In Stark's latest Really Useless Info column, it's noted that on 5/21 the Sox used six players whose names end with "z" (Ortiz, Ramirez, Seanez, Tavarez, Gonzalez, Alvarez). Stark's sources were unable to confirm if that is the most Z-men to play in one game for one team.

Since I'm stuck at home due to a cold, I verified it IS the most. It's the fifth time a team has fielded six such players in a game.

June 14, 2003, Rangers (Rodriguez, Gonzalez, Diaz, Valdez, Fultz, Ramirez)
July 12, 2002, Rangers (Rodriguez, Rodriguez, Rodriguez, Gonzalez, Valdez, Alvarez)
July 7, 2002, Padres (Vazquez, Jimenez, Cruz, Gonzalez, Perez, Holtz)
Sept. 22, 2001, Braves (Lopez, Perez, Perez, Martinez, Seanez, Sanchez)

Who knows...given the ever-increasing number of Latin players in the majors, maybe a team will field a complete lineup of Z-men before too long.




And YES, I am bored beyond imagination!!!

What fan amongst us doesn't appreciate useless baseball knowledge?

Curious as hell, what magical tools/resources do you have at your disposal to allow you to query such info?

Sean Lahman's baseball archive in Access format (I'll be porting it into mySQL this summer), and WAY too much time on my hands.

I'd give my left nut for retrosheet.org's play-by-play data, so I can research game happenings using code instead of manual browsing. For instance, last night the Royals hit three homers in the first inning but ended up losing when the Tigers hit three homers in the ninth inning. I have no way of coding a search to find out how often that has happened, but sure would like to be able to!

No need to waste your time porting it to mySQL, it has already been done. baseball-databank.org.

Are the Event Files not sufficient for your purposes? If so, no need for the fleshly sacrifice.

I LOVE reading Jayson Stark's useful information columns.

That's the real entertaining part of ESPN.com. Forget Gammo handing out the same old tired rumors and stories...Stark's useless crap is where its at.

The 1995 Pawtucket Red Sox came close to tying that, and in one respect they surpassed it. While they only had five Z-Men, all of them were named Rodriguez--Carlos, Frankie, Steve, Tony, and Victor. They actually had a sixth Z-Man, pitcher Bill Wertz, but I cannot recall if he ever appeared in the same game with all the Rodriquezes.