Two major leaguers who hail from Kansas will be on hand to witness a melancholy moment in baseball history: the last ball thrown at Yankee Stadium – the "House that Ruth Built."

Johnny Damon, a native of Fort Riley, and Karl Farnsworth, originally from Wichita, will be there when the lights are doused for the final time.

The baseball cathedral that hosted the likes of Mantle and Dimaggio and Gehrig and Berra and Maris, not to mention Babe Ruth himself, is being replaced with a new stadium next door.

Damon, a former Royal, is the Yankee’s lead-off man and, as usual, is batting over .300. Farnsworth is among the team’s most prolific relief pitchers and has a 3.43 ERA.

Farnsworth and Damon are playing on baseball’s biggest stage, in New York, but elsewhere there are several other big leaguers who hail from Kansas.

• Tony Clark, a power-hitting first baseman and a native of Newton, has enjoyed a stellar big league career, mashing 244 homeruns in the past 13 years. Clark currently is seeing part-time duty for the Arizona Diamondbacks, who lead the NL’s Western Division.

Two Wichita natives, both of whom attended Wichita State University, also are enjoying solid big league careers.

• Mike Pelfrey, a starter for the New York Mets, is 8-6 this year with a 3.81 ERA. His fellow WSU alum, Nate Robertson, is part of the Detroit Tigers starting rotation, and is 6-8 this year with a 5.69 ERA.

• Another Kansas native, Joey Devine of Junction City, also is finding success as a big league pitcher. With the Oakland A’s this season, Devine has racked up a 3.1 record with a 1.23 ERA this season as a reliever.

• Two other native Kansans are bench players for major league teams. Andy LaRoche of Fort Scott is a part-time third baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Travis Metcalf of Manhattan is also a third baseman who sees limited duty with the Texas Rangers.

Although there are some stars among the current crop of Kansans in the major leagues, perhaps no Kansan will ever eclipse the accomplishments of the most famous baseball player ever to hail from the state – Walter “Big Train” Johnson.

The Hall of Famer from Humboldt recorded 417 wins – second in history only to Cy Young – from 1907 to 1927. He also struck out 3,509 hitters, the most in history until another pitcher, ironically also with a rail inspired nickname, Nolan Ryan (The Ryan Express), broke the record 55 years later.

According to the Baseball Almanac, fellow Hall-of-Famer Ty Cobb - not a man given to dispensing many kind words - was awestruck by Johnson and the velocity with which he could propel a baseball.

"On August 2, 1907, I encountered the most threatening sight I ever saw in the ball field,” Cobb recounted. “He was a tall, shambling galoot of about 20, with arms so long they hung far out of his sleeves, and with a sidearm delivery that looked unimpressive at first glance…The first time I faced him, I watched him take that easy windup. And then something went past me that made me flinch. The thing just hissed with danger. We couldn't touch him... every one of us knew we'd met the most powerful arm ever turned loose in a ball park."

  The Week in Review