FanPost

What's your shortest possible All-Time Cub Degrees of Separation list?

Al's most recent Historical Sleuthing had me thinking ...

He figured out an image taken from a spring training game in which Ernie Banks played against SF Giant Chris Speier, who would, late in his career, be teammates with Ryne Sandberg.

There are some folks on here that REALLY know their Cub rosters, so I will pose a challenge to you (for nothing but bragging rights), to become the first person who is able to identify the SHORTEST link between the Cubs of 1876 and the Cubs of 2018.

In other words, who is a player from 1876 that had a long Cub career, and then pick a player who that person played with (at the end of their career) who then went on to have a long Cub career of their own (and so on and so forth until you get to the 2018 roster).

To avoid arguments later, let's say that two linked players have to have been listed the same box score for at least one regular season game, and stretches of time as a Cub must be continual. For example, if Fergie Jenkins is in your chain of players, you could surely count him as a Cub from 1966-1973, and you could also count him as a Cub from 1982-1983, but he would NOT qualify to fill a link in your chain from 1966-1983.

EXAMPLE THREAD (I am intentionally picking players that likely wouldn't help create a short all time degree of separation string ... and no I did not check box scores to make sure they played in the same games ... this is just to give you an idea of what I'm looking for):

Leon Durham 1981-1988 < Damon Berryhill 1987-1991 < Frank Castillo 1991-1997

Even if you're not going to do the research, you can also take a guess as to how long this thread is going to be. I'll be very impressed if someone can complete the thread in 15 players or fewer. What do you think?

I get it ... this kind of exercise isn't for everybody ... but for those that like this kind of stuff, it's a good holiday time waster! Good luck to all who participate!

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