Carlos Gomez's nickname...
by serq on Apr 21, 2008 3:15 PM EDT
31 comments
...is putrid, IMO. What do you think? Feel free to leave alternate suggestions. I don't think that someone whose full name is 3 syllables really needs a nickname, anyway. Fanposts have to be at least 75 words? Why? What if one just want to ask a question and make a poll? I guess we can use half the words to ask questions like these in those cases. Or just type random stuff. Or something.
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Now Howard
Gardy was the first one to call him Go Go. Howard started trying to call hi GoGomez after that.
I don’t mind it. I personally would prefer either “The Jet” or “I be fun”. But I’ll use Go Go around here until everyone else starts using something better.
"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot
HTML tags apparently don't work in the poll choices
So no strikethrough, but I did correct this.
Oh the days gone by
In the old days they used to have much better names.
Today it is crap like A-Rod, K-Rod, KG, KMart, F-Mart. At least Hafner is Pronk, which is a ton better than T-H, though I’m not clear on what a “pronk” is. Big Papi ain’t bad.
But, oh for the days of Catfish, Cool Papa, Louisiana Lightning, or Bob Love of the Chicago Bulls, who was called “Butter” or “Butterbeam”. Chet the Jet and Earl the Pearl.
It’s too caught up in marketing now. And the names are too functional, homonyms usually, or initials.
But, I think a naming contest is a good idea. You kind of have to know a kid like Gomez to understand what would fit. He seems to smile a lot, and he’s thin like a reed. So some variation off of “whip” might work… or “blink”, as in gone in a blink.
But, in nick-naming, one strives for a quality that is thematic or emblematic rather than pedantic, and like a good line in a poem, it should be a snug fit.
Hafner
Pronk =
PRoject dONKey
Project because he was a project when he was acquired from Texas and donkey because he runs like a donkey.
At least that’s what I’ve heard.
Nicknames
I think people in 20 years will have the same complaints from then to now. You named like 1 person from each decade. If I’m looking for nicknames of current players, we have:
Big Papi
Big Hurt
Pudge
The Big Unit
King Felix
Pronk
The Mayor
Big Donkey
Doc (Halladay)
El Duque
El Caballo
Flyin’ Hawaiian
Just like the walks to school were more difficult, the nicknames weren’t any better or more common back then – they have just been remembered better.
by Diggity Dino on Apr 22, 2008 10:36 AM EDT up reply actions
Randy Johnson
The Big Unit is by far my favorite. It’s funny on its own, but the fact that it is loosely synonomous to his real name is even funnier.
My favorite
You forgot “Three Finger” Brown. Of course, I don’t want Carlos Gomez to qualify for a name like that, but it’s both catchy and descriptive, which is the hallmark of a good nickname. Also, I like “Pronk”, because Hafner looks like a guy you’d call “Pronk”.
“The Big Hurt” is Hawk Harrelson’s (hey, there’s another one!) only positive contribution to society.
“Pudge” shouldn’t count, because it was stolen from Carlton Fisk. I feel the same way about LaDainian Tomlinson’s use of “LT”, which is reserved for Lawrence Taylor as long as there is a working copy of Tecmo Bowl on the planet.
"There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
I never understood...
...why we couldn’t just call LaDainian Tomlinson LDT. Initials-as-a-nickname won’t make anyone pine for the old days, but it’s functional and not nearly as annoying as the (first letter of first name)-(first syllable of last name) nicknames that are so common now. I’m not much to complain about nicknames, but some of them just seem forced. Not everyone needs a nickname. Maybe we should wait until Gomez can grow some hair on his face before we get too worried about his nickname.
Oh god do I despise that nickname. With all my heart. I do love “GoBot” since I’m a big nerd and robots are awesome, but dear lord is the baseball talk on the Fan awful most of the time. And I generally enjoy the station.
formerly known in these parts as adamb
Agreed
I do love "GoBot" since I’m a big nerd and robots are awesome
This made me chuckle, because it applies to me as well. Transformers were waaaayyy cooler than Go-Bots, but the nickname is still excellent, way better than “Go-Go-Gomez”, which always makes me thing of the “Go Go Go Joseph” song from “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”.
If the “GoBot” name sticks, then I propose that we begin referring to Ron Gardenhire as “Leader One”.
"There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
I guess Pronk is dumber than I imagined
But, at least it is non-standard.
It’s not like they would be able to name a candy bar Pronk.
(Yeah, it’s snark.)
