As for Zimmer: Although it might surprise Bosox fans, I think Cubs fans think of him fondly. All his old school plate-in-head hunches worked out in the summer of ’89, making it one of the Cubs’ more magical seasons.

Leo Durocher also did a pretty good job–especially when compared to what preceded and followed his reign–in Chicago in the Santo days. And Cap Anson led them for a long time in the pre-1900 years that I know very little about.

Of course! It ain’t gonna be Don Zimmer, that’s for sure. Stupid Gerbil….

Gotta be the Peerless Leader (Frank Chance), no?

I remember Reuschel being on the cover of SI in 1989 when he was with the Giants. He was, by my memory, 59 years old, 330 pounds an oozing sweat from every pore.

I can imagine why he might be wearing a helmet (he was taking BP) and why he might have an outfielder’s glove (he just picked up the first one around when they unexpectedly called him to take his picture), but I wonder if he was just clowning around with the mix-and-match ensemble?

That’s a pretty representative spread of years for the Cubs all-time team, too. Since they’ve been in a little bit of a drought, you’d expect to see such a lineup bunched up from players of 100 years ago and some from the Sosa era, but nope. How about naming a manager, too?

This Reuschel card is odd in that he’s wearing a batting helmet and he’s wearing a fielder’s glove.

Rick Reuschel to me is the most underrated pitcher in baseball history. He ranks 30th!! all time among pitchers in Career WAR:
http://www.baseballprojection.com/war/top500p.htm

The only eligible pitcher with more career WAR who’s not in the HOF is Bert Blyleven.

He’s the poster child for why traditional pitcher’s stats: Wins, ERA, suck.
He played in a hitter’s park on lousy Cub teams with lousy defenses. If he had played on a bunch of other teams in the 70′s he’d probably be in the HOF.

(By the way, and at the risk of seeming to want to turn every conversation into carnival barkeresque promotion, my own copy of the Reuschel brothers card shows up in my forthcoming book to anchor the book’s overriding theme of brotherly connection.)