Right... all indications seem to me that the interesting question is really a race for the #2 slot behind Miggy.

Derek Lowe?

Not active, but Wade Boggs once drank 57 beers on a transcontinental flight.

Jesus, did he cross every continent? By the end, I'm sure it was an incontinental flight. As far as the biggest active drinker, is it still Farney, or has he given it up? It's been many years since I've been to Tai's Til 4, so I wouldn't know if his jersey is still behind the bar there.

I haven't listened to the source interview with Jeff Nelson in a while, but I think the Boggs breakdown was something like:
6 beers in clubhouse after game
6 beers in ride from Yankee stadium to Newark airport
28 beers on long flight to Seattle with a stopover somewhere
6 beers on ride to Kingdome
4 beers unpacking bags in Kingdome

Miller Lites, I believe.

Hack's on the all-time drinking team for sure - whether you want to create the team based on great drinkers who could play a little baseball or great baseball players who drank a lot... doesn't matter how you criteria it, hard for me to see how he's not somewhere in the OF.

My favorite Hack Wilson story was related by Roger Angell in one of his masterpieces.

Wilson is playing right field for the Dodgers in Ebbetts Field. Boom-Boom Beck, the Dodgers' pitcher, is getting, well, boom-boomed by the opposition. Line drives are rattling off the rickety metal-covered wall in right field, and Wilson, in his customary mode of hung-over-to-hell, is getting damn exhausted retrieving them.

Finally the Dodgers manager has seen enough, and he comes out to the mound to take Beck out of the game. Wilson is delighted by this opportunity to catch his breath, put his hands on his knees, and contemplate the ground for a little while. Maybe even shut his eyes for a blissful moment.

But Boom-Boom Beck is all worked up and doesn't want to come out of the game. So when the manager reaches the mound and asks for the ball, instead of handing it to him, Beck turns and flings it toward the outfield, as hard as he can.

He flings it so hard, in fact, that it bangs up against the rickety metal-covered wall in right field. Clang!

Wilson is startled by the sound. ####! Dutifully, he rouses himself and runs over, fields the ball, and fires a perfect strike toward where his cut-off man would be.

Pretty sure Mr. Angell got that from Robert Creamer (who probably got it from a Bill Stern book), but definitely a great story. (Seems to have originated as something told by Casey Stengel.) Sounds as though they should have converted Boom-Boom to an OF, except for the fact that he couldn't hit.

Sad stories in the comment section over at the When the Giants Come to Town blog entry about Jim Ray...estrangement, lack of connection with his family, etc. Try as he might, he just doesn't seem to have been able to let go of that bottle...hoping that he's somehow able to find those phone numbers that were left for him.

Harlond Clift is similar to Hart, and despite having the nickname "Darkie", he wasn't black. He was from Oklahoma, so he probably had some Native American blood. He hit 143 of his 178 homers by age 27.

I bet he was part black but was able to "pass". There was a ton more interbreeding than anyone would like to admit, especially whites with african ancestry.

Carlos Baerga

Looks like his career went off the cliff

Juan Samuel

or hit a serve pothole

Roberto Alomar

right about the time...

aw, hell, you all already know where this is going.

DB

That 1974 Topps blog was a good timesink. I had a half hour or so to kill this morning and it fit the bill.

Sad stories in the comment section over at the When the Giants Come to Town blog entry about Jim Ray...estrangement, lack of connection with his family, etc. Try as he might, he just doesn't seem to have been able to let go of that bottle...hoping that he's somehow able to find those phone numbers that were left for him.

Jesus, you ain't kidding. Multiple estranged family members trying to find him through comments on a sports blog...ugh

Hack's on the all-time drinking team for sure - whether you want to create the team based on great drinkers who could play a little baseball or great baseball players who drank a lot... doesn't matter how you criteria it, hard for me to see how he's not somewhere in the OF.

Paul Waner too. Apparently he used to keep a pint of whiskey in his back uniform pocket. The story goes that one day his manager found a half full bottle in the dugout and accused Waner as being the owner. "Nope, not mine. If it were mine, it would be empty."

I remember as a kid reading in one of those compendiums about baseball anecdotes that Waner would sober up before a game (guess there were no amps then) by doing a huge number of back flips. Anybody else remember that?

A couple of great drinkers who could play a little baseball:

Len Koenecke (google him)
Cy Blanton drank himself to death at only age 37

I have to mention Kirby Higbe, as well, among drinking pitchers. His book The High Hard One is one of the great baseball memoirs.

I bet he was part black but was able to "pass".

Bill James claims that Clift got that nickname because someone misheard his first name as "Harlem." He sure doesn't look part black.

Super Joe Charboneau used to be able to open beer bottles with his eye socket. I imagine he threw a few back in his day.

According to Bill James in his Historical Baseball Abstract, Clift was given the nickname Darkie by teammate Alan Strange, also a rookie, who thought Clift’s first name was Harlem. The moniker, with its racial overtones, stuck. Also, the rookie was so reluctant to talk that he did not correct anyone who thought his name was Harland rather than Harlond.

http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/9987fe67

testicular mumps

Worst case of testicular mumps for both timing and position: The L.A. Rams' center Leon McLaughlin, who came down with the mumps right before the 1955 championship game with the Browns.

------------------------------------

I have to mention Kirby Higbe, as well, among drinking pitchers. His book The High Hard One is one of the great baseball memoirs.

Greatest pitching matchup that never was: Kirby Higbe and Satchel Paige. Both of their memoirs claim that they built up their arm strength as children by taking part in white vs. black rock fights.

Link at 65:

Rather sad that he pretty much led an unappreciated baseball life. Why didn't and haven't the Orioles ever honored him? Because they felt it may have diminished glow surrounded Brooks?