The Best Baseball Names Ever

It’s baseball season! We’re a week into games and the New York Mets could still win EVERYTHING. Nobody outside of my ESPN fantasy baseball league seems to care about baseball, this is just something I’ve learned to live with. I have accepted the existence of Mike Piazza and Edgardo Alfonzo and RA Dickey in my life the same way Russel Crowe accepted his imaginary friends in “A Beautiful Mind.” Except my imaginary friends only show up on the television.

Before we begin, one thing I don’t understand: the Mets have spent the whole week wearing their road alternates, which not only don’t show their logo, but display a different monikor altogether. Observe long time Met Jose Reyes:

 There is a bird on his helmet and his jersey says “Blue Jays.” This is really perplexing, the only think I can think of is it’s some kind of promotion. Maybe wildlife awareness? The Mets have done this before; in honor of the Negro Leagues they wore “NY Cubans” jerseys a few years ago and in 1999 in honor of  the planet Mercury they wore this weird future shit:

Anyway, in the spirit of springtime, I thought I’d share with everyone some of the best baseball names ever, in no particular order and with no particular criteria.

BEST CURRENT NAME: Hmmmm. Maybe Dexter Fowler? Wait, no: nobody can top Mr. JJ Putz.

NAMES YOU MIGHT ‘RECOGNIZE’: Milton Bradley, Howard Johnson, Coco Crisp,

IT WAS FATE: Dave Philley played for the Phillies.

DON’T BRING IT UP, HE HATES IT: Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays all-star 3b

DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?: Aarom Baldiris, Mets minor league 3b

SCRABBLE NAMES: Doug Mientkiewicz, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Marc Rzepscynski, Ambiorix Concepcion, Carl Yastrzemski   Some of the names I actually know by heart because of sporcle quizzes. Is this something to be proud of?

THE BASEBALL NAME BUFFET!: Darryl Strawberry, Cookie Rojas, Chili Davis, Rocky Cherry, Candy Maldonado, Goose Goslin, Goose Gossage, and so on.

SIMPLY THE BEST

Kala and Kila Ka’aihue- these Hawaiian brothers are minor league sluggers. Kila played with the Royals for a few years. I really hope they switched places every now and then. Neither of them were very good, so it’s not like they had anything to lose. Or anything better to do.

Cool Papa Bell- This negro league star is way way way cooler than Papa John, and was known to never bitch about having to provide health insurance to employees. Better ingredients, better ball player. That was Cool Papa Bell.

Boof Bonser- Bonser logged some time with the Twins last decade, and then, just like that, BOOF!, he was gone.

Rusty Kuntz- it is very offensive to call someone a rusty cunt, unless that person is Rusty Kuntz, and even then he’d probably prefer Mr. Kuntz. I feel bad for the Tigers public announcer. Every day it was like he was reciting a scene from the “Vagina Monologues.” Say it with me now, scream it out. Kuntz Kuntz Kuntz Kuntz Kuntz Kuntz Kuntz!!!

Urban Shocker- even more of a shocker than Shocker is the fact that he is one of the only members of the 1927 Yankees not in the Hall of Fame. Which is very odd because Urban Shocker was actually a pretty good baseball player. He did stuff like win 20 games and play for the 1927 Yankees. He led the league in strikeouts that one time. And yet his name would barely fly in a detective pulp thriller.