Rumors Of Kendall Swirling In Milwaukee

a good nickname.  It's better than DLee.

Nicknames have been dying since the 1960s. (How can you beat Dr. Strangeglove?) Part of the problem is that the baseball writers of old (the Shirley Povich generation) were leaving the profession in favor of the Dick Young types.  The old generation didn't go to modern Journalism schools and thought of themselves as writers first (and of course, there were sportswriters like Ring Lardner who became successful writers outside the sport) and thought nothing of spicing up a story about a ballplayer by making up a colorful nickname for them.  

The new generation went to J-School and wanted to know what really went on in the clubhouse.  They worshipped at the altar of objectivity and thought it was a sin to insert their own voice into a story.  They wanted to know what they players called each other.  That's how guys like Carl Yaztremski got the "great" nickname of "Yaz."  Boring and unimaginative.

Then comes Chris Berman, who almost singlehandedly destroyed what was left of nicknames.  A nickname is not a pun.  (Although occasionally Berman did hit one, like calling Rex Hudler "The Wonder Dog.")

And a first initial and a first syllable of a last name is definitely not a nickname.

I love guys who have real nicknames.  Unfortunately, they are few and far between.  That Alex Rodriguez is "ARod" and not "The Miami Masher" leaves our sport for the worse.

Where have you gone, Oil Can Boyd?  Our nation turns it's lonely eyes to you.  Woo hoo hoo.

but relatively speaking, that's a lot of money for 40 games of blanco. Extrapolate that into a 120 game season that a regular catcher might play, and you can see how 2.5 million is a relative waste for his services.

In absolute dollars it doesn't amount to much, so this isn't a huge deal. This is a silly allocation of money, though.

I'm not sure that he was a bad clubhouse guy (didn't read anything either way), but he drove Bobby Cox crazy by dogging it routinely.  He has good catching skills, but often got lazy about blocking low pitches -- reaching with his glove rather than shifting his body.  And granted he is slower than slow, but his fastset pace on the bases was a slow jog.  He couldn't score from second even if the OF kicked the ball, because he never ran hard (or even medium) between 2B and 3B.  He has only one gear -- LETHARGIC.  Pitchers do seem to like throwing to him, and he is a switch-hitter, but he doesn't hit enough HRs to justify walking out fly balls.