Try this baseball-reference.com game!

Apologies if it’s been done before.

I like to wander over to Baseball Reference and just look at the lifetime stats of various baseball players. So sue me, I’m bored AND a fan. A lethal combination.

Here’s the game I came up with to amuse myself.

Go to the page of any player from your home team. (Or, more accurately, any team with whose history you’re intimately familiar.)

Then scroll down to the Similar Batters/Pitchers and Most Similar By Age lists are.

Find any player in those lists that once played for the same team (but not necessarily at the same time) as the player whose page your on. Click on that player’s name, then scroll down and repeat as often as possible.

The idea is to see how long of a “chain” you can create, with the common thread between players being a particular franchise.

For example, my team’s the Philadelphia Phillies. On a whim, I went to the page of Sixto Lezcano (1983-1984). Under “Most Similar by Age,” I find Jose Cardenal (1978-1979 Phillies).

Under “Similar Batters” for Cardenal, I found Garry Maddox (1976-1986).

From Maddox, I went to Gary Matthews (1982-1983), where I hit a dead end. So my chain consisted of Lezcano>Cardenal>Maddox>Mathews (4 players).

(It works better for relievers, who change teams much more frequently than position players, it seems.)

Caveat: You can only use links in those listings, not the transactions area (because obviously players listed there played on the same team as your guy.)

So who wants to give it a shot? I had a chain of 11 once for the Phillies.

This is fun!

As a Cleveland fan the best I can do at the moment is 10. My thread is: Albert Belle > Manny Ramirez > Ralph Kiner > Jim Thome > Dave Justice > Vic Wertz > Joe Adcock > Boog Powell > Rocky Colavito > Matt Williams.

Whee! I found 21.

Mesa>Bedrosian>McDowell>Jackson>Hernandez>Plesac>Knowles>McElroy>Cook>Carman>Cormier>Schatzeder>Daal>Leiter>Bottenfield>Noles>Owens>Schueler>Twitchell>Stack>Finneran

6 is the best I can do so far for the Angels.

Colon > Hill > Witt > Gubicza > Belcher > McCaskill.

God, I suck.

Hohhhhhhhhh-ly Cow! I got 38.

For the Yankees, I tried Kevin Brown:

Kevin Brown > David Cone > Mike Mussina > Jimmy Key > David Wells > Dennis Rasmussen > Steve Trout > Andy Hawkins > Jim Deshaies > Melido Perez > Dave LaPoint > Ken Brett > Tom Underwood > Jim Abbott > Jim Kaat > Tommy John > Phil Neikro > Jack Quinn > Waite Hoyt > Herb Pennock > Clark Griffith > Al Orth > Burleigh Grimes > Red Ruffing > Sam Jones > Doyle Alexander > Rick Reuschel > Stan Bahnsen > Scott Sanderson > Jim Bouton > Doc Medich > Doug Drabek > Bill Gullickson > Ralph Terry > Bill Monbouquette > Mike Witt > Ed Whitson > Pat Dobson

That was fun (until I got to the page with Ed Whitson’s name. That brought back some ugly memories). :smiley:

Yeah, did you find yourself adding bits of trivia when you come across a player’s page? Like for Whitson, he was the guy who was so bad at Yankee Stadium while pitching for the Yanks that New York rearranged its rotation so he didn’t have to pitch at home.

Now, with the Yankees it’ll be easiest to find links because they’ve employed so many players …