A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Pale Hose

[cknox0723]

To be taken in conjunction with the train wreck of a thread entitled "Yet Another OOTP6 Dynasty: The Pale Hose", or perhaps not at all, depending on one's perspective. This is merely a guide to those same White-Socked ones, mostly because after ninety games, I've stopped referring to anyone by their actual name, and that could confuse anybody reading the thread, including me.



If you're reading this and don't understand...don't try to. Just hang on for the ride, and if you enjoy it -- well, there's 489 posts back a ways along the same jagged, broken lines. This one will be a bit less verbose than the others (and considering how long this will probably get, you'll wonder how that's possible -- trust me, it is), but here it goes...

SP Mark Buerhle

Who's He?: The ace of the staff, possibly the team's MVP.
There Are Those Who Call Him...: The Buehrle One
How'd You Come Up With That One?: If you're really wondering that, you're going to get lost soon. If you're not, then you're probably wondering why I'm talking to myself. I don't know, but it becomes a common theme.

SP Esteban Loaiza

Who's He?: A $6 million deadweight who's going to be around for another year and a half because he pitches like an amputee, with all due respect to Jim Abbott.
There Are Those Who Call Him...: Nothing, really, though I did enjoy calling him The Scourge of the Earth while he lost his last start.
How'd You Come Up With That One?: Um, if you had to watch every one of a 3-12 pitcher's starts, you would begin to hate him, too.

SP Jorge DePaula

Who's He?: Loaiza's partner in the quest to lose 20, as well as the "main" "piece" of the offseason trade of our best reliever to The Evil Empire in the Bronx. Great trade that was.
There Are Those Who Call Him...: Schizophrenic Jorge or Good Jorge, depending on how well he's pitching
How'd You Come Up With That One?: DePaula showed a tendency early on to follow up a good start with a disaster. For most of May, he was solid, posting a 2.34 ERA and earning the Good Jorge moniker. He went 1-5 in June. You figure out why I haven't called him Good Jorge recently.

SP Jon Garland

Who's He?: A replacement-level starter making over a million bucks thanks to a good year two years ago and the wondrous innovation that is arbitration.
There Are Those Who Call Him...: Jon Moo
How'd You Come Up With That One?: The inspiration was pitching against Jimmy Gobble, and I have no idea why my brain works that way, but there you go.

SP Jon Rauch

Who's He?: A 27 year old rookie with mediocre numbers who, considering the other three lugnuts, is probably our best starter other than The Buehrle One.
There Are Those Who Call Him...: The Hypothetical Power Forward, Not-So-Wonderkid
How'd You Come Up With That One?: The esteemed NYJuggalo, who sadly hasn't been around these boards in a while, made a remark in the vein of "Rauch could've been in the NBA", since he's six foot ten. And, no, that does not say six four, 210. I took that and ran with it. Vris came up with the second moniker, one that describes Rauch just as well, I would say, so I flip-flop back and forth. No, not like a Presidential candidate!

P Rick Ankiel

Who's He?: Rick Vaughn from the movie Major League, personified.
There Are Those Who Call Him...: Wild Thing
How'd You Come Up With That One?: A Gallup Poll

RP Kiko Calero

Who's He?: A hard-throwing, chuck and duck reliever claimed off waivers in the offseason.
There Are Those Who Call Him...: The Mercurial One, The Superfluous One
How'd You Come Up With That One?: Well, Kee-ko Cal-air-o, to use the phonetic spelling, is just one of those names that rolls off the tongue. For some reason, I started calling him Superfluous Kiko because of that, only to find out one day that "superfluous" actually meant "being beyond what is required or sufficient". Mercurial Kiko works better, anyway, if only because he's so wildly up and down, both with his pitches and his performance.

RP Mike Gallo

Who's He?: Waiver claim during the season. Some group we have here, huh?
There Are Those Who Call Him...: Carlton
Wow, You Just Made That One Up, Didn't You?: Yup, indeed I did. But...I've taken to calling our resident LOOGY Gallo, "who will never have a nickname of any kind", the same description that's been used to describe the OOTP board member of the same name. No, I don't know why I remember these things.

RP Akinori Otsuka

Who's He?: Trade pickup for a prospect...yes, I know we're in last place. Got to make that push for fourth!!1
There Are Those Who Call Him...: Aki, Señor Deuce-Deuce
How'd You Come Up With That?: Well, the first one's just another case of me being lazy. Aki's kind of catchy, though. The latter is the one I gave him after trading for him, in an effort to make him a sort of tag-team partner to our other Japanese reliever (more on him in a bit), but it never really stuck, probably because I'm not good with keyboard shortcuts and so typing "señor" is a bit of a pain in the ass.

