In an interleague game against Texas last June, the Atlanta Braves had seven rookies in their starting lineup, including the designated hitter and the pitcher. With only nine spots to fill in their opening-day lineup last week, the Florida Marlins started six rookies. It was the first time in modern baseball history, the Elias Sports Bureau reported, that a team had that many rookies in its opening-day lineup.
Other teams began the season with rookies in their lineups and have used other rookies in subsequent games. But no team came close to the Marlins. The Washington Nationals had two rookies, Ryan Zimmerman and Brian Watson, in their opening-day lineup, and the Mets started two, Anderson Hernandez and Brian Bannister, in the second game.
But rookies made up three-fourths of the Marlins' infield — first baseman Mike Jacobs, second baseman Dan Uggla, shortstop Hanley Ramirez — and an entire outfield: Josh Willingham in left, Eric Reed in center and Jeremy Hermida in right. Then for their second game, they used another rookie, Reggie Abercrombie, in center in Reed's place.
The Marlins have plenty more where they came from. Eleven players on their 25-man roster are rookies. The other four pitched in relief in the team's first series in Houston — Josh Johnson, Carlos Martinez, Chris Resop and Ricky Nolasco. They are not yet household names, but they may be someday, although it's not certain if those households will be in Florida or San Antonio or Portland or Las Vegas or wherever.
Even without the Marlins, National League teams have started more rookies than American League teams. Prince Fielder has started at first base for Milwaukee, Conor Jackson for Arizona and James Loney for Los Angeles.
Josh Barfield has started at second for San Diego, and Nate McLouth and Skip Schumaker have started in the outfield for Pittsburgh and St. Louis. Paul Maholm (Pirates) and Matt Cain (Giants) have been starting pitchers.
The American League had six rookies in starting lineups through Friday: Kenji Johjima catching for the Mariners and Jeff Mathis for the Angels, Ian Kinsler playing second base for the Rangers, and Nick Markakis and Brian Anderson in the outfield for the Orioles and the White Sox. John Koronka pitched for Texas on Friday.
Johjima is the first Japanese catcher in the majors, and if he has a language barrier catching Seattle pitchers, he has no barrier that prevents him from hitting pitchers.
In his first four games, he hit two home runs, drove in four runs and collected six hits in 15 at-bats for a .400 average. Fielder, on the other hand, struck out seven times in going hitless in his first nine at-bats.
The Marlins' collection of rookies is the result of what they euphemistically call a "market correction," reducing their payroll from a season-ending $56 million to a season-opening $15 million by shedding their entire infield, two-thirds of their outfield, their catcher, two of their top three starting pitchers and their closer.
Despite the conversion to rookie ball, Jeffrey Loria, the Marlins' owner, remains upbeat.
"My current crop is the best group of young hungry talent I've ever seen," he said. "I couldn't be more excited with them. Our baseball people have done an excellent job in rebuilding the team for future success."
Loria isn't deluding himself into thinking his team will be better than it is. "It will be a trying year," he acknowledged, "but they're exciting and they're good."
This team, Loria said, is different from the one that was left in 1998 after a previous owner, H. Wayne Huizenga, decimated the 1997 World Series champions. Huizenga didn't wait to slash payroll. Loria tried for two years after the Marlins won the 2003 World Series but came to the same end. Like Huizenga, and John Henry between them, he couldn't get a new stadium.
"Three ownership groups tried to secure a stadium unsuccessfully," Loria said. "Meanwhile, a dozen other new stadiums have been built."
The Florida Legislature scuttled Loria's effort, refusing to vote on a bill that would have given the Marlins a rebate of $2 million a year for 30 years from the $6 million or $7 million they would collect in sales tax.
"We weren't asking for a handout," Loria said. "We were willing to make the fourth-largest contribution ever to a ballpark."
Loria, however, may have to spend that money elsewhere. The Marlins' lease on Dolphins Stadium expires in 2010.
"There's no more time to fool around," Loria said. "The time for posturing is over.".
OLDEST EX-PLAYER NEARS 100: Monday is a big day for the oldest living former major league player. Dr. Howard Groskloss, known as Howdy, turns 100.
Some baseball encyclopedias say Groskloss, who played second base, was born April 9, and some say he was born in 1907.
But Groskloss and his 80-year-old wife, Mary, confirmed the other day that he was born April 10, 1906. He became the oldest former player when Ray Cunningham died last July six months beyond his 100th birthday.
Groskloss, a Pittsburgh native, played in 72 games for the Pirates from 1930-32, but baseball was only a sidelight for him. In his real life, he was an obstetrician-gynecologist.
"I played for the Pirates during the summer while going to medical school," he said. "I had my mind on medicine, and my life was medicine, not baseball. I wasn't making baseball my career. I was just carrying on some of my fun playing. I enjoyed playing for the Pirates."
Groskloss was an all-around star athlete at Amherst College, playing baseball, football, basketball and tennis and competing in track. A 1930 graduate, he was voted the most outstanding Amherst athlete of the half-century. The award, a silver cup, was presented to him by Calvin Coolidge, whose son, he said, was his roommate.
Planning to go to Yale medical school, Groskloss turned down a Rhodes scholarship, but Jewel Ens, the Pittsburgh manager, recruited him to play for the Pirates. Groskloss' most active season was 1931, when he batted .280 and drove in 20 runs in 53 games and 161 at-bats.
During a telephone conversation, he had his wife got a picture of one of his Pirates teams and he recalled playing with, among others, the Waner brothers, Paul and Lloyd; Pie Traynor; and Gus Suhr. He also played with Arky Vaughn, who along with the Waners and Traynor is in the Hall of Fame.
Groskloss said that after the Pirates, he played with another Hall of Famer, Honus Wagner, on Wagner's semipro team.
"I finished my medical education while playing for the Pirates," he said. "I carried on my medical internship at the University of Pennsylvania hospital and came back to the University of Pittsburgh medical school and taught there."
Groskloss went into private practice as an obstetrician-gynecologist in Miami, retired in 1979 and moved to Vero Beach, Fla.
WRONG NOTES FOR RANDOLPH: Willie Randolph had it right. "You guys must not have much to talk about," he said in reaction to the talk-show and newspaper frenzy last week over the use of the same theme song when Mariano Rivera, New York's senior closer, and Billy Wagner, New York's junior closer, enter games.
The day after the Mets scored a wonderful opening-day victory, in which Xavier Nady had four hits and three Mets pitchers all did their jobs, the only subject on the minds of talk-show hosts and newspaper reporters was the song. Is this what baseball has come to? Fans, listeners and readers want to hear and read only about a song? A bad one, at that.
Better to discuss the huge break the Mets got on a play at the plate because the umpire did not see catcher Paul Lo Duca drop the ball. But no, that is baseball and not music, with which some news media observers seem to be obsessed. Music does not win games; hits and pitches do.