A Plea for Better Nicknames in Baseball
by U-God on Oct 27, 2011 1:10 PM CDT
Email
Print
There is a problem. It has existed for a while. Part of me wants to blame Alex Rodriguez, but it's not really his fault. Maybe it's more fair to blame his ancestors, most specifically the first ones to name their son Rodrigo. But really, the blame lies with us. And by us, I mean both the media and and the fans. For the most part, baseball nicknames are horribly lazy abominations. "Oh, his name is Alex Rodriguez? We shall call him A-Rod. We shall continue this overall execrable practice with other talented hitters. Hanley Ramirez? Ha! More like Han-Ram. Manny Ramirez? Man-Ram (which actually kind of makes me giggle. His nickname is like the lamest Master of the Universe ever)".
Those nicknames are horrible. Recently my classmates have decided to give me the moniker "Primi". Their Kansas accents tend to contort it into sounding like I was a baby born too soon (I was not. I stayed in late). I always wanted a nickname, but now I know how Evan Longoria feels. Shortening your last name sucks. Whatever happened to the days of Death to Flying Things or Old Aches and Pains (You're starting to sound like Andy Rooney. Stop sounding like Andy Rooney)?
Maybe it was Chris Berman and his god awful puns and need to be clever that killed things. Maybe it has something to do with journalism tending to be less colorful, like Jim pointed out while researching his Cooperstown papers. Maybe things weren't that great all along. Stan "The Man" Musial? Pretty lame nickname for such a great hitter. Maybe we're trying too hard. We each try to be the next one to come up with the next great player nickname (Slash for Alexei Ramirez is still the worst one ever suggested). Even Hawk has grown lazy. We used to have a world populated with Big Hurts, El Caballos, and Deacons. We now live with a Jake-Meister.
I'm enjoying the unintentionally hilarious ones, joyfully caused by language barriers and confusion. Jose Valverde is a big potato (Papa Grande). Ben Zobrist is a skunk (Zorilla). My train of thought appears to be lost in my pathology notes. I will not call Dustin Pedroia "The Laser Show". I hate him. I will however continue to call Jacoby Ellsbury "Tacoby Ellsbury", because it is hilarious and not racist even though it totally sounds like it should be.
Expansion! That has to be it! Everyone had nicknames back in the olden days. Then we added too many teams at the cost of our nickname souls. The Devil gave us Tropicana Field and Coors Field, but at what cost? The World Series may end tonight. Winter is coming. This is what I wrote about. Odin help us all.
Yes, this is for you JR. Enjoy it.
109 comments
|
1 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Tacoby Bellsbury.
Whales! Squids! Sharks! They're everywhere! Hello, I am Poseidon! Now, when people told me I was crazy that thinly sliced roast beef would be a delicious fast-food option, I knew it was the greatest idea, and you can thank me later for Arby's.
by Jim Margalus on Oct 27, 2011 1:15 PM CDT reply actions 2 recs
that's awesome. he loves taco bell!!
Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be.
by MarketMaker on Oct 28, 2011 10:59 AM CDT up reply actions
Slash for Alexei Ramirez is still the worst one ever suggested
hee.
WU got his ass handed to him by the Shit Rooster, of all people! Priceless.
Chiburb is an assclown. A real life loser and internet bore.
Mick11's SBN profile.
Thanks, Andy.
WU got his ass handed to him by the Shit Rooster, of all people! Priceless.
Chiburb is an assclown. A real life loser and internet bore.
Mick11's SBN profile.
by Chiburb on Oct 27, 2011 1:38 PM CDT reply actions 1 recs
Hee.
The policeman who jumps from a bridge to a plane is Detective John McClane, a.k.a. Bruce Willis. He’s just the star of the whole movie series and stuff, no big deal or anything. -Cruiser
Off the top of my head, here are the White Sox with nicknames
Alexei (the Missile)
Dayan (the Tank and Jackin’ Dayan while his arm is the Dayan Cannon)
Konerko (Kong)
Dunn (Donkey)
Beckham (Bacon)
Rios (Sand dancer)
Who am I missing?
castro is albondiga.
granted, i am the only one who calls him that but i will never give up trying to make it stick.
(i guess some call him blastro which is just lame.)
"michael gilhaney is an example of a man that is nearly banjaxed from the principal of the atomic theory. would it astonish you to hear that he is nearly half a bicycle?" ~~ sergeant pluck
For the most part, those are only nicknames here.
