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:
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.
