WHAT'S IN A NAME? IN MLB, UNCOMMON NAMES CURRENTLY RULE!

Ever since I began following baseball as a young, impressionable eight-year-old, I have been amused at some of the wild names of major league baseball players...from "Coot" Veal to "Reno" Bertoia to Purnal Goldy to "Gates" Brown (I was a Tigers' fan!).

Over the years, there have been players will pretty colorful nicknames:  Walt "No Neck" Williams, "Pumpsie" Green, "Dizzy" Dean (and his brother, "Daffy!), and a couple of players named after fish...Jim "Mudcat" Grant and Jim "Catfish" Hunter. 

Today, names in baseball are just as colorful.  For example, there are 14 players whose names begin with the letter "Y"...14!  The San Diego Padres lead the way with two players with first names beginning with "Y":  Yonder Alonso and Yasmani Grandal.  You can just imagine that the baseball writers have a field day when Alonso hits a home run ("Alonso hits one way out Yonder!").

There are several players today who have some interesting nicknames...like "Tuffy" Gosewich, "Scooter" Gennett, "Coco" Crisp, "Buster" Posey, "DiDi", and "Gaby" Sanchez.

Also, there are several players who don't even bother with a first name...they would rather use initials:  Do you know there are five players currently in the major leagues known as A.J.?  There is Ramos, Pierzynski, Pollock, Burnett, and Ellis.  The Angels have cornered the market on players named C.J. with Wilson and Cron.  There is a D.J. (LeMahieu), a J.D. (Martinez), not to mention a J.J. (Hardy), J.B. (Shuck), J.P. (Howell and Arencibia), L.J. (Hoes), and T.J. (McFarland).  Of course, the most famous player with initials is C.C. Sabathia. I am not making these up...check them out at MLB.com!

Believe it or not, there are actually two players who wound up CHANGING their names.  Fauto Carmona became Roberto Hernandez and Leo Nunez is now known as Juan Carlos Oviedo (they must have been fans of World B. Free and Metta World Peace!).

Finally, there are players in MLB with names you just could not make up:  Rougned Odor (accent on 2nd syllable!), Gonzalez German (or, is it German Gonzalez?), Jhoulys Chacin, and the two Escobar shortstops: Yunel and Alcides.  There is a Starling (Marte), not to be confused with Starlin (Castro). No wonder they say you can't tell a player without a scorecard!

How about you?  What are some of the wildest names in baseball you can remember?  Let me know and I will post them in a later blog.