I’m talking about the widely used ones.
"Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"
Not to mention Tank(s?).
And Big Donkey is baseball-wide.
The policeman who jumps from a bridge to a plane is Detective John McClane, a.k.a. Bruce Willis. He’s just the star of the whole movie series and stuff, no big deal or anything. -Cruiser
Former player
Thome: Gentleman Masher.
Has always been one of my favs.
isn't konerko "the king"?
alexei is the cuban missile. thats a good one.
but i agree ugod. the nickname industry is in serious decline. i think it started with jennifer lopez right? J-Lo… thats when everyone started doing that lame ass shit.
Kenwo4life=ratings. Just call me Mr. USA Today.
by KenWo4LiFe on Oct 27, 2011 2:17 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
Konerko as the King is a good one
And it comes from within the clubhouse which is always a plus. But it lacks traction with fans. King Konerko has a solid baseball feel to it (hat tip to King Kelly for that I guess). Maybe a great mustache would help.
With 19th C. nicknames on the brain
I could easily get behind Buehrle being called Hoss.
Reserved in Chicago for Marian Hossa.
The policeman who jumps from a bridge to a plane is Detective John McClane, a.k.a. Bruce Willis. He’s just the star of the whole movie series and stuff, no big deal or anything. -Cruiser
this.
and it was mildly funny when manuel was calling him hollywood paul.
by obnoxious american on Oct 28, 2011 8:12 AM CDT up reply actions
Top 5 power hitters in da game are:
Dayan, Dayan, Dayan, Dayan, and Dayan.
by Lorenzo Barcelo on Oct 27, 2011 3:53 PM CDT up reply actions
I've been pushing
Hire Fire as DV’d nick forever
So fast he could hit a ball up the middle and it would hit him in the ass sliding into second.
by colintj on Oct 27, 2011 4:09 PM CDT via mobile up reply actions
I've been pushing
Hot Fire as DV’d nick forever
So fast he could hit a ball up the middle and it would hit him in the ass sliding into second.
by colintj on Oct 27, 2011 4:09 PM CDT via mobile up reply actions
Easy mothafuckin Heat
best nickname we’ve come up with
So fast he could hit a ball up the middle and it would hit him in the ass sliding into second.
by colintj on Oct 27, 2011 4:08 PM CDT via mobile up reply actions
The nicknames usually come from the industry
the industry is not exactly creative. Look at the names of the teams in MLB. Horrible, passive and bland. Also, U-Gawd, you are not allowed to hate on Pedroia, he married a girl from Elgin. I played little league and high school ball with her brother.
yeah.
the problem is the masses perpetuate the dumbest of media creation.
by obnoxious american on Oct 28, 2011 8:13 AM CDT up reply actions
His nickname is like the lamest Master of the Universe ever
Lamer than Mekaneck?
a VERY AVERAGE Sox Machine refugee
Totally.
"Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"
wait, is this a bad copy of Juggernaut?
It's 106 miles to Chicago, we have a full tank of gas, 1/2 pack of cigarettes...it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.
Heard $2m-$2.5 million cap per team for int'l signing $ on table in MLB labor talks. Unclear if cap would apply to all countries or DR only.
http://twitter.com!/MelissaSeguraSI/status/129623694816444416
you left out the method of simply sticking a "y" at the end of a name
which is awful and probably the most prevalent. they seem to do that in england too, but then they also have the one where they replace most of the letters in a name with “azza”, so paul gascoine becomes “gazza” and wayne rooney becomes “wazza”. no idea how that started. maybe hoodlight (or craig) could enlighten me.
"michael gilhaney is an example of a man that is nearly banjaxed from the principal of the atomic theory. would it astonish you to hear that he is nearly half a bicycle?" ~~ sergeant pluck
I guess there's always been an element of laziness to some nicknames.
Have to think either Danks or Thornton would have ended up being called Lefty 70 years ago. If Danks didn’t get lefty he would have ended up with Tex.
