Baseball Rushmores: Each MLB Team’s Top Four

Baseball Rushmore Criteria

OTH writers each cast a ballot, and fans collectively vote to complete one People’s Ballot. Readers are encouraged to follow @GoldenHalloFame on Twitter to look for notices of each club’s voting period.

For the purposes of this series, OTH is embracing the idea that modern franchises should be recognized as continuations of earlier clubs in the same town. For example, the Washington Nationals are treated as the rightful inheritors of the legacies of the Washington Senators and Washington Grays. These teams represented the District of Columbia in professional baseball. They played with Washington written proudly on their uniforms. They share a common fanbase that enjoyed successes and lamented failures.

This series of articles serves, in part, as an attempt to recapture the legacy of those earlier teams. OTH recognizes that while an owner may move the corporate structure, the legacy belongs to the fans and the city for which the team played.

The NBA and NFL have recognized the validity behind this line of thinking. The modern Charlotte Hornets inherited the legacy of the Hornets that moved to New Orleans. The modern Cleveland Browns inherited the legacy of the Browns that moved to Baltimore. Now Rob Manfred and MLB need to do the same.

For cities that fielded two teams in the shameful era of segregated ball, this series will consider both sides as part of the same club. Today, to a degree, major league clubs take a similar approach. The Washington Nationals, for instance, include Washington Homestead Grays players in their Ring of Honor, and most teams tip their caps to their city’s Negro League predecessors by donning their uniforms for Negro Leagues heritage games.

Baseball Rushmores So Far

• Arizona Diamondbacks
• Colorado Rockies
• Kansas City Royals
• Miami Marlins
• Milwaukee Brewers
• Oakland Athletics
• San Diego Padres
• Seattle Mariners
• Tampa Bay Rays
• Texas Rangers
• Toronto Blue Jays
• Washington Nationals

Baseball Rushmores Still to Come

• Atlanta Braves
• Baltimore Orioles
• Boston Red Sox
• Chicago Cubs
• Chicago White Sox
• Cincinnati Reds
• Cleveland Guardians
• Detroit Tigers
• Houston Astros
• Los Angeles Angels
• Los Angeles Dodgers
• Minnesota Twins
• New York Mets
• New York Yankees
• Philadelphia Phillies
• Pittsburgh Pirates
• Saint Louis Cardinals
• San Francisco Giants

Main image credit Embed from Getty Images