Among the best of the best

Winning the 1993 Eastern League championship on the road at Canton

The juggernauts that are the 1993 Harrisburg Senators are honored 23 years ago today by Minor League Baseball, which names the ’93 Senators as the 73rd best minor league team in the 20th century.

Managed by Jim Tracy, all the Senators do in 1993 is win 100 games between the regular season and playoffs en route to the Class AA Eastern League championship.

Jim Tracy, left, with Cliff Floyd in 1993

Twenty-two of the 41 players from that team eventually reach the major leagues with eight of them – first baseman-left fielder Cliff Floyd, center fielder Rondell White, outfielder Curtis Pride, and pitchers Miguel Batista, Joey Eischen, Kirk Rueter, Ugueth Urbina and Gabe White – playing there for at least 10 seasons.

Having 22 players reach the majors from one minor league team is astounding.

Having eight of them play there for a decade, well, no other team among the MiLB’s top 100 teams of the 20th century can make that claim.

“I don’t know who these other 72 teams are,” Tracy later says of the rankings that place his 1993 team at No. 73 all-time, “but we’ll play a short series against any of them, and we’d win most of them.

“I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here. That’s just how good this team was.”