With the passing of Bob Gibson, Will Leitch, most famous for being from Mattoon, put together his list of his all-time favorite St. Louis Cardinals. He had Gibson at number one. Not a surprise for men of my age or slightly older. Surprisingly, Rick Ankiel was number two on his list. He admitted it was Gibson and then no one was close for number two.

Seeing the list, however, got me thinking about my favorite Oakland Athletics. My list is similar. It is Rickey Henderson and then every one else. Still. Putting in as little thought as possible, here is my list.

1. Rickey Henderson
2. Carney Lansford
3. Dave Stewart
4. Barry Zito
5. Terry Steinbach
6. Dave Henderson
7. Rollie Fingers
8. Catfish Hunter
9. Eric Chavez
10. Matt Chapman
11. Ramon Laureano
12. Tim Hudson
13. Dennis Eckersly
14. Bob Welch
15. Tony Phillips
16. Miguel Tejada
17. Mark McGwire
18. Todd Van Poppel
19. Sean Doolittle’s twitter
20. Joe Rudi

Some of these were childhood heroes. Some are current or recent. And others predate me a tad but were the “legends” when I first became a fan. I’m sure I will remember someone within five minutes of posting this that I will be all “crap, how did I forget him, he should be like number eight”, or something. But, thinking things through before posting is not my style and we know this.