Nicknames were also more common culturally back when I think. My dad’s friends in high school were Punchy, Four Eyes, Big Snake and Little Snake.
i think the 'azza' bit was a geordie thing.
hence ‘gazza’, then rooney was the next precociously talented idiot to come along, so he got that one too.
soccer has generally been poor when it comes to nicknames.
zinedine zidane = zizou.
roberto baggio = the divine ponytail (though, as with everything, it does sound better in italian = il divin codino)
i guess the most famous nickname of them all, maybe even beating out g.h. ruth would be the one owned by edison arantes do nascimento.
i call him wanye
like kanye west. i also call shane west shanye west for similar reasons.
"Sportsmanship is just loser talk for losing."
by boyonthedock on Oct 28, 2011 11:28 AM CDT up reply actions
The only place I have ever been called Scottie or Scotty
is on a playing field. Even on my softball team these fucking idiots call me Scottie. (Incidentally, my softball team has not played in three weeks due to rain, which really we didn’t have much but the people who care for the fields are lazy, fat, drunks. We play a doubleheader tonight, godwilling, another one next week Nov. 3rd and the Tournament is Nov. 10th. fun.fun.fun, disheartening)
i enjoy the dizzee rascal version of that song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCvxsmXYDyA
“they call me rudeboy, they call me oi, they call me mate”
There are some good one's out there
Roy “Doc” Hallady
Tim “The Freak” Lincecum
Pat “The Bat” Burrell (though not anymore)
Pablo “Kung Fu Panda” Sandoval
Brian “T-Rex” Fuentes
Sean “The Mayor” Casey
Freddy “Chief” Garcia
Joakim “The Mexecutioner” Soria
Adrian “Supermex” Gonzales
Granted they are not totally awesome like Jeffery “Penitentiary Face” Leonard, but they are pretty good. But most nick names are lazy combination of 1st and last name.
Soria doesn't like being called the Mexecutioner.
"Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"
He doesn't want such a violent name associated with his homeland on account of the mass violence of the past year.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/sports/2011/02/24/joakim-soria-mexicutioner/
"Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"
Past Year? That state has been killin like a villain since Pancho Villa
"His Load got Sloppy" Colintj
by DrEmilioLizardo on Oct 28, 2011 2:29 PM CDT up reply actions
three-fingers is a pretty stupid nickname given that he had four-fingers.
i understand the thumb is often buried elsewhere in wrigleyville, but they should still remember to count it.
A Mariners fan friend of mine calls Brandon League "ratboy."
Sometimes tattoo ratboy, but I think the tattoos are implied. He used to call Miguel Batista “beluga tits” but he doesn’t come up in conversation too often these days.
by mechanical turk on Oct 27, 2011 4:38 PM CDT up reply actions
You see those are good nicknames
Nicknames should be somewhat derogatory. For example—Theriot = Incest Weasel
I vote Alex Rios be nicknamed Ole Dollar Signs
Dunn can be L’il Wiffer.
Lillibridge can be Dumbo or White Will Smith
by joewho112 on Oct 27, 2011 4:51 PM CDT up reply actions 3 recs
There was a guy in highschool that we called the 'Big Wig'.
Digger got to leave her classes five minutes early because in middle school some girls discovered her "digging’ into herself in a bathroom stall. There was a guy named Rob LeGue. He fancied himself a badaas but he fought my friend Mel in the hallways (Mel drove the ‘Mel Camino’) and he shit his pants (he wore those huge raver pants from the mid 90’s) and the turd fell to the floor. Poor guy was called Rob LePoo until his parents moved him to Arizona. He tried to explain that it happened because Mel hit him in his kidney…dumbass.
Dude.
Kidneys are where poo comes from.
"Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"
beluga tits is an anagram of miguel bautista, or close or something right?
"Sportsmanship is just loser talk for losing."
by boyonthedock on Oct 28, 2011 11:34 AM CDT up reply actions
The context of "Slash" is forgotten.
But I am happy that it lives in infamy.
FU-G.
The sun on the balcony is almost unbearable, worse than the booing fans in Chicago shedding miserable light on his failures at work.
The context was his ability to play multiple positions ala Kordell Stewart, no?
"Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"
I'm betting that time filters down the best
nicknames to at least some degree (I.e. no one knows as many shitty bands from 50 years ago as they do today) but I agree otherwise. Nicknaming is art.
So fast he could hit a ball up the middle and it would hit him in the ass sliding into second.
by colintj on Oct 27, 2011 4:57 PM CDT via mobile reply actions
Where is the other quote mark?
Finish your thought
It came from afar and traveled sedately on, a shrug of eternity
Tim "Call Me Rock" Raines
Nuff said.
