And George Brett did the same thing at (roughly) the same time in KC.
Other baseball players:
Brooks Robinson, Jim Palmer, and Cal Ripken (Baltimore Orioles)
Carl Yastrzemski and Jim Rice (Boston Red Sox)
Don Mattingly (New York Yankees)
Tony Gwynn (San Diego Padres)
In football:
Ray Lewis and Jonathan Ogden (Baltimore Ravens)
Barry Sanders (Detroit Lions)
Phil Simms, Lawrence Taylor, and Tiki Barber (Giants)
Anthony Munoz (Cincy)
Aikman’s teammates Michael Irvin and Darryl Johnston (Cowboys)
Ronde Barber and Derrick Brooks (Tampa)
Dan Fouts (Chargers)
Aaron Smith (Steelers)
Baseball:
Don Drysdale (Dodgers). Fourteen years, and he only had one manager in all that time, making him the person who played his entire career the longest with just one single team under a single manager (no, no Philadelphia Athletic stayed with the team 14 years).
Ed Kranepool (Mets)
Lou Gehrig (Yankees)
Basketball
Willis Reed (Knicks)
Bill Russell (Celtics)
Larry Bird (Celtics)
BTW, the question as asked would include thousands of “cup of coffee” type players like Steve Baker (four years with the NY Rangers) or Sean Fitzmaurice (a handful of games for the NY Mets)
This isn’t unusual in the NFL where careers even for very good players can be short. I’ll mention Otto Graham (10 years) and Jim Brown (9 years) for the Browns, but one of the longest single team players must be Lou “The Toe” Groza. He played from 1946 to 1959 as a tackle and place kicker for the Browns in the AAFC and the NFL. After retiring for one season he came back as a kicking specialist and played from 1961-67. That’s 21 seasons over 22 years for a single team.
I was gonna say, you need some sort of limit on this (like “all pro” or “hall of fame”), otherwise you’d get the vast majority of people who ever played a professional game. At least in the NFL, where careers are short and trades are limited.
Ernie Banks (Cubs)
Charlie Gehringer (Tigers)
Kirby Puckett (Twins)
Edgar Martinez (Mariners)
Bob Gibson (Cardinals)
Robin Yount (Brewers)
Pie Traynor (Pirates)
Jeff Bagwell (Astros)
Craig Biggio (Astros)
Bill Terry (Giants)
Mel Ott (Giants)
Carl Hubbell (Giants)
Pee Wee Reese (Dodgers)
Roy Campanella (Dodgers)
Bill Dickey (Yankees)
Whitey Ford (Yankees)
Bobby Doerr (Red Sox)
Bob Feller (Indians)
Just as a gentle reminder that there are some professional sportspeople outside the US; the leading candidates for current AFL clubs are below:
Some of the English football professionals have substantially longer “one club careers”. I’ll leave that post to one of the locals.
Andrew McLeod (Adelaide) 1995–2010 340 games
Simon Black (Brisbane) 1998– 307 games
Bruce Doull (Carlton) 1969–86 356 games
Tony Shaw (Collingwood) 1978–94 313 games
Simon Madden (Essendon) 1974–92 378 games
Matthew Pavlich (Fremantle) 2000– 271 games
Ian Nankervis (Geelong) 1967–83 325 games
Michael Tuck (Hawthorn) 1972–91 426 games
David Neitz (Melbourne) 1993–2008 306 games
Brent Harvey (North Melbourne) 1996– 338 games
Warren Tredrea (Port Adelaide) 1997–2010 255 games
Kevin Bartlett (Richmond) 1965–83 403 games
Robert Harvey (St Kilda) 1988–2008 383 games
Adam Goodes (Sydney) 1999– 309 games
Glen Jakovich (West Coast) 1991–2004 276 games
Brad Johnson (Western Bulldogs)1994–2010 364 games
There’s a lot of one club players in soccer, but here’s a few notable ones:
Paolo Maldini, AC Milan 1985-2009 (joined the the club’s youth team in 1978) 902 games.
During his time there played every single position at some point.
Ryan Giggs, Manchester United 1990-present (joined the youth team in 1985) 926 games.
If he can get a goal this year, will have scored in every single league season for the last 23 years.
Matt Le Tissier, Southampton 1986-2002 (joined youth team in 1985) 540 games.
Despite being arguably the most talented player in the early Premiership days did not transfer to a bigger club. Southampton were relegated soon after he retired.
Schmidt hit 548 home runs with the Phillies. To my admitted surprise, that is the most homers ever hit by a player who only ever played for one team. (It isn’t the most hit for one franchise - that’s still Hank Aaron - but it’s the most ever hit for one franchise by a guy who never hit one for anyone else.)
[QUOTE=NitroPress]
A lot of baseball players stayed with one team before free agency, the more so the further back you go.
[/QUOTE]
This is a common statement but it’s really not all that true. It has always been unusual for players to stay with one team their whole careers. Cy Young didn’t play for just one team, Babe Ruth didn’t, and nor did Tris Speaker or Ty Cobb or Eddie Collins or… well, you get the idea. You had your Stan Musials, sure, but then today you’ve got Craig Biggios.
In all of baseball history, there are fewer than seventy players who have played 15 seasons in the major leagues and only played for one team. A surprising number of them are players of relatively recent vintage; Biggio, but also Chipper Jones, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and others. There have been a LOT of one-team players in the free agent era - Schmidt mentined above, Alan Trammell, Ozzie Smith, Jeff Bagwell, Edgar Martinez, Tony Gwynn, Robin Yount, Cal Ripken, George Brett, Willie Stargell.