One of the pieces of trivia from today’s Mets game was that it was the first time since 1971 (and only the third time in their history), that they fielded a team consisting of nine players all of whom were originally signed with the Mets and played for no other team:
Kirk Nieuwenhuis CF
Ruben Tejada SS
Daniel Murphy 2B
David Wright 3B
Lucas Duda RF
Ike Davis 1B
Josh Thole C
Jordany Valdespin LF
Jon Niese P
I know that the Mets, who built their lineups with ill-advised trades and free agents, probably are very unlikely to have an all-homegrown team (in 2006, their lineup had only two homegrown players). Have any other teams been able to do this?
Interesting question. I thought right away of the Pirates of the early seventies, and after a couple of minutes on Retrosheet found this lineup, used on April 21, 1971:
Dave Cash, 2b
Richie Hebner, 3b
Roberto Clemente, rf
Willie Stargell, lf
Al Oliver, cf
Bob Robertson, 1b
Manny Sanguillen, c
Gene Alley, ss
Dock Ellis, p
Pretty impressive lineup, too.
I suspect it’s been done by a bunch of teams in addition to the '71 Bucs.
I’m sure it became much more rare after the end of the reserve clause, and free agency mixed players all over the place with increasing frequency for a while.
Clemente never played for any other MLB team, but he was originally signed by the Dodger organization and spent time with the Montreal Royals before being taken by the Pirates in the rookie draft of 1954.
I’ll bet bad teams do this in September fairly frequently.
Aside: Back to the Mets, of note is that David Wright makes $15 million a year, and the other 8 guys from last night a little more than $4 million – combined.
Celtic’s Lisbon Lions of 1967 won the European Cup with all players coming from within 30 miles of Glasgow. I’m not sure if the OP is looking for just baseball examples, but Celtic did something very impressive. I’m sure many other clubs have had high numbers of home grown players (100%, quite possibly), but how many won the biggest prize?
In 2005 the Glebe (field) Hockey Club won the Sydney 1st grade premiership. Of the squad of 13, 11 first played for Glebe as under 8yos, the other two started playing when 10. All had played at least 10 seasons with the Club by 2005, none had played for any other club.
I can’t even imagine an American professional sports team fielding a team made up of players who were actually natives of the area where the team is based. I doubt that it’s happened since the 19th century.
I remember in the mid 1970s people talking how everyone on the Dallas Cowboys was drafted by the team except for Preston Pearson. I think the Pittsburgh Steelers of that era were pretty similar. No free agency back then, the draft was longer (17 rounds) and those two teams were ahead of most other teams in learning how to find players at small schools or giving them new positions in the pros).