While vacationing recently, I was presented with a sports challenge, courtesy of my younger brother.

He asked me to name an all-time Pittsburgh Pirates team — the eight regular position players, a right-handed and left-handed starting pitcher, and a closer.

Sounds easy enough, right?

Here’s the catch.

None of the players on the team could have been teammates with another — ever.

For example, take Roberto Clemente as your right field and no other person who played for the Pirates from 1955 through 1972 is eligible. That knocks out Willie Stargell, Bill Mazeroski, Manny Sanguillen, Steve Blass, Vern Law, Elroy Face, Dave Giusti ... you get the drift.

A challenging task, indeed.

There’s a lot of ways to go on this one — actually, not as many ways as one might think — but here is the best Pirate team I could put together under that no-teammate rule:

Right-handed pitcher: Max Butcher, 1941-45. He was 95-106 in his big league career overall, but was a double-digit winner four times with the Pirates, posting a career-high 17 wins in 1941 with a 3.05 earned run average.

Left-handed pitcher: John Tudor, 1984. Prior to the ill-fated trade to St. Louis for George Hendrick, Tudor was 12-11 with a 3.27 ERA in his only year with the Pirates.

Closer: Roberto Hernandez, 2006. The hard-throwing right-hander amassed 326 saves in his big league career and posted a 2.93 ERA in his lone year with the Pirates. All of the Bucs’ legendary closers became ineligible as I pieced together my team.

Catcher: Jason Kendall, 1996-2004. He caught more games than any other Pirate and he played the game the way it should be played.

First base: Sid Bream, 1985-90. A true leader on that 1990 playoff team and a clutch hitter. Besides, he lives locally.

Second base: Phil Garner, 1977-81. Another big-time clutch hitter who was a key cog in the 1979 world championship run.

Shortstop: Honus Wagner, 1900-17. One of the five original inductees into the Hall of Fame and one of four Hall of Famers on my team.

Third base: Pie Traynor, 1920-35. Another Hall of Famer who was the star player on the Pirates’ 1925 and 1927 World Series teams.

Left field: Ralph Kiner, 1946-53. One of the greatest home run hitters ever and the lone bright spot during a dark time in Pirates history.

Center field: Andrew McCutchen, 2009-present. He’s already captured one league MVP award and if the Bucs get to a World Series any time soon, he’ll be the main reason why.

Right field: Roberto Clemente, 1955-72. I sacrificed plenty of other big names to get him on this team, but it had to be done.

Clemente’s name simply belongs on any all-time Pirate team named anywhere.

There are other directions one can take to complete this task, but trust me.

It ain’t easy.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle