My Pepsi Legends Pick: First Base
Pepsi Max is doing a very cool promotion at the moment. If you visit this website, you can vote to create your all-time perfect line-up and receive the chance to play against those legends in your hometown . There are some pretty remarkable names on the list, and no decision is easy. Rather than picking the whole team right now, I’m just going to focus on first base (I will continue with second base later this week).
We caught up with some of the legends at the 2011 MLB All-Star Game. Listent to them very carefully before you make your picks:
The people at Pepsi Max have made this a pretty difficult call, considering the three guys they give you to choose from are considered some of the best players of their generation. Steve Garvey, Eddie Murray, and Frank Thomas are true legends of the game, and any one of them would be a helluva start to any team.
Garvey was a tremendous hitter and had five seasons with more than 200 hits. He finished with almost 2,600 in his career, and was the 1974 NL MVP. Garvey was also the NL’s version of Cal Ripken, setting the record for most consecutive games played at 1,207. He was a two-time NLCS MVP and won the World Series with the Dodgers in 1981. He was also a four-time Gold Glove winner.
Thomas, as I outlined in this blog ranking the top DH’s of all-time, was one of the most feared hitters of the 1990’s. He will soon enter the Hall of Fame as one of the game’s most prolific power hitters, finishing his career with over 500 home runs. The Big Hurt was also a two-time AL MVP while in Chicago, and just found out that he’s getting immortalized outside of U.S. Cellular Field with his very own statue.
Both of the guys mentioned above are phenomenal ballplayers, but was there really ever any doubt who I was going to pick? The Orioles’ own Eddie Murray is not just one of the greatest first basemen ever; he’s one of the game’s greatest players, period. He is one of just a handful of guys to finish his career with 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. He is ninth all time on the career RBI list with 1,917, won three Gold Gloves, and for a five-year period early in his career, he never finished outside of the top-5 in MVP voting. And did I mention he did all of this as a switch hitter?
It’s pretty fun to compare these guys, but when it comes down to it, I’ll take the Hall of Famer. Because, in addition to all of his remarkable stats, there is something very intimidating about standing on the mound at the key moment in a game, and hearing 45,000 people bellow “ED-DIE!! ED-DIE!! ED-DIE!!” Good luck pitching with that going on.
Who would you pick? Tweet me @rwags614.