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