lankford. Of those 10, only Musial played his entire career with the Cards.

SirLurksALot

Off the top of my noggin, I can only think of one player that played start to finish with the magnificent Seattle Mariners...

DIMEMAN

I'm surprised there were 177. Loyalty is a thing of the past and there wasn't much of it then.

Coinstartled

@dallasactuary said:
When I think of the Cardinals, the names that come to mind first are Musial, Gibson, Brock, Ozzie, Dean, Schoendienst, Frisch, Simmons, Pujols and Lankford. Of those 10, only Musial played his entire career with the Cards.

Are you including Bob Gibson's year playing for the Harlem Globetrotters as an exclusion into the career with one team category?

dallasactuary

@Coinstartled said:
Are you including Bob Gibson's year playing for the Harlem Globetrotters as an exclusion into the career with one team category?

Well, this is embarrassing. I was thinking Gibson had been traded to Boston at the end of his career and had pitched a few games there. I think I was getting him confused with Marichal. My apologies Hoot.

Coinstartled

it would be interesting to see video of his Globetrotter days.

Tabe

@SirLurksALot said:
Off the top of my noggin, I can only think of one player that played start to finish with the magnificent Seattle Mariners...

Gar, of course.

But, now entering his 13th season, we've also got Felix Hernandez.