Eh—if he gets discouraged Dale Murphy has some experience catching Niekro.  We can make it work.

I don’t know how you can have an all-time team of misfit idiosyncratic guys and not have Jimmy Piersall on it.  And I know you want to have knuckleballers, but hey, how can you keep Bill Lee off this team?

There’s a case to be made for Manny Ramirez as well, I guess.

Ryan Freel and Farney both feel left out.

Surely you can find a place in your pen for Al ‘The Mad Hungarian’ Hrabosky.  Not only is he a world-class oddball, but he has probably the most impressive facial hair of anyone in this crew!

You could really use another (real) back-up catcher, while King Kelly would catch sometimes anyway.

Who was the best ever at catching (or stopping) the knuckler?

cough cough wake cough

You want odd AND exciting? And intimidating as well? How about Ryne Duren? And anybody born in a town called Cazenovia in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin has to be good for a laugh.

OK, now that’s funny.

Seems to me that Cesar Tovar could be a utility player on your team. He once played all 9 positions in the same game. (Someone else may have done that as well, but I remember Tovar in particular. I know Buster Posey did it in college, but he isn’t eligible yet.)

And if you are looking for outrageous personalities, Rube Waddell has to be in your rotation. I know he was not a knuckleballer, but his strangeness should compensate, not to mention that he might actually give you a chance to win when he pitched. Of course, you might not be able to find him when his turn in the rotation came up.

Ah, Germany Schaefer. One of the funniest stories I ever read was in Ritter’s “The Glory of Their Times”. It was about the time Schaefer was called on to pinch hit, and it is one of those about which it is irrelevant whether or not it is true. It should be true.

Here is Ritter’s story as transcribed from his interview with Davy Jones:

“Well, Schaefer walked out there and just as he was about to step into the batter’s box he stopped, took off his cap, and faced the grandstand,
  ‘Ladies and gentlemenn,’ he announced, ‘you are now looking at Herman Schaefer, better known as Herman the Great, acknowledged by one and all to be the greatest pinch hitter in the world. I am now going to hit the ball into the left field bleachers. Thank you.’
  Then he turned around and stepped into the batter’s box. Of course, everybody’s giving him the old raspberry, because he never hit over two or three home runs in his life. But by golly, on the second ball Doc White pitched, he did just exactly what he said he would: he hit it right smack into the left field bleachers.
  Boy oh boy, you should have seen him. He stood at that plate until the ball cleared the fence, and then he jumped straight up in the air, tore down to first base as fast as his legs would carry him, and proceeded to slide head first into the bag. After that he jumped up, yelled ‘Schaefer leads at the quarter!’ and started for second.
  He slid into second-yelled ‘Schaefer leads at the half!’-and continued the same way into third and then home. After he slid into home he stood up and announced: ‘Schaefer wins by a nose!’ Then he brushed himself off, took off his cap, and walked over to the grandstand again.
  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I thank you for your kind attention.’ ”

Jones tells another story that he was on 3B and Schaefer on 1B when Schaefer flashed him a sign for a double steal. Schaefer stole 2B but Jones could not try to score because the throw did not go through. So on the next pitch, Schaefer let out a scream “Let’s try it again”, and stole back to 1B. Apparently it worked, because on the following pitch, he tried again, and this time Jones did score.