Shortest Player Names

A few days ago, I happened across a comment that I left on Night Owl’s 1971 Topps Mets Rookies post last year, where I wondered about how many players had one-syllable first and last names.

I checked through all the 1966-1970 baseball cards, and found just over 100 players, way more than I had expected. I started out with an idea to tile-post all their cards. As the list grew, that changed into just posting a list of the players.

Since it was over 100 names, I'm taking a different approach: Who has the shortest name? (I think 1980s' Pirates' catcher Ed Ott has that claim, but I’m just focusing on players from 1966-1970.)

I found eight people that could get the job done with SIX letters:

Actually, I’m going to disqualify Joey Jay, because nobody other than Topps ever referred to him as "Joe".

Extra credit to Gus Gil for the alliteration!



But wait! With only ONE additional letter, Eli Grba (GUR-ba) managed to squeeze in 2 more syllables.