I like pronk
It sounds funny and its unique. And I’ll concede that he has donkey qualities.
There are two few clever nicknames. I assume that this means that the less clever people are the ones picking the names. For instance, someone has decided to just accept Gardy’s nicknames. I’ll bet every player in baseball has had a funny nickname at some point in his life. Players just need to start bringing the nicknames with them.
Players just need to start bringing the nicknames with them.
Or they could go a step further like Boof and change their name to their nickname. It would be sort of like the XFL.
by lookatthosetwins on Apr 22, 2008 9:13 PM EDT up reply actions
If we're going to go the XFL route
I’m guessing the blogosphere would nominate Nick Punto to wear “HE HATE ME”.
"There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
Stories
The time in the history of baseball when nicknames flourished was a time when baseball was a game of colorful stories. Colorful characters needed colorful names. Babe Ruth had like 10 different nicknames, and writers made up their own as a kind of signature, like a home run call for a broadcaster.
Before television and other media, Baseball was a major source of drama for Americans. It wasn’t enough to just state the facts about a game, you had to have drama. A lot of those stories were not factual (as Rob Neyer is proving), but people didn’t care as much about that. They wanted drama, and the papers and radio stations were all-too happy to give them what they wanted f it sold ads.
I don’t know when TV drama satiated the American public’s thirst for drama, replacing baseball. I don’t know the exact time when journalists started applying tighter standards on their story telling about baseball. But those days are gone. And guys like Bill James and Rob Neyer are defining a new way to look at baseball that lacks all romance and drama. Nicknames are facets of a bygone era.
This thread is an example. Go Go or Pronk are as good a nicknames as the Splendid Splinter. We just don’t have the tolerance for dopey names. I think Gardenhoser is inspired, but I’m the only one who used it extensively. It would be cool if we could resurrect nicknames as a part of our writing a la Bat Girl. If the press won’t tell those stories, there’s plenty of room in the blogosphere to tell those stories and use those nicknames.
"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot
Aw
Aw, a batgirl reference. How easily we forget, but how soon I remember…
"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."
~ Earl Weaver
"In God we trust. All others must provide evidence."
~ Billy Beane
LEEEEEEEEEERRROOOOOOYYYYYY
Most of you won’t get this, but I’ve decided I’m calling Gomez “Leroy Jenkins” form now on.
"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."
~ Earl Weaver
"In God we trust. All others must provide evidence."
~ Billy Beane
heh
Are there seriously still people on the intarwebs that don’t get that at this point?
formerly known in these parts as adamb
I'd imagine
I’d imagine quite a lot, yes.
"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."
~ Earl Weaver
"In God we trust. All others must provide evidence."
~ Billy Beane
You can call him...
...Son of Bobby Darwin if he stays with the team all year. He’s on pace to shatter the Twins record for hitting air.
But we’ll probably be calling him the starting CF in Rochester before that happens.
Catching a fly ball is a pleasure. Knowing what to do with it after you catch it is a business.
I'd be
I’d be surprised to see it happen at this point, but despite the fanfare, he’s quietly started to prove me right when I was saying I didn’t think he was ready to hold his own in the majors with the bat yet.
We should wait until at LEAST the six week mark before passing any judgment about long term abilities for ANYONE though. This is certainly one of those times when I’m unhappy about being right.
"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."
~ Earl Weaver
"In God we trust. All others must provide evidence."
~ Billy Beane
Darwinisms
The Kleinschmidt Plumbing under-8 team doesn’t even lead off with a guy wearing a sub-.175 OB% – not even if it’s little Timmy Kleinschmidt – and sub-2 is where Gomez is living his last 10 games.
Sure, you can sit him for a game or two, then bring him back and see if the devil has brokered him a deal. Opponents will stick with left-handed relievers against him late in the game, so maybe he can get a little healthier that way.
But a big-league club doesn’t want some rook at 50 strikeouts before mid-May.
If this keeps up, they might hang with him through the Colorado series.
Catching a fly ball is a pleasure. Knowing what to do with it after you catch it is a business.
by Firpo Marberry on Apr 24, 2008 12:56 AM EDT up reply actions
Vote rigging
Where did all these “Yes” votes come from all of a sudden? It was about 2-1 “No” yesterday.
I smell a conspiracy. A really useless conspiracy, but a conspiracy nonetheless.
"There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
Lucky to win 75 anyway
Why bother taking him out of the lineup? The team has absolutely no chance of competing, so why not give the kid the seasoning against major league pitching?
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