Quarantine is a great time to get lost on Baseball-Reference.
Baseball fans can, nay should educate or remind themselves of the amazing careers of Barry Bonds or Mike Trout.
Baseball-Reference also has complete box scores and play-by-play recaps of every game and fans can try their hand at scoring games from when Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle played.
Another fun thing to do is to make family trees. An easy way to do it is to find a player who has had a long career and look at their first and last season.
For example, Julio Franco played from 1982-2007.
I just can’t believe these two cards are of the same player. Julio Franco: 1983-2007. pic.twitter.com/JyOrXErg3Z
— Tim LaDuca (@tlad44online) October 13, 2019
He played with two great first baseman: Pete Rose in 1982 on Philadelphia and Mark Teixeira in 2007 on Atlanta.
Using Brett Gardner as a beginning, a Yankee family tree can be traced all the way back to the days as the New York Highlanders using only nine players.
It works like this…
Brett Gardner is the longest-tenured Yankee and he began his playing career with 2008 and shared a locker room with Derek Jeter.
Jeter played from 1995 to 2014 as a Yankee and was teammates with Don Mattingly in 1995.
Mattingly had a shorter career, from 1982-1995, but in his first two seasons, the mustached-Mattingly played with Bobby Murcer.
Murcer’s career spanned from 1965-1983 and his first two seasons lined up with Whitey Ford’s final two.
Ford pitched from 1950-1967 and got to spend some quality time with Joe DiMaggio for two years from 1950-1951.
Those were the final two years of Joltin’ Joe’s amazin’ baseball playin’ years. The beginnin’ of Joltin’ Joe’s amazin’ baseball playin’ years lined up with Lou Gerhig’s baseball days from 1936-1939.
Lou Gehrig played from 1923-1939 and he got his start by usurping Wally Pipp at first base. Herhig arrived in 1923 and Pipp was off to Cincinnati by 1925.
Pipp’s playing days in pinstripes lasted form 1915-1925, which overlaps with the final player on this family tree, Roy Hartzell.
Hartzell played for the Yankees from 1911 to 1916, but for the first two year of his New York career, he was a Highlander.
From Brett Gardner to Roy Hartzell…who knew?
Featured Image: Baseball Reference
