The Mind Works in Mysterious Ways

When I taught fifth and sixth grade, my students and I would sometimes play the Word Association Game.  It's simple.  A student would pick a word like "homework".  The next student would say the first word that popped into their head like "painful".  The game would continue to the next student and so on and so on.  The catch?  They'd have one second or less to respond.  If they didn't, they were out.  Students would also be out if they couldn't explain the connection.  In other words, they couldn't just shout out a random word.  The last person standing would win points for their table.

Today's post is a variation of that game inspired by Night Owl's Thinking Exercise post where he wrote down the first player that came to mind when he thought of a certain MLB team.  I started to play along while I read his post, but quickly realized his picks were influencing my own.  The good news is my short term memory is similar to Dory's from Finding Nemo, so twenty-something hours later (started this post at around 4:30pm on Wednesday) I was ready to make my own picks.

I started out by typing out every current MLB team by their divisions.  Then I saved this post and watched two episodes of Peaky Blinders on Netflix.  I came back, reopened this, and rapidly typed out the first player that came to mind from the bottom of this list (Washington Nationals) to the top (Houston Astros).

Disclaimer:  I encounter one major problem.  While typing out a response, I would peek at the next team which sometimes gave me enough time to think of multiple players.  I resolved this issue by only writing down the first name that popped into my head.  All card images were added after I had made all of my selections.

With that out of the way... let's the word association game begin:

American League West

Houston Astros - Jose Altuve

2016 Topps Chrome Refractor #27

Los Angeles Angels - Rod Carew

1982 Fleer #455

Oakland A's - Rickey Henderson

1991 Stadium Club Charter Member #NNO

Seattle Mariners - Ken Griffey Jr.

1993 Topps Pre-Production Sample #79

Texas Rangers - Juan Gonzalez

1996 SP Holoview Special FX #29

The AL West was filled with pretty common choices with the exception of the Rangers.  I'm not sure why I thought of Gonzalez over guys like Nolan Ryan and Adrian Beltre.  The mind works in mysterious ways.


National League West

Arizona Diamondbacks - Luis Gonzalez

2002 Ultra Gold Medallion #167

Colorado Rockies - Todd Helton

2008 Topps Chrome Refractor #57

Los Angeles Dodgers - Steve Garvey

1975 Topps #140

San Diego Padres - Tony Gwynn

2011 Topps Kimball Champions #KC59

San Francisco Giants - Will Clark

1987 Fleer #269

Garvey, Gwynn, and Clark were all guys from my youth.  Helton was a career-long Rockie.  And Gonzalez was on my mind, because I've been drafting a post about home run hitters and he's part of it.


American League Central

Chicago White Sox - Frank Thomas

1996 Upper Deck V.J. Lovero Showcase #VJ15

Cleveland Indians - Manny Ramirez

1995 Leaf Limited Lumberjacks #14

Detroit Tigers - Kirk Gibson

1981 Fleer #481

Kansas City Royals - Dan Quisenberry

1986 Topps #50

Minnesota Twins - Rod Carew

1970 Kellogg's #47

More 80's and 90's guys.  Not sure why Puckett didn't pop into my head.  He was one of my favorite players back in the day.  The mind works in mysterious ways.


National League Central

Chicago Cubs - Ryne Sandberg

1991 Fleer Factory Set Pro-Vision #3

Cincinnati Reds - Pete Rose

1979 Topps #204

Milwaukee Brewers - Rollie Fingers

1985 Topps #750

Pittsburgh Pirates - Tony Pena

1984 Topps #645

St. Louis Cardinals - Vince Coleman

1986 Donruss #181

Even more 80's and 90's guys.  I'm happy that Pena and Coleman were the first guys I thought of for the respective teams, since both were favorites of mine in the 80's.


American League East

Baltimore Orioles - Cal Ripken Jr.

1992 Leaf Preview Gold #13

Boston Red Sox - Jim Rice

1975 Topps #616

New York Yankees - Rickey Henderson

1985 O-Pee-Chee #115

Tampa Bay Rays - BJ Upton

2005 Ultra Gold Medallion #208

Toronto Blue Jays - Dave Stieb

1980 Topps #77

Ugh.  I hate that Henderson was the first Yankee I thought of.  I'm also surprised with my Red Sox selection.  Sure I like Jim Rice, but I also like Carlton Fisk, Dwight Evans, Cecil Cooper, and Fred Lynn.  The Rays were the only team on this list that I struggled with.  It took about 1.2 seconds for Upton to pop into my head.


National League East

Atlanta Braves - Hank Aaron

1974 Topps #1

Miami Marlins - Ichiro Suzuki

2016 Stadium Club #102

New York Mets - Dwight Gooden

1986 Drake's Super Pitchers #36

Philadelphia Phillies - Pete Rose

1982 Donruss #1

Washington Nationals - Kurt Suzuki

2013 Topps Walmart Blue #208

The NL East might be rounding out this post, but remember... I actually started with the Nationals and worked my way up.  I surprised myself with the Suzukis.  Ichiro will always be associated by me with the Mariners and Kurt with the A's.  Yet when I got to both of those teams, I thought of different players.  Like I said earlier... the mind works in mysterious ways.

Possible Blog Bat-Around?  Some people left comments on Night Owl's post saying they'd try this out and post the results on their blog.  I hope people do.  I'd like to see the variety of names that pop up when card collectors think of different baseball franchises.

Well that's it for today.  Happy Thursday and sayonara!