BACK IN BLACK

Yes, in honor of black history month we have decided to honor the purest of all athletes, 80s basball players! Of course, we should have this precursir, that none of these selections were made using any sort of statistics. Therefore they may not be what you would call "the best" player at each position. So here it is the 1980s All-Black Team:

CATHCER- This was probably the easiest position of them all to fill, as surpisingly there are not that many black cathers? So we of course went wityh Lloyd McClendon and Darrel Miller (yes, Cheryl Miller's brother). While both were primarily back-ups in their careers, we feel that the rest of the line-up will cover them up well enough.

















FIRST BASE- Willie Upshaw was a stud for the Blue Jays and we needed him on this squad, for sure. Now we picked up another solid hitter by the namr of Gerald Perry, but we needed a little more pop so, we picked up Alvin Davis! As you will see later, Perry can also play third, so that may be where he gets most of his playing time.



























SECOND BASE- I don't see how it couldn't be former ESPN analyst, Harold Reynolds. And the whole being "let go" do to sexual harrassment, only raises his stock. Backing him up will be the one and only Johnny Ray! He makes this squad because he's in two "hit" song. Of course there's Come on Eileen (also a pretty artistic porno) wher they sing, "Poor 'ol Johnny Ray!) clearly talking about how his finances were frittered away after his playing day. His name would also come back into the mainstream, thanks to Jimmy Ray (no relation) as he asked the world, "Are you Johnny Ray?" To which we at "Bitterness" replied, "We wish! Our apologies to Frank White and Jerry Browne, who did not make the cut, but are poised to appear in the 80s Baseball Players rendition of Reservoir Dogs.



















THIRD BASE- Although, in my mind he was a shortstop, he did play third base for part of his career, so we would be remiss to not include one Mister Hubie Brooks. Darnell Coles may be a late addition, but we know Gerald Perry being super-versatile as he is, can play third and first, so Darnell may not make the cut.






SHORTSTOP- This was a tough choice, so we decided, since shortstop is usually the most athletic player in the field that we'd have three...Andres Thomas, Rafael Santana, and Steve Jeltz. They would probably rotate the starting spot, but I think Andres Thomas and Stevie Jeltz would get the nod more often than not due to the amount of Soul-Glo they used. With Rafael utilized more as a utility man. Just missing the cut Shawon Dunston and Alfredo Griffin.





























LEFTFIELD- The name says it all with our starting leftfielder, Chet Lemon. Not that he was a Lemon or anything, but how could you keep tha name, of this team? It's like un-American or something! We also want Lloyd Moseby and Jeffrey Leonard on the squad. Leonard would probably mostly platoon at DH, as fielding was not as good as Lloyd's. And yes we now LLoyd, can we call him LLoyd, played mostly center, but we felt he would could really maximixe our defense with him in left.





























CENTERFIELD- While there were a lot of players to choose from, there are only 2 black centerfielders that could play on the "Bitterness" All 80s Black baseball team. The question was who would be number one and who would be coming off the bench. Now, after much thought and consternation, we have decided. Our starting centerfielder will be Odibe McDowell, with Gary Pettis coming off the bench. Odibe had a career year in my 1988 Strat-o-Matic game, hitting an eye-popping .347, plus his name is Odibe, which is probably how mushmouth from Fat Albert would say "Odie" from the Garfield comic.












RIGHTFIELD- Although he did taint his carrer by going to the Yankees, we felt he still deserved to be here. So congratulaitons to Chili Davis, for becoming our staring rightfielder! He will be backed up by one of the best 80s names of all-time, the one and only, Mistah Razor Shines! Know 80s team would be complete without this man on their team in some capacity!









DESIGNATED HITTER- We weren't gonna have a DH, but we needed Jorge Orta on this squad!






We will do the pitchers later, as this post as already pretty darned long. And of course we want all those black 80s baseball players who read "Bitterness" and didn't make the cut, like Franklin Stubbs, Larry Herndon, Darryl Strawberry, Pedro Gurerro and Tony Bernazard, to know that they are smart enough, good enough and dawg gonnit people still really like you!