Growing up, my family watched a lot of sports from football to golf and in those days, tennis and boxing were a huge part of it. My grandmother always got excited over basketball. Football after Sunday church and eating Granny’s homemade cooking made heaven just a little closer to home.
A lot of names come flooding back to me for just thinking of those times. Tom Watson in Golf, McEnroe, Connors, Borg and Navratilova, Evert, in tennis. Staubach and Danny While, among many others in football. In Basketball, it was all about Bird and Magic, but we remember Brian Winters and Alex English from South Carolina Gamecock basketball. I left baseball off for this reason.
A few days ago I saw on Twitter a simple question. “When you look at the logo of a Major League baseball team, what player do you see?” I tried to answer the question for each team with the name that first came to mind.
Arizona Diamondbacks – Luis Gonzalez
Atlanta Braves – Dale Murphy
Baltimore Orioles – Cal Ripken Jr.
Boston Red Sox – Jim Rice
Chicago Cubs – Ryan Sandberg
Chicago White Sox – Frank Thomas
Cincinnati Reds – Pete Rose
Cleveland Indians – Jim Thome
Colorado Rockies – Larry Walker
Detroit Tigers – Justin Verlander
Houston Astros – Craig Biggio
Kansas City Royals – George Brett
Los Angeles Angels – Tim Salmon
Los Angeles Dodgers – Orel Hershiser
Miami Marlins – Dontrelle Willis
Milwaukee Brewers – Paul Molitor
Minnesota Twins – Chuck Knoblauch
New York Mets – Tom Seaver
New York Yankees – Thurman Munson
Oakland Athletics – Dennis Eckersley
Philadelphia Phillies – Mike Schmidt
Pittsburgh Pirates – Dave Parker
San Diego Padres – Tony Gwynn
San Francisco – Barry Bonds
Seattle Mariners – Ken Griffey Jr.
St. Louis Cardinals – Ozzie Smith
Tampa Bay Rays – Evan Longoria
Texas Ranger – Ivan Rodriguez
Toronto Blue Jays – Joe Carter
Washington Nationals/Montreal Expos – Gary Carter
A lot of these names came to me without any trouble, a flash of a play, or just an image of a player. A few teams I really had to think about but the teams that gave me the most trouble were those great franchises that a number of names could have been chosen, like the Yankees and Dodgers. Some names like Thurman Munson probably would not show up on a lot of people’s list but it was one of two names I really remember growing up and that stuck with me.
My own team, Seattle Mariners, I had a bit of trouble. It seemed that every name from the 1995 season popped in my head, including Doug Strange (a native of Greenville, SC), but in the end, it really was no contest.
What is your list?
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