Best Baseball Player of All-Time To Share Your Name
 

I have always had a fascination with players that have my name, I figure the reason is that my name isn't all that popular so when one guy pops up it is always nice to follow him. So I am interested to see how this might play out.

Go to baseball-reference.com and in the player search just put in your first name.

From all those people, either by memory or by examining and clicking on the names, which player that shares your name is the best to ever grace the diamond?

For me, it's a small list. Only 12 players in the history of the majors have gone by "Shane" as their first name. Only since 1978 has the name even been in the game.. that's 100 years of no Shane's.

Anyways, I've narrowed it down to a few canidates: Shane Halter ('97-), Shane Mack ('87-'98), Shane Rawley ('78-'89), Shane Reynolds ('92-'04), Shane Spencer ('98-).

Halter's ML career is probably nearing it's end, and all he did was start a few seasons on a crappy Tigers team. He's out.

Shane Spencer also has probably had his run, on no current ML roster, he will primarily be remembered as a platoon corner outfielder for the Yankees. He's out.

Shane Rawley, the only of my 5 I have never heard about. Made the All-Star team in 1986, 111 career wins, but winning percent only .485. He's out.

So it is down to Shane Mack and Shane Reynolds. I have a slight bias towards Shane Mack because I used to have a Starting Lineup of him. Career .299 hitter, .821 OPS (120 OPS+). Shane Reynolds ended 2004 with 114 wins at a 55% winning clip. His best season was 1998 (19-8 3.51 ERA) though his lone All-Star appearance was in 2000.

When it's all said and done, the best Shane ever is Shane Mack for me.

How about your name?

(It will be interesting when a Joe or John or someone similarly common posts.)

In your case, it really is Rawley.

Some bum named Sean Casey.

I'm better known for Presidents :)

Umm....Ray Scarborough. No wait, Craig Biggio. Ah, whatever.

One season where he won more than 15 games. I don't believe you.

not my fault you have a sucky name. :D

Ron Coomer.. so impressive.

Joe Dimaggio.

I win.

Guidry, as much as it pains me.

What about Ron Cey?

25-3 in 1978. Marm's having a field day with this.

Dallas Green is the only one that has had somewhat of a career. Dallas McPherson could change that but so far his career BA is .244.

The other two that share my first name, Dallas Williams .079 career BA and Dallas Bradshaw .000 career BA.

Barry Bonds

cheater

My name is Andrew. Does the name Andruw count? How about Andy?

Frank Robinson. Ok, so I had a pretty easy name :)

SI

Joe Dimaggio

I was suprised to find no matches for Brandi. I feel so left out.

Brandon League

Nobody spells my name like I do... :(

Daryll Hurst

Of course Straw would be the biggest name close to mine. Darrell Evans (Tigers?)

Why not Frank Viola?

IMO Reynolds was a little better then Rawley.

Jose Canseco or Jose Guillen.

Troy Glaus.

Only three Troy's have ever played 5 years or more in the major leagues. Two of them were prominant Angels. (Percival) The other was Troy O'Leary.

There are quite a few Franks out there like Frank Thomas and even a couple of old time ones in the Hall of Fame like Frank Chance (of Tinkers to Evers to Chance fame). But Frank Robinson is pretty easily the best on the grounds that there aren't that many people in the history of baseball better than him and none are named Frank :)

SI

Well, my real name's Jason Schmidt, so there's that. Before him, everyone used to call me Mike.

Ryan Klesko, or if I can count surnames, Nolan Ryan.

Todd Helton

Pete "Motherfuckin'" ROSE!!

Steve Balboni.

'mine is a toss-up between Brian Giles and Brian Jordan. I would go with Giles if he had been healthy his whole career, but I think I have to go with Jordan.

Either Clint Brown or Clint Hurdle*. Maybe Clint Barmes will turn out to be an upgrade some day.

*Unless Dan Gladden counts, since his real first name is Clinton.

