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August 15, 2012

Punk Hits

The Fabulous Major-League Baseball Rock n’ Roll Revue

by Ian Miller

Everyone who has seen Brian Wilson pitch has had two different, concurrent reactions. The first is to recoil in horror at the black alien life-form consuming his face; the second is to make a Beach Boys joke.

What most people don’t do, however, is take the next step: wonder if they could field a baseball team composed entirely of rock-star namesakes. But I am not most people; I am a weird baseball-slash-music obsessive. I took the names of rock and roll legends and scoured Baseball Reference to find players by the same (or nearly the same) name. This was both more stupid and more fun than you might have imagined.

First, I realized I needed to come up with some criteria. Which “rock stars” would I pick? And what kind of players? I decided to try and put the best team on the field, both from a music and baseball perspective. For no good reason at all, I started out with Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Artists. Totally arbitrary, but a good enough jumping off point for my purposes, at least until someone develops WARP for musicians. From there I tried to find the best baseball players of the same name, using WARP when faced with a choice between two players. Using this sophisticated scientific model, I was able to cobble together a starting lineup and a pitching rotation that could totally make the Hall of Fame (the one in Cleveland, though, not the one in ​Cooperstown.)

Your Starting Lineup

1. Ray Charles, SS (Raymond “Chappy” Charles)

Chappy was born Charles Shuh Achenbach, and for reasons lost to history, changed his name to Raymond Charles. He was nicknamed “Chappy,” but to us he’s Ray “The Genius” Charles, the inventor of soul music and no. 10 on the Rolling Stone list.

Chappy/Ray was an infielder for the Cardinals and the Reds, and was sub-replacement in three seasons. Our team is off to a great start!

2. James Brown, 3B (Jimmy Brown)

Hitting second is James “Jimmy” Brown. The Godfather of Soul was born in 1933 in South Carolina, while Jimmy was born in 1910 in North Carolina. This is totally gonna be one of those Lincoln/Kennedy things! Brown played for the Cardinals from 1937 through 1943, when his career was interrupted by World War II. When he returned after his military service, Brown played one more year in the bigs, for the Pirates.

Over his 8-year career, James “Jimmy” Brown put up an 85 OPS+ and better than replacement. He even made the All-Star team in 1942. Improvement!

3. Prince, 1B (Prince Fielder)



Did you know that Prince (I mean “The Artist” or “The Symbol” or whatever, not Cecil’s son) was actually named Prince? It’s true! His given name is Prince Rogers Nelson. I always assumed it was some bullshit name he gave himself, like “Madonna” or “Engelbert Humperdinck.” But no, dude was actually named Prince. And, since no one named “Prince Nelson” has ever played professional baseball, I’ve taken the liberty of taking a “Prince.”

And I’m already regretting my self-imposed “pick the better player” rule, because Prince Fielder is just way too obvious. I would have much rather picked Prince Oana, a Hawaiian-born pitcher/left fielder for Detroit and Philadelphia. He’s way more intriguing, and is wearing an amazing “FT.W” hat in his B-R picture. But we desperately needed a power-hitting first baseman, and Fielder’s 20.9 WARP and career .307 TAv improves this team dramatically. So Cecil’s kid it is.

4. David Bowie, CF (Davy “Kangaroo” Jones)