Atlanta Braves Oracle: six degrees of baseball separation

We need something a little more light-hearted today, so let’s check the baseball connections for some of our Atlanta Braves to players from way back in MLB history.

The Atlanta Braves have teammates.  Most of their teammates have been elsewhere in their careers and thus all of them also have a different set of teammates.

Multiply that four or five times and you get the picture: all baseball players are eventually connected to every other baseball player who has ever played the game.

It’s the same concept as postulated in the “six degrees of separation” theory – that adage where every person on earth can be connected to every other person in six steps or less by virtue of a chain of people they have met in their lives.

This concept has been made rather famous thanks to a couple of college students who created ‘The Oracle of Bacon‘, a computer model that finds links between any actor/actress ever named in a movie credit to the center of the Hollywood universe:  Kevin Bacon.

As an example, you might think that you’ve come up with something clever by trying to see just how far apart Kevin Bacon might be to the ancient silent film star Charlie Chaplin.  Surely with at least half a century of distance between them, there would have to be perhaps 5 or 6 steps needed to connect this pair.

Nah.  It’s two. 

According to the Oracle…

• Charlie Chaplin appears in the movie “A Countess from Hong Kong” alongside actress Tippi Hedren.
• Hedren was in the movie “Jayne Mansfield’s Car… with Kevin Bacon.

Turns out Bacon was an inspired choice for the ‘fulcrum’ of this project:  he (currently) has 94 acting credits, 9 as a producer, 5 as a director, and several more in other roles.  He was busy, and that meant “connections”.

The folks over at baseball-reference.com actually commissioned one of the Oracle of Bacon founders to do a similar project for them:  this has become The Oracle of Baseball.

Same concept… just applied to baseball.  But it’s not the ‘Oracle of Yogi Berra’:  you have to supply two names and they’ll figure out the rest.

Y’all can have some fun for a few minutes in trying this out for yourselves, but in the meantime, here are a few Atlanta Braves examples.

Oracle of the Braves

BOBBY COX to the winningest manager of all time:  CONNIE MACK

• Bobby Cox played with Al Downing (’68 Yankees)… and on this date, that reference is particularly interesting!
• Al Downing played with Yogi Berra (’63 Yankees)… figured Yogi wouldn’t be too far away.
• Yogi Berra played with Hugh Casey (’49 Yankees)
• Hugh Casey played with Charlie Grimm (’35 Cubs)
• Charlie Grimm played with Harry Davis (’16 Athletics)
• Harry Davis played with Connie Mack (1896 Pirates)

Note: connections are only for players – they don’t extend to managers (otherwise we’d have a lot shorter chain here since Mack managed the Philadelphia A’s from 1901-1950).

HANK AARON to BABE RUTH

You’d think this would be an easier match – and you’d be right – but there’s a surprise at the end:

• Hank Aaron played with Bobby Thompson (’57 Braves)
• Bobby Thompson played with Ray Mueller (’49 Giants)
• Ray Mueller played with Babe Ruth (‘35 Boston Braves)

Yeah – Ruth plays with Boston for all of 28 games and that’s the connection getting him to Aaron the quickest!

Let’s get a little crazy here for one more:  TOM GLAVINE to KID NICHOLS, two of the best pitchers (both Hall of Famers) in the franchise history of our Atlanta Braves:

• Tom Glavine played with Jim Morrison (’88 Braves)
• Jim Morrison played with Minnie Minoso (’80 White Sox…and Minoso technically played in five decades)
• Minoso played with Phil Cavarretta (’54 White Sox)
• Cavaretta played with Bob O’Farrell (’34 Cubs)
• O’Farrell played with Mickey Doolin (’16 Cubs)
• Doolin completes the chain:  played with Kid Nichols at the end of his career while a member of the 1905 Phillies.

If you opt to play with this a bit, you’ll run into a lot of neat baseball history.  You’ll also run into some key players who were around for quite a while:  Bartolo Colon, Gaylord Perry, Berra, Aaron … and even well-traveled players like Octavio Dotel since they have lots of connections.

One more thing: there was a pitcher of note born in 1895 who played one major league game for Connie Mack and his Philadelphia A’s:  Eddie Bacon.

Is he related to Kevin Bacon?  Maybe… Kevin’s Dad was Edmund Bacon (b. 1910 in Philly… also Kevin’s home town), so there’s a fair chance they were cousins – especially since they all had connections to Philadelphia.  Alas, the internet falls a bit short here.

So:  this is obviously for the entertainment value alone, but it’s fun to know that tools like this are out there… just in case you’ve got an itch to find out how some Atlanta Brave is connected to the past, present, or future.