How about a little more fun with Jamie Moyer.
Jamie Moyer was teammates with Davey Lopes … and Ron Cey … and Dick Ruthven … and Jim Sundberg … and Manny Trillo.
Jamie Moyer is older than Greg Maddux … Jose Canseco … David Justice … Will Clark … Benito Santiago (!) … Dwight Gooden … Greg Swindell … and and the late Jose Lima.
Jamie Moyer has faced 11 different players named Wilson: Mookie, Willie, Glenn, Enrique, Dan, Jack, Tom, Craig, another Craig, Vance and, of course, Wilson Valdez.
Jamie Moyer has faced 11 different players named Anderson: Garrett, Brady, Curtis, Dave, Brian, Marlon, Josh, another Brian, Rick and Anderson Hernandez.
Jamie Moyer has faced 13 different players named Gonzalez: Juan, Alex, another Alex, Adrian, Luis, Wiki, Carlos, Alberto, Marwin, Andy, Denny, Edgar and Jose.
Jame Moyer faced Tony and Eduardo Perez.
Jamie Moyer faced Ken Griffey Jr. and Sr.
Jamie Moyer has face ten different active managers — Mattingly, Bochy, Gibson, Girardi, Guillen, Matheny, Melvin, Roenicke, Scioscia and Ventura — and while he did not face Ron Washington, he did face U.L.
Jamie Moyer has pitched in 42 Major League parks.
Jamie Moyer has given up home runs to 326 different players, from Juan Samuel (his first!) to J.D. Martinez (who was not born when he gave up that first homer to Juan Samuel.
Jamie Moyer has faced every single player the New York Mets started in Game 1 of the 1986 World Series; though to be fair he has only faced five of the eight every day players who started for the Red Sox that day.
Here’s the big one. The awesome one. You ready for this? Not counting pitchers … Jamie Moyer has faced or been teammates with every single MVP in either league since 1980. Every … single … one … in … either … league.
Jamie Moyer has faced Michael Young, Dmitri Young, Chris Young, another Chris Young, Eric Young, Kevin Young, Ernie Young and, yes, Joel Youngblood.
And you wonder how he does it.
Jim Caple mentioned that he pitched in 49 parks. Which one is correct?
Baseball reference has splits in 49 parks. If he starts in Miami this year that’ll make it an even 50.
Perhaps if he sticks around long enough, he could also face Ken Griffey Jr. Jr.
Is Moyer older than Poz?
Yes. Joe is 45 (per Wikipedia).
Also from Jim Caple, according to Elias Moyer has pitched to 8% of batters in major league history: http://bit.ly/HTffRQ
That seems too impossible to be true doesn’t it?
It’s actually closer to 9%. 1,425 players have had at least one plate appearance versus Moyer:
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/3932/batvspit;_ylt=At9_ZAnlcvSgggrMZRwnzfuFCLcF?year=career&type=Pitching
There have been 15,894 players with at least one plate appearance in major leagues history, according to FanGraphs:
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2011&month=0&season1=1871&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&players=0&sort=3%2cd
So this is where you’re hiding… I somehow missed the goodbye column at SI.
Mr. Moyer is always a pleasure to watch pitch. What a gentleman.
One tidbit has to be slightly corrected. He has faced every position player MVP since 1980. He never faced or was teammates with Justin Verlander.
Are we sure he never pitched to him in an inter-league game?
Faced U.L. Washington? Unbelievable. Did he knock the toothpick put of his mouth? Speaking of toothpicks, did he ever face Dusty Baker?
Unfortunately, although Dusty’s playing career overlapped with Moyer’s for a few months in 1986, Dusty was playing in Oakland and Moyer was with the Cubs at the time.
So, hypothetically…
He just won his 268th game. If he has a minor resurgence and pitches another 2 or 3 seasons, he could make it to 300 wins.
Granted, the prospect of a player pitching effectively into his 50’s is nearly unthinkable – but clearly Mr. Moyer is an outlier.
