Without knowing it at the time, this Hot Stove post began percolating in my mind at Van Horn High School in about 1957. I had turned 16 and now had the pleasure of listening to rock ‘n’ roll while driving. Jim Graham, a pal since grade school, and Bill Lochman, a new friend in high school, invited me and my 1954 Ford to join their hot rod club, the Draggin’ Diplomats. My parents were not that keen on the hot rod thing, but they passed along some info on my new friend Lochman – they said that Bill’s dad Walt was well known to them as the early radio voice of the Kansas City Blues.  It turned out that almost everyone from my parents’ generation was familiar with Walt Lochman who broadcast the Blues games from 1935 to 1942. Bill of course confirmed this to me, but I never met his dad who had died in 1954. Over the last year, a couple of reminders of Walt Lochman put me on the trail of a special KC baseball story.

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In Part One of this second base discussion, we took a look at Hornsby, Collins, Lajoie, Morgan and Robinson as candidates for the best of all-time. Feedback from readers included Gehringer, Sandberg, Alomar, Richardson and Carew. Cardinals fans not only have Hornsby to tout, but also Frankie Frisch, the “Fordham Flash,” and Red Schoendienst. Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker are in the top 10 of WAR, but not in the Hall of Fame. Nor is Willie Randolph. Bill Mazerowski is in the HOF, but not Frank White who has almost identical numbers, right down to the eight Gold Gloves. Time to talk about Frank.

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With your permission, I won’t talk about the just-concluded series with the current Washington team. Let’s just go with the headline in the KC Star this morning: “Swarmed by Nats.”

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The Royals will be hosting the Washington Nationals this week, and my partner Tim Sear has scored tickets for us for tonight’s game. As of today, the best records in baseball belong to the Cubs (17-6) and the Nationals (17-7). I am looking forward to seeing Bryce Harper who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age 16 and National League MVP last year at age 22. His idols are Mantle, Rose and Brett. He wears #34 because 3 and 4 add up to Mantle’s #7.  Here is what Brett had to say about Harper’s MVP season (click here, 37 seconds). This past weekend, the Nationals swept the Cardinals in St. Louis, but Harper was 0 for 11. So look out. And on Wednesday afternoon, the Royals will face Stephen Strasburg (4-0). They are two of the most hyped players of recent years with Strasburg being the #1 overall draft pick in 2009 and Harper the same in 2010.

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The National League had eight teams until 1962 when the New York Mets and the Houston Colt .45s became the NL’s first expansion teams. The Mets played their first two seasons at the old Polo Grounds where the Giants had played until they left for San Francisco in 1958. In 1964, the Mets moved to the new Shea Stadium located in Queens next to the fairgrounds of the 1964-64 New York World’s Fair. The Mets left Shea after the 2008 season to play in the new Citi Field.

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I apologize for back-to-back posts filling up your inbox, but Sidd Finch had to be on April 1 and Opening Day (Night) is April 3. I promise to then pause for at least a while. Although the Hot Stove Season is now at an end, some posts will likely boil over to your inbox during the regular season.

It is so hard to let go of the 2015 Royals. So before we do, here are some recent posts that will make you smile:

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Rita an I just returned from seeing the Royals play four games in the Cactus League. Good time, good weather, not-so-good pitching. But hey, it was spring training. More details in a future post.

With the Mets coming to town to open the season, I thought you might like to hear a Mets spring training story. It is from 1985, but it has nothing to do with the Royals winning the World Series that year. Although that was also a good thing.

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