Pennsylvania's Baseball All-Time Dream Team
What would a dream team roster look like for major league players born in Pennsylvania?
Issue #144
This is the 30th article in a series where I am creating all-time dream teams for players born in each of the fifty US states. I’m publishing each write-up on the anniversary date that the particular state joined the union. So far I’ve covered Maryland, Louisiana, Minnesota, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Virginia, Idaho, Wyoming, New York, Colorado, Missouri, Hawaii, California, Nevada, North and South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Illinois, Delaware, Mississippi, and Indiana.
Next up is Pennsylvania, which on December 12th, 1787, became the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, five days after Delaware became the first (according to Wikipedia).
Important caveat to what follows: I’m creating these all-time dream teams based on the birthplace data available at baseball-reference.com. I realize this might mean some players will appear for a state’s all-time dream that seems odd, e.g., a player who was born in one state but lived there only briefly, while then spending most of his youth, or especially critical years playing baseball in high school in another state. So that is an important caveat to the below dream team roster—and I’ll discuss the players that I know went to high school in a state other than Pennsylvania towards the end of this article (and vice-versa, those born elsewhere but who went to high school in Pennsylvania.)
Here is the all-time dream team I came up with for players born in Pennsylvania:
As the fifth most populous state in the country, you’d expect this dream team roster to be full of stars—and sure enough, there are stars at literally every position. There is a whopping 19 Hall of Famers, headlined by at least three that I think most people would rank in the top 20 players ever: SS Honus Wagner, OF/1B Stan Musial, and SP Christy Mathewson. Some might argue that Ken Griffey Jr. is also a top-20 all-time player, and several other guys would at least get votes as being top-50 all-time greats.
Shortstop is particularly strong for this dream team, not only in having the greatest SS ever in Honus Wagner, but in having three other old-time, Hall-of-Fame SS as well: Bobby Wallace, Hughie Jennings, and John Ward—with Ward spending six early seasons as a star pitcher too.
Around the rest of the infield there are more Hall of Famers in 2B Nellie Fox, and catchers Roy Campanella and Mike Piazza. Many fans, including me, support 1B/3B/LF Dick Allen for the Hall of Fame as well. Several other infielders of note include 3B Buddy Bell (5-time All-Star, 6 Gold Glove Awards), 2B Eddie Stanky (3-time All-Star, .410 OBP), 2B Max Bishop (.423 OBP), and 1B Harry Davis (led AL in HR each year from 1904-1907).
Stan Musial played a lot at 1B but also at all three OF positions over his 22-year career. I’ve listed him above as the starting LF, giving this team an all-HOF outfield with Ken Griffey Jr. in CF and Reggie Jackson in RF. An interesting bit of trivia is that both Stan Musial and Ken Griffey Jr. were born in the small town of Donora, Pennsylvania (population as of 2020 of only 4,558). Can any other town of that size boast two unrelated, high-level Hall of Famers?
Beyond those three superstars there is plenty of depth for this dream team’s OF, like Hall of Famer Hack Wilson and on-based machine Roy Thomas in CF; Harry Stovey, Sherry Magee, Jimmy Sheckard, and Del Ennis in LF; and Jack Clark, Carl Furillo, and Ken Griffey Sr. in RF.
You could make a case for any number of others, so the following deserve at least honorable mention: CF/RF Fielder Jones, SS Dick Groat, RF/1B Vic Wertz, RF Buck Freeman, LF Hank Sauer, LF/P Elmer Smith, 1B Mickey Vernon, 1B Jake Daubert, C Charlie Bennett, 2B/RF Danny Murphy, 3B/2B Jimmy Dykes, 1B/LF Henry Larkin, 3B Whitey Kurowski, 1B Ripper Collins, 1B/RF/2B/3B Charlie Hickman, SS/3B Buck Weaver, 2B Bobby Lowe, and LF/CF/3B/1B Frank Thomas.
Starting lineups for this all-time dream team could look like this:
Against RHP:
Honus Wagner (R) SS
Stan Musial (L) LF
Ken Griffey Jr. (L) CF
Reggie Jackson (L) RF
Dick Allen (R) 1B
Mike Piazza (R) DH
Roy Campanella (R) C
Buddy Bell (R) 3B
Nellie Fox (L) 2B
Against LHP:
Honus Wagner (R) SS
Stan Musial (L) LF
Jack Clark (R) RF
Dick Allen (R) 1B
Hack Wilson (R) DH
Ken Griffey Jr. (L) CF
Roy Campanella / Mike Piazza (R) C
Buddy Bell (R) 3B
Nellie Fox (L) 2B
I like Wagner and Musial batting 1-2 in both lineups, and Bell and Fox seem like sensible choices for the 8-9 roles. But for the five spots between you could arrange guys in any number of ways. I included Griffey in both lineups, though dropped him down vs. LHP as he didn’t hit them as well as RHP. In RF, you could play Jackson all the time, or give Jack Clark some at-bats against LHP—against whom he had an impressive .300/.440/.533 slash line.
