I have the best readers on the planet.
In this morning’s recaps I made a joke about how the 47 year-old Jamie Moyer pitching to the 20 year-old Starlin Castro linked Castro directly to 19th century legend Cap Anson. I was just being silly with that, of course.
But reader Luis took it as a challenge and did the actual linking of Castro and Anson:
- Starlin Castro played with Koyie Hill for the 2010 Chicago Cubs Exclude Koyie Hill
- Koyie Hill played with Rickey Henderson for the 2003 Los Angeles Dodgers Exclude Rickey Henderson
- Rickey Henderson played with Phil Niekro for the 1985 New York Yankees Exclude Phil Niekro
- Phil Niekro played with Warren Spahn for the 1964 Milwaukee Braves Exclude Warren Spahn
- Warren Spahn played with Tony Cuccinello for the 1942 Boston Braves Exclude Tony Cuccinello
- Tony Cuccinello played with Edd Roush for the 1931 Cincinnati Reds Exclude Edd Roush
- Edd Roush played with Nixey Callahan for the 1913 Chicago White Sox Exclude Nixey Callahan
- Nixey Callahan played with Cap Anson for the 1897 Chicago Colts
God, I love that kind of stuff. You can do it with anyone. I’m not quite sure who the Kevin Bacon figure is in the baseball version of this game, but I’ve always found Niekro and Hoyt Wilhelm to be insanely useful in this regard.
UPDATE: lar reminds us in the comments that Baseball-Reference.com has an app for that.
UPDATE II: Jay at Fack Youk covered this ground last year and found that (a) Warren Spahn is the real Rosetta Stone for this game; and (b) Kevin Bacon couldn’t carry Dennis Hopper’s jock when it comes to the degrees game. Definitely check it out.