The other two pitchers on our active roster are P.J. Bevis and Joe Roa. The former, a Rule 5 Pick, is probably my favorite player on the team (for no real reason), and he's most notable for giving up eleven runs in the game where you all could have been rid of me. Sadly, both Bevis and I have soldiered on, and I hope we're best for it. The Pale Hose are; he's probably our second best reliever, behind one Joe Roa, who's been a true relief ace. But neither of 'em have a nickname. Go figure. Any thoughts?

Before finishing the discussion of our club's "pitchers", I'd be remiss to not mention Marc Kaiser, the loser in that 25-1 game, a AAA starter who I alternated between calling Kaiser Roll and Kaiser Wilhelm, for obvious reasons. Rick Hummel, a mediocre reliever who's in AAA right now, is called The Dollmaker thanks to BadluckinOOTP, who alerted me to these fine folks. Finally, 38 year old Shingo Takatsu's also in AAA, and he's actually known as Mr. Zero. No, I didn't come up with that one -- it goes back to his playoff success on the other side of the Pacific. Sadly, he was Mr. Twenty-Seven for us, for that's the number of runs he gave up -- in 27 innings.

As for those that handle the heavy lumber...

The catchers are Jason LaRue, acquired less than a month ago from the fine folks in San Diego, and Miguel Olivo. LaRue, who's last name means "street" en français, will forever be known as "The Mime" thanks to this, which, by the way, is quite possibly the single strangest post in this forum's history, if I may say so. And I will. Olivo, our light-hitting backup catcher, has been called Hackin' Miggy a lot recently since he's drawn one walk in 132 at-bats, and when Mike Piazza was around, Olivo was known as The Olive. Why? Piazza was called Sausage, Peppers, and Onions. Why? I dunno, I didn't come up with it. I liked it plenty, though.

We have about twenty guys that can play first base. Brian Buchanan is the lefty-masher that doesn't play much, and he's known as Buchs because every team has to have a guy with a nickname that ends in 's'. It's in the CBA, trust me. Frank Thomas is more frequently referred to as The Big Ouch, since he's no longer in the phase of his career where he's hurting anyone but us. And Brad Fullmer doesn't have a nickname, likely because he's hitting .239. Anyone got an idea?

Ramon Vazquez took over the second base duties when he came over in May, replacing Juan Uribe, also called The Out-Sucking Machine for his incredible incompetence with the bat. Vazquez is usually just shortened to R-Vaz, though remembering that 25-1 game, he earned the nickname of The Disillusioned One when he legged out a triple in the seventh -- when we were trailing by twenty-two runs.

Julio Lugo has perhaps the nickname most closely associated with this dynasty -- The Hacktastic One, or simply Hacktastic Julio. I'm not sure why exactly I came up with that, for while Lugo doesn't walk much, there surely are guys worse (Miggy Olivo, for example). However, Hacktastic Julio's really earned his nickname this year, with just twenty walks in 360 at-bats, a career low (high?) pace.

Joe Crede's our third baseman, though I've stopped letting him on the field since he's got the same slugging percentage as The Hacktastic One, which is to say, they both suck. No nickname, either, and I thought I came up with something, at least...but I guess that was just a product of my imagination. I'll work on it. Enrique Wilson, who's not particularly good, either, has stolen a lot of at-bats from The Festering Suck Of Crede recently, mostly because Enrique can at least manage an empty .260 batting average. Oh, and he can pitch, too -- see this game and this game for evidence. Because of that, Enrique Wilson is The Relief Ace.

Dmitri Young, The Mad Russian, is in left field, but more often than not, he's just D.Y.

Joe Borchard roams center field, and he goes by Borch or Beet Soup, the latter being what shortening up his last name sounds like (borscht).

Magglio Ordonez is in right field, and he spent most of the season carrying our lineup while I called him Maggs. Pretty lame, no? But after he was our lone All-Star and struggled in the first game of the second half (see this game for reference), I've given him the tag of Buddha, and I think it's very befitting.

Jeremy Reed, a 25 year old who's down in AAA right now, earned the tag of Clutch God with some early-season heroics, but then he stopped hitting. He'll be back up, though, so that's who the Clutch God is. Raul Gonzalez and Chin-Feng Chen are our "backup outfielders" right now, though I use that in the loosest sense of the term. Chen is always typed without capital letters, though -- c.f. chen is usually what I call him. Why? Beats me, but it's kind of fun.

