If Queen Victoria played baseball: third base, rated 75

Queen Victoria as a baseball player: scouting report

Queen Victoria takes the hot corner, the position for someone who holds her ground. She came to the throne at eighteen in 1837 and reigned for sixty three years, at the time the longest reign in British history, so she would plant herself at third and not give up an inch. Third base asks for reactions more than range, and a woman who kept a detailed journal almost every day from her teenage years onward has the concentration to be ready for a scorching grounder on any pitch.

Her eye is the best mark on her card. A diarist who recorded the details of ministers, ceremonies and visitors for decades would study every pitcher she faced, and at the plate that means working counts and refusing to chase. Power is her other strength, which is a rare pairing with that kind of patience: once she gets a pitch she likes, she drives it into the gaps and over the fence. Contact is solid rather than elite, so expect walks and extra base hits more than a towering average.

Speed is the honest weakness, and her arm is on the light side for the long throw across the diamond, so she leans on positioning and a first baseman with a good scoop. If the infield gets crowded, first base costs her very little, and designated hitter keeps her bat in the lineup without asking her to field at all. A whole era carries her name, and she would carry the middle of an order. Take her in the middle rounds and bat her fourth or fifth.

Plays like A patient corner slugger who waits for her pitch

Put Queen Victoria in your lineup

12 rolls, nine hitters and a rotation, 162 games. Can you win 117? Free, no account.