Friend of the VORG Tim Moore on the “Effectively Wild” Facebook page earlier this week:
Curious about pitchers with the same surname as the opposing pitcher’s birthplace. Bonus points if it’s a Capitol.
resulting in the following discussion …
Diane Firstman Tim ….. are you serious about that?
Tim Moore Always.
OK, so pulling the starting pitchers from the Retrosheet game logs and their birth cities from the Lahman Baseball Database, we get the following ten instances of such an occurrence (thru 2014):
| date | vteam | vlg | hteam | hlg | vpit | vcity | hpit | hcity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19010522 | WS1 | AL | CLE | AL | Mercer | Chester | Braggins | Mercer |
| 19330813 | CIN | NL | SLN | NL | Lucas | Columbia | Dean | Lucas |
| 19340602 | SLN | NL | PIT | NL | Dean | Lucas | Lucas | Columbia |
| 19370514 | SLN | NL | PIT | NL | Dean | Lucas | Lucas | Columbia |
| 19380610 | CHA | AL | BOS | AL | Stratton | Wagner | Wagner | Reading |
| 19380820 | PIT | NL | CHN | NL | Lucas | Columbia | Dean | Lucas |
| 19570422 | PIT | NL | NY1 | NL | Arroyo | Penuelas | Gomez | Arroyo |
| 19680714 | PHI | NL | NYN | NL | Wise | Jackson | Jackson | Waco |
| 19760817 | BOS | AL | CHA | AL | Cleveland | Swift Current | Kravec | Cleveland |
| 20060912 | COL | NL | SFN | NL | Bautista | Sanchez | Sanchez | Mayaguez |
There is no boxscore for the first instance, a May 22, 1901 tilt between the Cleveland Blues’ Dick Braggins from Mercer, Pennsylvania and the Washington Senators’ Win Mercer.
We have the boxscores for the other nine games, four of which featured Dizzy Dean of Lucas, Arkansas facing off against Red Lucas.
The most recent occurrence happened almost nine years ago when Sanchez, Samana, Dominican Republic native Denny Bautista pitched against Jonathan Sanchez.