Our Fave 9

Here's some good food for thought. Figure out your favorite team of all-time. No, not just any Yankees. Don't pick the Babe unless you're well into your eighties. We're talking about your favorite team from the time you can really remember. So we really can't pick Mickey Mantle since his last year was when we were only 7 (coincidence?).

1st Base - Donnie Baseball. Don Mattingly was the guy who got us through those win less 1980s. Tino Martinez and Chris Chambliss get honorable mentions.

2nd Base - Willie Randolph. No question about it. Is there even a guy to get an honorable mention? Steve Sax, Knobby, Horace Clarke...we don't think so.

Shortstop - Derek Jeter. We were big Chicken Stanley fans, but this is a no-brainer.

3rd Base - Graig Nettles. Doesn't matter that A-Rod might be the greatest player off all-time. Nettles was the man back in the day.

Left Field - Dave Winfield. If only he hadn't clashed with King George the Unreasonable. Honorable mention to Roy White.

Center Field - Bobby Murcer. Bet you thought we were going to say Bernie Williams. Wait for that one. Honorable mention to Bernie, Mickey Rivers, and Elliot Maddox.

Right Field - Paul O'Neill. Reggie was never one of our faves.

Catcher - Thurman Munson. Sigh. Honorable mention to Jake Gibbs, Joe Girardi, and Jorge Posada.

DH - Bernie Williams. Okay, Bernie didn't do a whole lot of DH'ing, but he had to be on this team.

Starting Pitcher - Ron Guidry. This was a tough call between Gator and Catfish Hunter.

Closer - Mariano Rivera. Honorable mention to Sparky Lyle and Dave Righetti. We won't say Goose Gossage so this way he'll campaign and complain about the list.

Manager - Before choosing lets go through the list. We had Ralph Houk, Bill Virdon, Billy Martin, Bob Lemon, Billy Martin, Dick Howser, Gene Michael, Bob Lemon, Gene Michael, Clyde King, Billy Martin, Yogi Berra, Billy Martin, Lou Piniella, Billy Martin, Lou Piniella, Dallas Green, Bucky Dent, Stump Merrill, Bucky Dent, Buck Showalter, Joe Torre, Joe Girardi. Phew...quite amazing when you consider that Buck Showalter's first year was 1992. That's a lot of turnover.

So we would have to go with Joe Torre. No one else was there long enough. We really like Ralph Houk, but we were quite young. And the managerial ins and outs of the '80s or the Billy Martin eras (plural on purpose) was mind bending. Especially when you realize all those changes were basically the same core group of people.

If we had to put a lineup together, it would go like this:

2B Randolph
SS Jeter
C Munson
1B Mattingly
LF Winfield
RF O'Neill
CF Murcer
DH Williams
3B Nettles

We could switch that lineup many different ways, but boy would it score runs. Leave your Fave 9 in the comments section.