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By now you've likely heard that, at roughly 5:30 pm tonight, football teams from the states of Colorado and Washington will square off in a football game most of America is expected to watch (for the commercials). If you're looking for some insightful observations on what will happen in today's contest, I might be the wrong guy to ask. To be honest, I'm more interested in the second day's action in the Caribbean Series.
If you'd like me to pick a winner based on an arbitrary and largely unrelated set of criteria, though, then this post was written with you in mind. I'm picking the Seahawks, mostly because of Geoff Jenkins and Lyle Overbay.
Jenkins and Overbay, you see, are two of the 13 players born in the state of Washington who have worn a Brewers uniform over the years. Here's the full list:
| Rk | Player | G | From | To | Pos | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Geoff Jenkins | 1234 | 1998 | 2007 | *79/HD | Olympia, WA |
| 2 | Lyle Overbay | 317 | 2004 | 2005 | *3/H | Centralia, WA |
| 3 | Bob Coluccio | 284 | 1973 | 1975 | *89/H7D | Centralia, WA |
| 4 | Marshall Edwards | 160 | 1981 | 1983 | /9H87D | Fort Lewis, WA |
| 5 | Chris Magruder | 157 | 2004 | 2005 | *H/978 | Tacoma, WA |
| 6 | Travis Ishikawa | 94 | 2012 | 2012 | /*H39 | Seattle, WA |
| 7 | Glendon Rusch | 70 | 2002 | 2003 | /*1H | Seattle, WA |
| 8 | David Riske | 69 | 2008 | 2010 | /*1 | Renton, WA |
| 9 | Steve Whitaker | 69 | 1969 | 1969 | /H79 | Tacoma, WA |
| 10 | Dana Eveland | 36 | 2005 | 2006 | /*1 | Olympia, WA |
| 11 | Rick Austin | 35 | 1975 | 1976 | /*1 | Seattle, WA |
| 12 | Ed Kirkpatrick | 29 | 1977 | 1977 | /*7HD3 | Spokane, WA |
| 13 | Bob Reynolds | 3 | 1971 | 1971 | /*1 | Seattle, WA |
Jenkins is third on the Brewers all-time list with 212 home runs, although he's only one long ball ahead of Ryan Braun (211). According to the 2010 Census (via Wikipedia), Centralia has just 16,336 residents but is the birthplace of a pair of former Brewers. See, aren't you glad you stopped by now? You learned something today.
The list of Brewers born in Colorado is a much lesser group:
| Rk | Player | G | From | To | Pos | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | James Mouton | 162 | 2000 | 2001 | /H879D | Denver, CO |
| 2 | Mark Knudson | 106 | 1986 | 1991 | *1 | Denver, CO |
| 3 | Chris Narveson | 92 | 2009 | 2013 | /*1 | Englewood, CO |
| 4 | Jack Lind | 26 | 1974 | 1975 | /*654HD3 | Denver, CO |
| 5 | Mark Johnson | 7 | 2004 | 2004 | /*2H | Wheat Ridge, CO |
Chris Narveson is probably the most valuable member of this group, and he's certainly the only one of these five to make a postseason appearance as a Brewer. That's something, at least: Neither Jenkins or Overbay have done that. And since we're using this ridiculous idea to predict a playoff game, I guess that's something to take into consideration.
Narveson has 26 career wins as a major league pitcher, mostly from 2010 (12) and 2011 (11). Geoff Jenkins hit 33 sac flies in his ten seasons as a Brewer. So there you have it: Today Seattle wins, 33-26.