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The Yankees Name Game (Stream of Conscious Connections)

By Paul Semendinger

November 14, 2021

***

William Faulkner wrote some of his more famous works, or at least parts of them (as I recall) in a sort of stream of consciousness fashion.

As I run on my treadmill, I usually listen to music. I find as I create playlists in my head that one song, for whatever reason tends to remind me of another song. For example, these are three songs that I find very similar, one reminds me of the next:

Need You Tonight – INXS

Don’t You Forget About Me – Simple Minds

St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion) – John Parr

Sometimes the connections make sense (the last two songs come from mid-1980s movies), but why the first two have always blended together in my mind is a connection that I made, somehow long ago that I can’t quite explain. All three songs are great, and somehow, to me, they are all always connected. One make me think of the others.

Along those same lines, I thought it would be fun to just start connecting Yankees (and other baseball players) together to form a stream of conscious post that (I hope) encourages others to do the same in the comments (or if they’d like to send them to me to post as separate guest articles).

It’s the off-season, one can only write so much about the players we hope the Yankees acquire, past teams, players, stadiums, uniform numbers, and such.

I hope you enjoy!

***

I began by continually refreshing the Baseball-Reference page until I found something Yankees specific. What came (eventually) was the 1991 Yankees team page. From that page, I closed my eyes and clicked on a random player. It was Jeff Johnson. That seemed a good place to start. I typed Johnson’s name and then next typed the first baseball name that popped into my head. Joe DiMaggio made me take a few detours, but I soon got back on task. The key was not thinking too much and just seeing where each name led me.

Here we go…

Jeff Johnson

R,J, Reynolds

Barry Bonds

Bobby Bonds

Bobby Murcer

Mickey Mantle

Whitey Ford

Billy Martin

Tony Kubek

Joe Garagiola

Yogi Berra

Bill Dickey

Thurman Munson

Johnny Bench

Pete Rose

Ty Cobb

Babe Ruth

Lou Gehrig

Joe DiMaggio

Marilyn Monroe (wait, that doesn’t count)

Joe DiMaggio

Paul Simon (ok, enough silliness)

Art Garfunkel (Ok, I’ll stop)

Phil Rizzuto

Pee Wee Reese

Jackie Robinson

Roy Campanella

Cool Papa Bell

Josh Gibson

Sadaharu Oh

Hideki Matsui

Ichiro Suzuki

George Sisler

Tris Speaker

Bill Terry

Carl Hubbell

Candy Cummings

Bruce Sutter

Rich Gossage

Sparky Lyle

Dave Righetti

Wade Boggs

Rod Carew

George Brett

Graig Nettles

Brooks Robinson

Frank Robinson

Willie Mays

Hank Aaron

Josh Gibson

Roy Hobbs

Joe Charboneau

Mark Fidrych

David Clyde

Lenny Randle

Jerry Royster

Tim Foli

Chris Speier

Bud Harrelson

Tug McGraw

Mike Schmidt

Greg Luzinski

Carlton Fisk

Tom Seaver

Jerry Koosman

Jon Matlack

Doug Flynn

Steve Henderson

Dave Henderson

Donnie Moore

Reggie Jackson

Dave Winfield

Paul Molitor

Robin Yount

Gorman Thomas

Ben Oglivie

Cecil Cooper

Reggie Smith

David Ortiz

Manny Ramirez

Pedro Martinez

Johnny Damon

Mark Teixeira

C.C. Sabathia

A.J. Burnett

Kevin Brown

Chad Green

Shawn Greene

Joe Black

Joe Page

Johnny Murphy

Wilcy Moore

Waite Hoyt

Bob Feller

Dizzy Dean

Lou Boudreau

Ted Williams

Bobby Doerr

Vern Stevens

Rick Burleson

Butch Hobson

Jim Nettles

Chris Chambliss

Dick Tidrow

Fritz Peterson

Jim Bouton

This could go on forever so I’ll stop there. I am sure that some of the connections I made above make perfect sense, others not so much. I’m not even sure if I can explain them all.

It was a fun activity.

If you have nothing else to do (or if you’re in a long boring meeting at work) this might help pass the time. Just don’t let your boss see because he might ask what Al Oliver, Oscar Gamble, Tony Oliva, and Rod Carew have in common and why you wrote their names on your Power Point slides or on a client’s contract.

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(Please note that we are not affiliated with the Yankees and that the news, perspectives, and ideas are entirely our own.)

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