What’s in a name? Well, it’s probably the personality traits of your parents. If you’re named John, your parents are boring as hell. If your name is Chastity, your parents had incredibly unfair expectations of you. If you’re named Blanket, your dad is a freak. And if you choose to shorten your name to “B.J.”, then your parents must be evil incarnate to give you a name so horrifying that you’d rather be referred to as “B.J”.

Anyhow, I recently combed through a partial list of actual baseball players (MLB and minor leagues) and compiled a list of my favorite names for your viewing pleasure. And please add more to the comments section. I never tire of this stuff. And yes, I promise that these are actual players. Look them up.

Names that sound like characters in Anchorman:

Buck Coats
Brock Bonds
Chip Cannon
Rex Rundgren
Blake Hawksworth
Jeff Manship
Burke Badenhop
Ronnie Prettyman

Names that sound vaguely racist:

Bradley Coon
Tike Redman
Gookie Dawkins
Jemel Spearman
Kasey Kiker

Corey Hart
Kevin Smith
Ray Liotta
Dan Cortes
Jason Jones
Steven Wright
Chris Farley

Names that kinda make me uncomfortable:

Brian Bocock
Dirk Hayhurst
R.A. Dickey
Brett Butts
Eddie Kunz
Rocky Roquet
Abe Woody
Billy Spottiswood

Names that just belong together:

Matt Buschman and Bud Norris. I want a player named Bud Buschmann. I’d bet he’d drink PBR.
Tobi Stoner, Michael Dubee, and Brian Joynt.

Name that will force PETA to boycott MLB

J.J. Furmaniak

Name that I wish I had:

Rowdy Hardy

There are times, regardless of how good the advice sounds, when one needs to consider the source:

Cole Hamels met with reporters earlier and detailed how he changed his off-season training. Instead of not picking up a ball like he did last off-season, Hamels followed a long tossing program he learned from Mark Prior, who Hamels has known since he was 14.

OK, I’m probably being mean. But if I were Hamels, I would not be getting training tips from a guy like Prior.

It almost as stupid as creating a tv show where Alec Baldwin is giving you marital advice.

While I’m sort of happy for Aroldis Chapman who has reportedly agreed to a five-year, $30MM deal with Cincinatti, I have one primary question for him.

If you were escaping Communist Cuba for American shores, would you really want to sign with a team called the Reds?

Just asking.

First, Coley pointed me to a funny tweet courtesy of ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick:

Phils special asst. Charlie Kerfeld just came up to me in the lobby. “I have a question for you,” he said. “What the heck is a Twitter?”

Prior to this, I had no idea that Charlie Kerfeld was working as a special assistant to Ruben Amaro, Jr. But I’m glad he’s still around the game. Why? Because his name will always remind me of that drunken totally normal interview he gave during the celebration following the Astros clinching the NL West pennant in 1986. Enjoy.

“Chronological age does not have anything to do with a player of (Damon’s) genetics.” – Scott Boras

Well, sure. Had Jesus Christ been around longer, I’m pretty sure that he would’ve been able to OPS over 1.000 well into his sixties. He was just that special.

While reporting on the story that three members of the Nippon Ham Fighters baseball team has been diagnosed with swine flu (including former MLBer Terrmel Sledge), ESPN makes a mistake that’s all too common.

For the last time, they are not the Ham Fighters. They are simply the Fighters. Nippon Ham is the company that owns them. You’re a sports news organization, ESPN. Please, at the very least, get this right.

So Pedro Martinez is taking his spot in the rotation, and Jamie Moyer is not pleased, saying that he is “disheartened,” and feels like he was “misled” by Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr.

Naturally, Amaro had to respond, so he issued the following statement. “When we signed Jamie Moyer in December it was under the pretense of being a starter. But right now circumstances have changed and that’s why we’re moving him to the bullpen.”

Now apparently Amaro does not quite understand the meaning of the word “pretense”, because if he did, he would realize that in his statement he appears to be flat-out admitting that he deliberately misled Moyer.

According to the dictionary, a “pretense” is “a false appearance or action intended to deceive.”

Then again, it might not be Amaro’s fault, as the statement is reported to have been “issued by his office.” Perhaps the entire Phillies front offices is also a bit challenged by basic English vocabulary?

This year marks the 40th Anniversary of the Miracle Mets championship of 1969. To commemorate the franchise’s first World Series win, the Mets are giving away 25,000 t-shirts at the August 22nd game versus the Philadelphia Phillies. Which sounds great.

But these t-shirts look like this.

I swear to Jehovah, this is not a joke. I got this photo directly from the team website. Men, women, and children will receive t-shirts numbered 69. Not only that, there will no doubt be thousands of Phillies fans in attendance who will also be getting this t-shirt, which they will be bringing back to Philadelphia. Imagine the fun they’re gonna have at the expense of Mets fans for the rest of their lives.

So to the Mets’ Marketing Department – what the hell?