If he reaches 300 wins, does he make it into the Hall? Does the ‘magic’ number and his longevity trump the general mediocrity of it all??
Maybe more to the point, what if he passes Tommy John, Jim Kaat, Jack Morris in wins. Does that hurt their cases more than it helps his?
I hope he keeps going long enough to make this thought experiment a little less hypothetical
Moyer has a 0% chance of reaching 300 wins.
I hope the Rockies call up Nolan Arenado sometime this season, so that Moyer’s teammates can extend into the 2030s.
He has the chance to face Mike Trout as well if he’s called up by June 8-10.
My favorite piece in the tidbits listed above is the Juan Samuel/JD Martinez comparison. You can imagine an 8-year-old Martinez watching Moyer on TV – Moyer already in the league for 9 years at this point, longer than Bo Jackson’s entire MLB career – and thinking, “I could hit that guy.”
16 years later and Martinez is there, in the park, staring down 79 mph four seamers and changeups so slow they might as well be eephuses (eephi?). And he knocks one out of the park. The vision of the kid is realized as the man. Wild stuff.
Jamie Moyer is older than Barry Larkin and Roberto Alomar, both of which are in the Hall of Fame. Moyer is also only 15 months younger than Cal Ripken, who’s been in the HoF for 5 years…
A quick tabulation shows that Moyer is as old or older than eight current managers. The most surprising, at least to me, is that he is 5 years older than the Mariners’ Eric Wedge, who is in his 9th season as a big league manager.
That’s a travesty. Not that Moyer is older than 8 current managers, just that Eric Wedge has been a manager for 9 years.
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My personal favorite: Jamie Moyer made his MLB debut on June 16, 1986. 293 guys born after that date have played in the big leagues, including six of his current teammates (Dexter Fowler missed being the seventh by a matter of months). He can sit down six other current Rockies and say, “Kids, I’ve been in the big leagues longer than any of you have been alive.” Simply amazing.
Three things, bearing in mind that I’m a big fan:
1) I don’t think Jamie Moyer ever threw hard enough to knock the toothpick out of UL Washington’s mouth.
2) I really don’t think he’ll get to 300 wins, but if he does, if I had a HOF vote, he’d get mine.
3) He already has more wins than Jack Morris.
When Jamie left my beloved O’s he had a career winning pct. of .437 and a 4.51 ERA. Seventeen years later, those numbers are .565 and 4.23 and I see a huge billboard of the guy (advertising St. Joe’s U) every time I drive into Philly. Surreal.
Great article Joe …
He’s older than Lenny Dykstra. Lenny Dykstra last played in 1996.
This reminds me of the Bill James commentary on Phil Niekro. He goes through a whole bunch of players that Niekro was older than. Than he digresses to tell a story about fans at spring training confusing Tommie Aaron for Henry Aaron (his brother), before saying, “Niekro is older than Tommie Aaron, except Tommie is dead, and you can’t get any older than dead.”
I posted a version of this for Julio Franco when he was playing late in his career. That was a fun one too
J Hench, I’ve been thinking of that James article as well, ever since this post appeared. “Can’t get older than dead”… love it!
Moyer is actually only a few connections (teammate connections) away from Albert G Spalding, who co founded the National League.
Moyer played with Harold Baines, who played with Minnie Minoso, who played with Phil Cavaretta, who played with Charlie Grimm, who played with Red Ames, who played with Jim O’ Rourke, who played with Al Spalding
He is also older than BOTH 1985 Cy Young award winners.
That might be the best one yet: still pitching in the majors 27 years after people younger than you were tearing it up. He’s pitched more years after those CYA seasons than the award winners had lived when they won.
Jose Lima is one of 41 players younger than Moyer who have tragically passed away. This includes two who were born after Moyer’s major league debut (RIP Nick Adenhart and Greg Halman) and one that has been gone for 19 years (RIP Steve Olin).