WU got his ass handed to him by the Shit Rooster, of all people! Priceless.
Chiburb is an assclown. A real life loser and internet bore.
Mick11's SBN profile.
I just use two nicknames
“Fuck yeah” if the player actually did something positive. “dumbass” most of the other times.
Fuck yeah Konerko!
Dumbass Rios
"Good teams win games. Bad teams have meetings."
by BobbySouthSide on Oct 27, 2011 5:47 PM CDT via iPhone app reply actions
Speaking of dumbasses
Don't smile at me like that! That's not even a smile, it's just a bunch of teeth playing with my mind!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Page
The policeman who jumps from a bridge to a plane is Detective John McClane, a.k.a. Bruce Willis. He’s just the star of the whole movie series and stuff, no big deal or anything. -Cruiser
by Uribe Down on Oct 27, 2011 5:50 PM CDT reply actions 1 recs
He was a visionary in being gay
Harvey Milk? Oscar Wilde? Psssh.
It came from afar and traveled sedately on, a shrug of eternity
Bob Seger wrote "Turn the Page"
about this. All about trying to use Christianity to convert Joe back to hetero. A documentary was to follow, but Dennis DeYoung bought the rights and killed the deal. A shame.
The sun on the balcony is almost unbearable, worse than the booing fans in Chicago shedding miserable light on his failures at work.
One of my favorite nicknames of all time is
Dennis “oil can” Boyd
Where the white women at?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGQ-ISsDm8M
My favorite.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mulcahu01.shtml
Whales! Squids! Sharks! They're everywhere! Hello, I am Poseidon! Now, when people told me I was crazy that thinly sliced roast beef would be a delicious fast-food option, I knew it was the greatest idea, and you can thank me later for Arby's.
is this the game thread?
"michael gilhaney is an example of a man that is nearly banjaxed from the principal of the atomic theory. would it astonish you to hear that he is nearly half a bicycle?" ~~ sergeant pluck
Russell "Rusty" Kuntz
"Good teams win games. Bad teams have meetings."
by BobbySouthSide on Oct 27, 2011 7:55 PM CDT via iPhone app reply actions
Glass Bulldog for Peavy?
We play on the "bad" side of town, we were supposedly cursed, and we wear black. Let's play.
Beat our rivals tonight in game two!
Went yard twice! Late night tonight! Go rangers! At the same tavern where I was when White Sox won six years ago! My buddy is from texas gonna douse him with two pitchers same thing that happened to me six years ago. I had a two day blackout. Missed the parade
It came from afar and traveled sedately on, a shrug of eternity
Some nicknames in here are better than others, but it's still pretty sick for a baseball rap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFX92ALqxlk
"That baseball is the smartest thing out on that field." —Hawk Harrelson
This game is amazing!
Score two for crackheads around america!
It came from afar and traveled sedately on, a shrug of eternity
"Sting" begs to differ.
The sun on the balcony is almost unbearable, worse than the booing fans in Chicago shedding miserable light on his failures at work.
by winningugly on Oct 28, 2011 12:35 PM CDT up reply actions
99.7% of nicknames are all horrible.
there’s the big hurt, and then who cares.
by obnoxious american on Oct 28, 2011 8:21 AM CDT reply actions
Walt "No Neck" Williams.
Enough said. 99.6%.
The sun on the balcony is almost unbearable, worse than the booing fans in Chicago shedding miserable light on his failures at work.
by winningugly on Oct 28, 2011 12:35 PM CDT up reply actions
I know.
http://davidsonpcd.hubpages.com/hub/Walter-No-Neck-Williams
The sun on the balcony is almost unbearable, worse than the booing fans in Chicago shedding miserable light on his failures at work.
I'm a Hamm's fighter.
"Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Related FanPosts on South Side Sox
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
FanShots
Quick hits of video, photos, quotes, chats, links and lists that you find around the web.
Recent FanShots
In Association With
Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports
- Please hold: Indians’ Joe Smith jumps the gun on relief appearance
- Local radio host honors Cubs’ Tony Campana with parody song
- Roy Halladay bobblehead with glove on wrong hand selling on MLB.com
- Will Smith shows why making your big-league debut at Yankee Stadium is less than ideal
- Steinbrenners selling the Yankees? Family denies New York Daily News report
