Franchise Four

[Silent Wind of Doom]

Phillies: Grover Cleveland Alexander, Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, Cole Hamels

Not sure how Cole Hamels even gets mentioned in teh same breath as those other guys. I mean he's good, but an all-timer?

It'd be:

Chuck Klein

Richie Ashburn

Schmidt

Carlton

There's probably at least half a dozen players that would go on the list before Hamels would even come in to the discussion. Not that I don't think he's really good, but he's not part of this discussion.

I was trying to think of who to pick from their second championship to join the other three, and Hamels's run was the stuff of legend and he was the MVP of that series.

They've been doing their own rankings on Baseball Tonight, although it's been Eric Wedge and Eduardo Perez alternating back and forth choosing players, so the four they end up with are not necessarily either of their four picks, but something in the middle with Adnan Verk and an analyst behind the scenes pointing out huge misses. Here were their picks from Friday:

Red Sox: Carl Yazstremski (I tried, okay?), Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Carlton Fisk

Marlins: Jeff Conine, Josh Beckett, Hanley Ramirez, Juan Pierre

Dodgers: Roy Campanella, Steve Garvey, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale

Rangers: Ivan Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez, Nolan Ryan, Buddy Bell

Their analyst pointed out a missing Red Sox player that I'd missed too. I can't believe I friggin' forgot Cy Young.

On a side note, Jim Kurkjian and Buster Posey gave their Yankees picks during tonight's game, and got into a Point-Counterpoint-ish argument ("With all due respect, you're an idiot.") when Posey included Rivera instead of Mantle as his fourth. Admittedly, Mariano's importance in the postseason and his performance at his position would get him on most others' lists and three times on the young teams' lists, I can't put him any higher than fifth if I stretch.

Anyway, while I'm starting to find more and more that my knowledge of other teams is much more limited than I realized, lemme try my hand at the Wests...

Athletics: Eddie Plank, Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers, Rickey Henderson

Angels: Jim Fregosi, Rod Carew, Vladimir Guerrero, Mike Trout

Mariners: Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson, Ichiro Suzuki

Astros: Nolan Ryan, Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Roy Oswalt

Rangers: Ivan Rodriguez, Nolan Ryan, Michael Young, Josh Hamilton

Dodgers: Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale

Giants: Willie Mays, John McGraw, Mel Ott, Willy McCovey

Padres: Tony Gwynn, Dave Winfield, Trevor Hoffman, Steve Garvey

Rockies: Vinny Castilla, Larry Walker, Todd Helton, Troy Tulowitski

Diamondbacks: Luis Gonzalez, Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling, Paul Goldscmidt