Get ready for Halloween with this spectacularly spooky all-horror lineup
It's Halloween, and we knew it was time to assemble the greatest lineup of scary starters, fiendish fielders and hair-raising hitters. So, as the veil between the land of the living and the land of the dead grows ever thinner, read on below for this spooky starting nine and remember: That's just the wind howling ... isn't it?
SP: Jim Coates
Jim Coates' nickname was "The Mummy." As Jim Bouton wrote in "Ball Four," "Coates could pose as the illustration for an undertaker's sign. He has the personality to match..." 'Nuff said.
RP: Mike Myers
There have been 10 films in the "Halloween" franchise. Left-hander Mike Myers came up just short of that, as he played for nine teams in a 13-year career.
C: Charles Dahl
Charles Dahl ... Chucky Doll? Dahl was a catcher that received 42 at-bats with the Class C Pocatello Cardinals in 1951.
1B: Richie Hebner
We assume that when the slugger, known as "The Gravedigger" for his offseason work, wasn't playing baseball, he was teaming up with The Cryptkeeper:
2B:
Max Schreck played the vampire Nosferatu. The 2000 horror film "Shadow of the Vampire" posited that Schreck was an actual vampire. Is this proof that No. 17 Athletics prospect Max Schrock is a vampire? You decide.
3B: Jerry Adair
Nicknamed "Casper the Friendly Ghost," Adair had a 13-year Major League Baseball career. I'm sorry, a 13-year Boosball career.
SS: Frank Stein
So good: Boris Karloff in full frankenstein costume playing baseball (with Buster Keaton catching) in 1940. pic.twitter.com/ouHzFJBNQr
— Meredith Frost (@MeredithFrost) October 15, 2017
Stein played for two years with the Leaksville-Draper-Spray (perhaps the original name for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce) in 1938 and '40. And, he probably had to constantly explain that "Frankenstein is the man, not the monster!"
LF: Al Spangler
"Let's say this baseball represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning's sample, it would be a baseball... 35 feet long, weighing approximately 600 pounds." Of course, Spangler's 13-year MLB career saw him play for Houston, California and Chicago -- so he was never taking PK readings in New York.
CF:
Because of Werth's long hair and beard, he not only has been known as "Werewolf," but in 2013, he even walked to the plate to Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London."
RF:
Another Casper on the list -- but this one was actually named Casper and is the fifth in his family. Sadly, Wells was never in the Rockies' system, so didn't play for the short-lived Casper Ghosts.
