By Josh:
Recently Kelly raised the question ‘if every team were to have a Mt Rushmore, who would make it for each franchise?’ He began raising the question on the 9 Inning Know It All Facebook page, starting in alphabetical order with the Arizona Diamondbacks, to see who the 9 Inning Know It All Empire would select.
Even though we are only nine teams into the voting (go to the Facebook page each day for the newest vote) I have seen some interesting things. A lot of the younger voters seem to pick players who only played from the 80’s to more recent times. Their ballots seemed to be missing key historical players that impacted not only their team, but also the league. This doesn’t make their votes wrong, just surprising that a game so based on history and tradition, has seemed to have lost some of that.
So here are my thoughts on who was voted, and not voted. Also, keep watch because once all of the voting is done Kelly is going to do a full AL and NL recap as well.
Arizona Diamondbacks
Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson, Luis Gonzalez, & Matt Williams
The Dbacks were an interesting start to the Mt. Rushmore series because this organization hasn’t been around that long, and yet it has some pretty big names and big moments in its young history. I really can’t argue with the four that were selected, although I didn’t choose Williams as one of my four. Each of these guys were key to the success of the franchise.
Atlanta Braves
Hank Aaron, Greg Maddux, Chipper Jones & Warren Spahn
Where the Diamondbacks lack in history, the Braves have plenty of it. Everything from the man that broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record, to multiple Hall of Fame pitchers, and even a few players that are just Braves 100%.
For me Hank Aaron and Warren Spahn are really the easiest of selections. Two of the greats of all time easily make the list of four but here is where it can get a bit harder to select.
Chipper Jones is the definition of a loyal player who even to this day is an icon of the franchise. Chipper never played a single inning for any team than the Braves and had a Hall of Fame career in my opinion. This is why I agree with this selection.
Where Chipper was chosen because of his great career that was always with the Braves, I choose not to vote for Maddux here because of the same reason. Maddux is one of the greats but he played a lot of other places. This is also why I didn’t vote for Smoltz or Glavine. Instead I picked another person who is an icon for the Braves organization, Bobby Cox.
Baltimore Orioles
Brooks Robinson, Cal Ripken Jr., Jim Palmer & Eddie Murray
To no one’s surprise Cal Ripken Jr was voted on by almost every single person that left a comment. If anyone in the history of the Orioles is seen as more of a dedicated, bleeding Orioles orange player than Ripken I would like to see that.
Beyond that there are some interesting discussions as to who would make the Mt Rushmore. Jim Palmer and Brooks Robinson seemed to be pretty well recognized but others like Frank Robinson, Eddie Murray, Boog Powell and Earl Weaver. I realized that some of the challenge of voting for guys is that they played, and played well, for other teams. Eddie Murray had a great career, and did some amazing things as an Oriole, but I remember watching him play for the Dodgers and Indians more.
When all is said and done the four that were voted in were the four I thought should get it. I can’t complain, but I could definitely understand why others were voted upon.