Todd Worrell

Odd. This discussion prompted me to discover that former Giants slugger Matt Williams not only shares a first name with me, but his middle name is my last name, so I'll give the nod to him.

His middle name is Dingleberry?

Ditto.

Paul Molitor, Paul Waner

If we can use nickname/shortened names, Ricky Henderson? But I never go by ricky... JR Richard?

I don't feel like looking it up, cause I am lazy like that, but I can't recall anyone being better than Appier and Brown for me. I am probably forgetting someone obvious though.

Hall of Famer Tim "Sir Timothy" Keefe. Doesn't sound familiar? He won 342 games from 1880-1893. His other nickname was "Smiling Tim."

Bob Gibson

Randy Johnson

I'm seriously doubting that there has been many Muslims in the major leagues, so I'm not sure any would fit the bill for me ;).

If you don't want to go with Rose, use Pete Alexander.

You may know him better as Grover.

Pedro Gurreo.

Plus Jordan played a decent safety, so you've got that going for ya.

Josh Gibson.

Booya.

Bo Jackson or Vince Coleman.

I think I gotta go with Bo, if only for the completely unrelated note that he was nearly unstoppable in Tecmo Super Bowl. :)

Anthony "Tony" Gwynn

Without looking, I think Nolan Ryan is a safe bet.

Eddie Collins, definitely.

Wow, I never knew that Pedro's real first name was Tim... ;)



Let me check out there Jeremys...

Jeremy Affeldt - Who?

Jeremy Fikac - Who? #2...His only saving grace is that he was born in Shiner, Texas...home of Shiner Bock!

Jeremy Hill - Who? #3

Jeremy Guthrie - Not in the Bigs...

Jeremy Powell - He sucked major huevos...

Jeremy Griffiths - Positive, he's an Astro. Negative, he's not in The Bigs..and he's sucked the two times he has been called up.

Jeremy Giambi - Sorry, I'm not gonna name a 'roid freak as the best player with my name. Plus, he pretty much sucked.

Jeremy Reed - Put up some decent numbers in 18 games for Seattle last year, but his average is considerably worse this year.

Jeremy Hernandez - He was a decent middle reliever but didn't stick around long enough to win me over.

Jeromy Burnitz - The only Jeremy to be an All-Star would have been a shoo-in except that his parents didn't know how to spell his fucking name properly...

Jeremy Bonderman - Almost lost 20 games as a rookie but he has gotten considerably better every year since. Actually has a winning record this year at 13-7 with a 4.03 ERA. We have a winner!

Greg Maddux is about the only one I can think of, which isn't too bad.

:D

I go along with this one also,

pitching triple crown in 1888

W-L 35-12 ERA - 1.74 Strikeouts - 335

Mike Schmidt

Randall Simon or Simon Pond.

:(

James "Cool Papa" Bell
Jim Bunning
Jim Palmer
Jim Rice
Jim Thome

they're all pretty good, but i think some guy named Jimmie Foxx wins hands down

Logan Drake - 18.7 career innings pitched from 1922-1924.

Logan Easley - 2-1 in stints with Pittsburgh in 1987 and 1989.

Logan Kensing - Rookie with the Marlins. 9.88 ERA.

I plead the fifth.

Brett Butler

HOFer Josh Gibson. Gotta love it.

Some guy named Rod Carew.

Who?


;)

Oh.

I'm gonna have to go with Roy Weatherly, although my name isn't Roy.

Dennis Eckersley.

Shares my middle name too, so that gives him the nod over the other player who also shares my middle name, Denny Hocking.

Kyle Farnsworth, Kyle Lohse, or, a borderline one, Daryl Kile.

If that latter counts, I'll go with him, if not, I need some help picking!

~rpi-fan

I'm going last names, since I can claim the legendary Max Venable.

Kyle Abbott. Which is kinda funny because growing up, I lived on Abbot St.

There has never been a major league baseball player with either my first name or my last name.

And his son Will is playing minor league baseball after a career playing basketball at Princeton.

Todd Helton
Todd Worrell