That's the Pale Hose. Shameless self-promotion, perhaps, but I had a lot of fun writing that up. Hope the thread now makes a little more sense (I doubt it, though), and hope you enjoyed. Take care, and feel free to make any comments you'd like, including suggestions for psuedonyms for Bevis, Roa, Fullmer, and especially Joe Crede, that jackass.

EDIT: How the heck is this similar to polls one and two, and not the dynasty itself?

[Tavarin]

I love how you're writing about this team, and while I don't know how they are playing, I'm sure you'll find a way to make them good in the next couple years(although that will probably take to OOTP8 at this point )

And if you ever get them good, I think you'll just stop talking about them anyway, cause where's the fun in not being able to insult your own team?(Magglio, Buerhle and the Future Ace not included)

[canadiancreed]

lol love the title of this thread. gracias for the reference manual

[Ford Prefect]

Nice read

[El Cid]

When I think of Mike Gallo

"My Cousin Vinny" pops to mind

'member how he kept changing the name of his alias in NY...the lawyer who died?

[Luis_Rivera]

Genius... I don't have as much time as I would like to read through everything so I"ve been a little lost from time to time. This helps!

Love the thread title fyi... Are you sure you're mentally in New Jersey?? I think youre a lot wittier and more intelligent than you're giving yourself credit

Jussssssssssst kidding... Keep up the good work!

[cknox0723]

A gratuitous bump to thank everyone that's posted in here and cast the net once again. Appreciate all the comments.

El Cid...your comment about "My Cousin Vinny" got me thinking...and looking at the movie, the character of "Neckbrace" strikes me as a good nickname to use in the future. Thanks!

If anyone has any suggestions on ridiculous names for Joe Roa, P.J. Bevis, Brad Fullmer, or Joe Crede, that ratfink, feel free! Always looking for inspiration, so to speak...

[Vris]

I always liked The Relief Ace for Roa, but Roa is so much shorter. You can't shorten it, unless you want to call him JR. But that brings back memories of J.R. Rider, a useless basketball player. I digress...

[Jestor]

P.J. "Butthead" Bevis.

Kind of lame, perhaps... but the whole Bevis and Butthead show... plus, maybe the others are jealous on the team are jealous that he's your favourite player, so they call him Butthead.

[El Cid]

Joe Crede?

I think of that overrated Christian Band

[El Cid]

Oh and Brad "Not" Fullmer "Talent"

[UngratefulDead]

Jo-Ro and Pajamas (P.J. Bevis)?

Don't really know, not my strong point..

[Vris]

I think Pajamas works well. How about Night Gown?

[BadluckinOOTP]

How about P.J. "Most people quit going by P.J. in 5th grade" Bevis ?

[cknox0723]

Originally Posted by Jestor

P.J. "Butthead" Bevis.

Kind of lame, perhaps... but the whole Bevis and Butthead show... plus, maybe the others are jealous on the team are jealous that he's your favourite player, so they call him Butthead.

Hmmm...this is a good one. "Pajamas"..."Night Gown"...uh, what am I doing here, anyway?

Oh yes...Raul Gonzalez has turned into a ferocious machine of hitting. I mean, he's been on fire recently, forcing his way into the lineup and just battering the baseball around. R-Gonz is an awful, awful nickname, though. Hoping a bit of groupthink might give us something more...interesting than that.

[Carlton]

We don't need no stinkin' badges

for Raul

[endgame]

Originally Posted by cknox0723

...Raul Gonzalez has turned into a ferocious machine of hitting ... just battering the baseball around. R-Gonz is an awful, awful nickname, though. Hoping a bit of groupthink might give us something more...interesting than that.

Brainstorming here. I'm shortening that, thinking RGon -- to Argon, an inert contributor -- used in lighting, lasers ... maybe he's The Element.

He's not number 18 is he? Now that'd be interesting.

[cknox0723]

Originally Posted by endgame

Brainstorming here. I'm shortening that, thinking RGon -- to Argon, an inert contributor -- used in lighting, lasers ... maybe he's The Element.

He's not number 18 is he? Now that'd be interesting.

He is now. He is...now. Number 18, Raul Gonzalez, a.k.a. The Element.

That's really a fantastic one. Thanks, keep up the good work!

[J Winter]

Bump.

Because more nicknames are needed.