What's Your Name?

The Pickled Pecklers pay attention to much more than projected stats and values when we are putting together our team. Among the many things we consider is a player's name. We think that a player's name tells volumes about him. Barry Bonds, BB = Big Bum. See how that works?

We believe the Pecklers have set a BABI record never to be broken. I saw one of those Summer Sanders shows on Fox about the 10 most unbreakable records. Freakin' idiots, the most unbreakable record wasn't even in the top ten: Cy Young, 511 wins. The second most unbreakable record also wasn't on the list: Cy Young, 316 losses. I guess Fox didn't have any good footage of ol' Cy, so they forgot him.

The #1 record was 56. We all know about Joe D's 56. I don't know if it will ever be broken, but if it is, Cy Young's records will still be around. Cal Ripken was #2. Wilt's 100 was #3. Jerry Rice was #4 or 5. UCLA's basketball streak was in there, as was Gretsky's 215 points. Nolan Ryan made it for his 7 no hitters, although I think someone will break that before his 5714 strikeout record. That one is going to live forever. That's 300 strikeouts per year for 19 years. Plus 14.

When I was in high school, I listened on radio (TV blackout in those days, even for sold out games) as the Redskins beat the Giants 72-41 in the highest scoring game in NFL history. But that isn't the unbreakable record from that game. The unbreakable record set that day was most extra points by a pair of brothers - 14 by Charlie (9) and Pete (5) Gogolak. Interestingly, they both missed one.

Gogolak. Great football name. Oh yeah, names, that's what this is about. The Pecklers set a record never to be broken in BABI: most Arizona pitchers named Brandon - 3. That would be Webb, Lyon and Medders. Lo and behold, that was the pitching lineup last night against the Giants for the Dbacks in their 10-3 win. We challenge any of you to break that one.

One more Peckler name player has suddenly risen from the about to be sent to the farm to become our hottest hitter: Reggie Abercrombie. That is a beautiful baseball name. Reggie really blasted one last night, estimated at 493 feet. Steroids? Don't care.

Anyway, back in the '60's, our cousin Ken (long time PEFArarian to those of you in our football league) had a collie named Abercrombie. Great dog, great name. Ken's had many other dogs and pets living as a farmer, but if pinned down I think he'd admit none was as special to him as Abbie. And that began a tradition for Ken, naming his dogs with 4 syllable names. He later had Knickerbocker and Penelope. Then he wanted to name his kids Pocahantas and Saskatchewan, after which his wife Paula decided that shorter names were better.

Anyway, when Abercrombie was available for $8, I couldn't resist. The Doc was still pissed at me from the Klesko fiasco, and being younger than I, he was too young to remember the original Abercrombie quite so fondly. After all, he wanted to use that money for another rookie getting Voglesong size hype who has already been sent to the minors: Brandon Watson. Another Brandon for our team. What was I thinking?

God Bless Any 9 and the Busch Leaguers.