Grid 170

Nods to Dennis Boyd and an ode to George "Boomer" Scott

ERIK: For a hot minute there I thought I was getting the hang of this. I concentrated on that Red Sox/Expos square and ping, Bill Lee popped into my brain. Red Sox/Brewers? Hey, here comes Big George Scott! A’s/Brewers? First Rollie Fingers, and then, wait, no, Sal Bando! Way better.

And now onto Astros/Red Sox…

Astros/Red Sox…

Astros/Red Sox…

Half an hour later I was like, “Oh right, Clemens.”

I’m obviously concentrating on players from my childhood (more fun, lower rarity), and Astros/BoSox in the 1960s-70s don’t really give you much there. A’s/Expos, on the other hand…

• Felipe Alou

• Mudcat Grant

• Stan Bahnsen (my first glove!)

• Ron Fairly

• Nate Colbert

Skipped over the Alous. Instead, I took a stab at Bill North. I think I was conflating Oakland A’s and “Great White North.”

Tim, our discussion the other day on 30/30 guys totally helped out here—though I guess I lucked out with Dawson since he went 30/30 with the Cubs, not Expos.

I do like the set-up of this grid: the 30 SB column + two original 16 teams, then three rows of 1960s expansion teams: Montreal Expos, Seattle Pilots, Houston Colt .45s. No original team names there anymore. I guess not for the columns, either: originally they were Boston Americans and Philadelphia Athletics.

That’s an interesting thought: How many of the 30 MLB franchises have had just one name—their location and nickname unchanged? I assume not many. The Atlanta Braves have been in Milwaukee and Boston, and been called Bees, Nationals and Reds. Baltimore Orioles were not just the St. Louis Browns but the Milwaukee Brewers in 1901. Cubs were Colts, Orphans, White Stockings; Guardians were Indians, Naps, Blues (cue ominous note); and the Angels, poor bastards, have hailed from California, Anaheim, and (worst of all) LA of Anaheim. Obviously a committee chose that last one.

I think the totally unchanged names are just these 11 teams:

Original 16ers:

• Chicago White Sox

• Detroit Tigers

• Philadelphia Phillies

• Pittsburgh Pirates

1960s expansions (out of 8):

• New York Mets

• Kansas City Royals

• San Diego Padres

1970s (out of 2):

• Seattle Mariners

• Toronto Blue Jays

1990s (out of 4)

• Arizona Diamondbacks

• Colorado Rockies

It’s one list the M’s made, Tim.

Final thought on George “Boomer” Scott, who led the league in homers and RBIs in 1975. Around that time we were at Met Stadium with a school group—like Fire Safety or School Patrol or something—because we were uncharacteristically sitting in the bleachers rather than along the left-field foul line. The wind was blowing in, cold and strong, and Boomer hit it into the wind and far far over the center field wall. My father thought it was one of the longest, strongest homeruns he’d ever seen. I think it might’ve been this game, April 27, 1974, a Saturday. The year and time of year feel about right, and BR does says the homer went to “deep” CF. But then you look at Scott’s home run log and realize they say that about more than half his home runs. And now you know why they called him “Boomer.”

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TIM: My big challenge with today’s Grid was to find someone besides Pedro Martínez for BoSox/Expos-Nats. All others came pretty easily, more or less, though I wanted someone less recent for both A’s/Expos-Nats and A’s/Astros.

In order of completion:

1. Expos SBs brought to mind Tim Raines, then a lot of other possibilities. DeShields Sr., Dawson (only because I knew he’d done a 30/30, otherwise I wouldn’t think of him as a baserunner since he became famous for bad knees), Otis Nixon, and some maybes: Rondell White? (no) Mitch Webster? (yes) Grudzielanek? (yes) Moises Alou? (no) Marquis Grissom? Duh, of course Marquis Grissom, no question. Done.

2. Astros SBs. Everyone knows Altuve, most know Biggio. Cruz came up without much effort, then after I put him in I thought of a bunch more. Willy Taveras, Brian L. Hunter, Cesar Cedeño, Billy Hatcher, Steve Finley(?). Joe freaking Morgan. Any of them better than 2%? Oh well.

3. Astros/Red Sox. There was a famous/infamous trade between those two, who has it? Oh, right, Bagwell. The reason anyone still knows about Larry Andersen. Ah, but there’s a wrinkle: There’s also a Larry Anderson, with an o. Fortunately the Grid lets you know when these guys played when their names come up.

4. Brewers/Red Sox immediately conjured Jackie Bradley Jr., but I wasn’t going to use him. But no other names were popping up. I was just running through Brewers in my head, hoping for one to click; took a bit to recall Cam spent a couple seasons there. I looked at the list afterward, figuring I’d do the old head-slap for forgetting a few guys, but there aren’t any real obvious ones. Hideo Nomo, maybe. Eric Gagne, maybe. Then there’s Tom Brunansky. I didn’t know he’d ever played for the Red Sox or the Brewers, but I recall when he was traded from your Twins to my Cardinals shortly after their ’87 World Series matchup that I (a) hated the deal (Tommy Herr went the other way), and (b) thought this guy does not fit the Cardinal mold, he looks more like he belongs on the Brewers.

5. Brewers/A’s was tough, but only because I didn’t want to use Rollie Fingers (sure enough, he’s the top answer). Why I hit on Lucroy rather than any number of others that should have been more front of mind is a mystery; why not Jesús Aguilar? Or Jason Kendall? Or freshly-signed Brewer Josh Donaldson, who is a jerk and nobody likes him? The one on the list I really go “D’OH!” over, though, is Bill Krueger. He’s in our face all the time on Mariners broadcasts. I had his cards. Oakland’s not one of the first teams I associate him with, but sure, he was there. Alas.

6. Brewers SBs. Initially I only had Paul Molitor. Then I remembered a previous Milwaukee section of a Grid for which I’d forgotten Norichika Aoki and thought, he must have swiped more than 30, and whaddayaknow. Except it wasn’t more than 30, it was exactly 30, and he never did it again (and to my surprise, only twice in NPB).

7. Down to the ones I only had what I thought were too-obvious answers, but also feeling like I’d spent too much time on this already. I mean, I do have a client gig waiting on my attention and I haven’t eaten yet. So OK, go with current player Tony Kemp on Astros/A’s.

8. Move up and similarly go with Kurt Suzuki on Nats/A’s.

9. That leaves not-Pedro. I had nothing for Nats/Red Sox, so it would have to be Expos/Red Sox. Eventually I hit on Tomokazu Ohka and Boyd. Once I thought of Boyd I had to use him because of something that happened on an umpire shift maybe a month ago: One of the team captains that night was this guy named Boyd, and he had a jersey with a nickname on the upper back: Oil Can. I laughed heartily and asked him if anyone else got the reference, but he said so far I was the only one “old enough” for it. Thanks?

To be fair on your list of teams never to change their name, those 19th/early-20th century clubs didn’t always have official names, just whatever the sportswriters called them besides the city name. Like, the Pirates I think were referred to for a bit as the Alleghenys. But essentially, yeah, that’s the list, though as I understand it there’s some question whether the Red Sox were ever really the Boston Americans or if they were simply referred to in the papers as such as a shorthand for “the Boston team of the American League” as opposed to the other Boston team of the day.