Hitting The Cutoff Man

If you're like me, baseball and wasting time on the Internet are two of your favorite things. As such, Baseball-Reference.com is a godsend.

I've spent an embarrassing amount of time playing around on that site in the past, but that was even before I stumbled across the oracle feature, which essentially lets you play the baseball version of the six degrees from Kevin Bacon game. You put in the names of any two major league players in history and it connects them through guys they have played with in as few steps as possible.

As you can imagine, it's not too difficult to spend way too many of your potentially productive hours typing in any fun combination you can think of. I'll save you a little trouble by showing some the ones I tried out. In general, I was surprised at how few degrees a lot of these required.

From Cy Young to two-time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum: 7 degrees
Young to Nick Altrock ('03 Boston Americans) to Cecil Travis ('33 Senators) to Early Wynn ('41 Senators) to Russ Nixon ('57 Indians) to Graig Nettles ('67 Twins) to Randy Johnson ('88 Expos) to Lincecum ('09 Giants)

From famous old pitcher Satchel Paige to current old pitcher Jamie Moyer: 3 degrees
Paige to Blue Moon Odom ('65 Athletics) to Goose Gossage ('76 White Sox) to Moyer ('88 Cubs)

From current pitcher Billy Buckner to former first baseman Bill Buckner: 2 degrees
Billy to Tom Gordon ('09 Diamondbacks) to Bill ('88 Royals)

From consecutive games played record holder Cal Ripken, Jr. to former record holder Lou Gehrig: 4 degrees
Ripken to Harold Baines ('97 Orioles) to Minnie Minoso ('80 White Sox) to Joe Gordon ('49 Indians) to Gehrig ('39 Yankees)

From guy who inspires hate Alex Rodriguez to guy who hated a lot Ty Cobb: 5 degrees
Rodriguez to Dennis Martinez ('97 Mariners) to Brooks Robinson ('77 Orioles) to George Kell ('56 Orioles) to Al Simmons ('44 Athletics) to Cobb ('28 Athletics)

From Hall of Famer/ESPN analyst Joe Morgan to guy whom he thinks wrote Moneyball/A's GM Billy Beane: 2 degrees
Morgan to Rusty Staub ('63 Colt .45's) to Beane ('84 Mets)

From barrier breaker Jackie Robinson to hate speech spewer John Rocker: 4 degrees
Robinson to Erv Palica ('47 Dodgers) to Brooks Robinson ('55 Orioles) to Dennis Martinez ('76 Orioles) to Rocker ('98 Braves)

From 3-foot-7 Eddie Gaedel to 6-foot-10 Randy Johnson: 4 degrees
Gaedel to Bob Turley ('51 Browns) to Al Downing ('62 Yankees) to Jeffrey Leonard ('77 Dodgers) to Johnson ('90 Mariners)

Follow Hitting The Cutoff Man on Twitter at HitTheCutoff