Benetti: White Sox having a ball with all things Garcia
If the White Sox outfield were a slot machine on tax day, it would have spilled coins all over the Target Field lawn. It read:
Garcia Garcia Garcia
Willy, Leury and Avisail, starting together, in surname harmony. They've since done it again, but April 15th was the first time in MLB history that a team's starting outfield had the same last name.
Interestingly, none of the record-setting Garcias (Gar3ia for short, if you're so inclined) began his professional career with the White Sox. Willy signed with the Pirates out of the Dominican Republic in April of 2010. Three years before, Leury went to the Rangers from the same country. Five months prior to that, Avisail, a Venezuelan, got his first contract with the Tigers.
All of this made me wonder about the history of Garcias in Major League Baseball. So I did some digging through the handy, omniscient baseball-reference.com. According to B-R (with the possibility of a Garcia or two outside of the site's records):
• 39 players with the last name Garcia have entered at least one MLB game. That leaves the White Sox currently with roughly 7.7% of the all-time Garcias in Major League Baseball.
• Overall, the White Sox have employed six of the 39 Garcias (15.4%) in history. The first three were pitchers. Mike was the first hurling Sox Garcia in 1960 (for 15 games), then 1991's Ramón (for 16 games on the mound), then Freddy for two stints beginning in 2004 before the current threesome.
This is not good enough for the all-time lead in Garcias. This trophy is polished by the Orioles, who have featured seven Garcias (Chico, Kiko, Jesse, Karim (twice), Luis, Freddy and, most recently, Jason. The O's Garcias span from 1954 to 2015.
• The Sox share second place with Atlanta at six Garcias.
• The Marlins own a runaway lead in Garcias per year. Florida/Miami has suited up five Garcia players since the franchise was born in 1993. That's a fifth of a Garcia per year.
• Excluding Gar3ia, two Garcias have played together on the same team six times. One of those occurrences is happening right now in Atlanta with outfielder Adonis and pitcher Jaime.
• The Sox version is the first time three Garcias have ever played together.
• Of the current franchises, according to my count, the Red Sox, Cubs, Rockies, Twins, Athletics, Giants and Rays have never had a Garcia play for them.
• This list shrinks to six if you include Ramón - the earliest Garcia - who pitched in four games in 1948 for the Washington Senators (who became the Twins 13 years thereafter).
• The most frequent first name for an MLB Garcia is Luis. There are three. They have two combined MLB hits. There's a shortstop for Detroit in '99 who has one hit, an outfielder for Baltimore in '02 who has one hit, and the current Philadelphia pitcher who, to this point, has zero hits.
• There's been a Daniel and a Danny, two Freddys (who both played in MLB in '99 but never faced one another), a Miguel and two Mikes and a pair of Ramons.
There. You're a hit at your next party.
• Jason Benetti is a play-by-play broadcaster for the Chicago White Sox, as well as ESPN. Follow him on Twitter @jasonbenetti.