This roster is blessed with two all-time great hitting catchers in Roy Campanella and Mike Piazza. They both hit right-handed, so I listed them both against LHP, and then used Piazza as the DH against RHP. Against LHP, I like Hack Wilson as the DH given his .330/.411/.584 slash line against southpaws. Harry Stovey would be another strong DH candidate, as he was one of the game’s first power hitters, leading his league in HR five times and triples four times.
As for the pitching staff, Christy Mathewson is the ace among aces. I say that because there are actually seven Hall of Fame starting pitchers included here: Mathewson, plus Eddie Plank, Ed Walsh, Rube Waddell, Mike Mussina, Stan Covelski, and Herb Pennock. How you rank them could be argued, especially I think after Mathewson, Plank, and Walsh.
Bucky Walters had an interesting major league career which began as a 3B for the Boston Braves and Red Sox, before switching to pitching with the Phillies and Reds. He didn’t have immediate success (he went 11-21 for Philadelphia in 1936), but went on to win the NL MVP Award in 1939 after winning the pitching triple crown with a 27-11 record, 2.29 ERA, and relatively modest 137 strikeouts. He had several other outstanding seasons and overall was an All-Star six times as a pitcher.
Old-timer John Montgomery Ward had an even more split career in that he started out as a pitcher from 1878-1884, posting a 2.10 ERA which translates into a 119 ERA+. This included a 1.51 ERA as a rookie at the age of 18, and then a 47-19 record in his second season. But an arm injury ended his pitching career, so he switched to mostly playing shortstop where he went on to score 100+ runs five times, and stole a lot of bases including twice leading the NL with 111 in 1887 and 88 in 1892.
The bullpen on this dream team is headlined by Hall of Famer Bruce Sutter, with Sparky Lyle a solid number two. Several others had fine careers, including Gary Lavelle, Gene Garber, Joe Page, and others. I included Pittsburgh’s current closer David Bednar a bit prematurely perhaps, but he has been a rare bright spot for the Buccos in recent years.
As with the position players, many other fine pitchers were born in Pennsylvania but couldn’t be squeezed onto this dream team roster. Deserving at least honorable mention are starters Curt Simmons, Jack Stivetts, Jon Matlack, Mark Gubicza, Bobby Shantz, Terry Mulholland, John Burkett, and Gary Peters, and also relievers Stan Belinda, Curt Leskanic, and Steve Kline.
What about players who went to High School in Pennsylvania?
As noted at the outset of this article, and as I’ve done for my other US State dream team write-ups, what if you change the criteria from players who were born in the state of Pennsylvania to players who grew up—which we’ll define as going to high school—in the state of Pennsylvania?
First off, some of the players on the roster above were born in Pennsylvania but went to high school elsewhere, including:
CF Ken Griffey Jr. – Ohio
3B Buddy Bell – Ohio
1B/RF Jack Clark – California
2B Max Bishop – Maryland
C/1B Gene Tenace – Ohio
C Lance Parrish – California
If we eliminate those players from the above roster, the biggest losses would be felt at CF (Griffey Jr. ) and 3B (Bell). Hack Wilson and Roy Thomas would need to share CF duties, and Bobby Wallace and Dick Allen would share 3B, with either Harry Davis stepping up at 1B, or Stan Musial shifting to 1B allowing Stovey, Magee, Sheckard, and Ennis some at-bats in LF.
On the other hand, I only found two guys who were born elsewhere but went to high school in the state of Pennsylvania and would be deserving of roster spots here:
C Josh Gibson – Georgia
SP Charles “Chief” Bender – Minnesota
Adding Josh Gibson as a third top-10 all-time catcher more than makes up for the loss of Tenace and Parrish. The issue now would be how to get all three of them enough at-bats between catcher and DH.
A similar issue would arise for Chief Bender being added to this team’s already crowded pitching staff. He is a Hall of Famer with a 212-127 (.625) record and 2.46 career ERA, but as noted he would be joining seven other Hall of Fame starting pitchers, and still others with solid resumes too. Good problems for a manager to have I guess!
All data is from Baseball-Reference.com, and also their subscription service Stathead.com. If you are a big sports fan, be sure to check out the latest features at Stathead and the Sports Reference family of sites. The state map, flag, flower, and bird images are from Wikipedia.
Did you know? I wrote a book with the same title as this Substack newsletter / blog: Now Taking the Field: Baseball’s All-Time Dream Teams for All 30 Franchises. It was published in early 2019, by ACTA Sports, the publisher of the annual Bill James Handbook and other popular titles. You can learn more about it at www.NowTakingTheField.com, or buy directly at Amazon and other booksellers.
Pennsylvania has some amazing talent