Joe Blong
Joseph Miles Blong (1853-1892)

Blong was an outfielder-pitcher for the St. Louis Reds of the National Association (1875) and the St. Louis Brown Stockings of the National League for two seasons (1876-77). After that, St. Louis decided Joe no long Blonged. (I know, a trite, obvious joke. Sorry.)

My copy of The Baseball Enclyclopedia listed another Blong, a catcher-outfielder who played nine games with the Pittsburgh Alleghenys of the American Association in 1883, but apparently that was a typo. Every other source says that player's name was Blogg, a man clearly ahead of his time. His first name was Wes. Even if the Encyclopedia had been correct, Wes Blong wouldn't have made my list. Somehow Wes isn't as catchy at Joe.

Vida Blue
Vida Rochelle Blue (1949- )

Blue was a pitching sensation in 1971, winning 24 games for the Oakland Athletics.

Team owner Charles Finlay proposed a deal, offering a bonus if Blue would change his first name to True. To his credit, Blue refused.

He later pitched for San Francisco and Kansas City, winning 209 games in a 17-year career.

John Boccabella
John Dominic Boccabella (1941- )

Boccabella used versatility (he was a catcher-first baseman-outfielder) to hang around for 12 years with the Chicago Cubs, Montreal Expos and San Francisco Giants, though only once – in 1973 – did he play more than 100 games.

Create your own Bermanism. Mine: "John Boccabella your baby to a Dixie melody" and "John Johann Sebastian Boccabella.

Ping Bodie
Francesco Stephano Pezzolo (1887-1961)

Francesco Stephano Pezzolo became Frank Stephan Bodie when he followed an uncle's lead and changed his last name to Bodie for a small California mining town where the family had once lived. "Ping" was the sound of a ball meeting the 52-ounce bat Bodie used for awhile. Thus the unusual name for an outfielder whose nine-year American League career wound up in New York where he played alongside his roommate, Babe Ruth, in the Yankee outfield. ("I don't room with Ruth," Bodie told a sportswriter. "I room with his suitcase!")

Bodie never hit better than .295, but in his rookie season (1911) he led the Chicago White Sox in runs batted in (97) and finished fourth in the league in that category.

Boof Bonser
John Paul Bonser (1981- )

Well, actually, Boof is now the legal first name for the former John Paul Bonser, a Minnesota Twins pitcher who made the change in 2001. Seems Boof was a childhood nickname. Why was he called Boof? None of the million or so Bonser hits on Google seemed to think that question was worth pursuing, though several had fun with the many definitions that have been created for a four-letter word that apparently can mean anything you want, especially if you use it in connection with drugs, sex and other bodily functions.

Anyway, John Paul Bonser is a Florida native signed by the San Francisco Giants in 2000, changed his name to Boof Bonser in 2001, was traded to Minnesota in 2003 and made his major league debut with the Twins in 2006 after starting the year with Rochester of the International League. Bonser was 7-6 as a Twins rookie. There are lots of folks interested in Bonser, not because of his tastelessly colorful name, but because they think he has the potential to become a very good major league pitcher. However, in 2007 he had an 8-10 won-lost record with the Twins with a poor 5.10 earned run average.

As for the origin of his nickname ... perhaps some day an interviewer finally will ask him. Then perhaps Bonser will explain that in his case Boof doesn't refer to such things as bad drugs, having sex with a fat woman, masturbating or mooning people in a public place, though my favorite definition of the word is "the last stroke a kayaker makes before going over a waterfall."

My wife's hunch is that Bonser was a chubby kid often described as "beefy." Or maybe the kid loved triple-decker hamburgers. Which would mean Boof comes from the French word boeuf, which (among other things) means "beef."

Frenchy Bordagaray
Stanley George Bordagray (1910-2000)

He played 11 major league seasons, six of them with the Brooklyn Dodgers, though his only World Series appearances were with Cincinnati in 1939 and the New York Yankees in 1941.

He played the outfield mostly, but also logged 234 games at third base. He was a good hitter (.283 lifetime) and in 1938, with the St. Louis Cardinals, had a remarkable season as a pinch hitter (20-for-43).

He attracted a lot of attention early in his career when, in 1935, he reported to the Brooklyn Dodgers spring training camp sporting a new look: a mustache and goatee he had grown while working as a movie extra in The Prisoner of Shark Island.

But this was during major league baseball's clean-shaven era, and Bodagaray was ordered to shave
– or else.

Butterball Botz
Robert Allen Botz (1935- )

Botz was a relief pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels in 1962. He's listed at 170 pounds on a 5-foot-11 frame, which doesn't sound Butterball to me. Maybe he was a turkey farmer.

He's generally referred to as Bob Botz, though New York Mets fans fell in love with his nickname when Botz joined their team for spring training in 1963. Alas, he was released before the season started, but during the home opener fans started chanting, "Bring back Butterball Botz!"

Oil Can Boyd
Dennis Ray Boyd (1959- )

This free-spirited pitcher was a Boston fan favorite when he joined the Red Sox in 1982. He was 16-10 in 1986, and was the losing pitcher in Game Three of the World Series Boston would like to forget.

His nickname comes from his beer-drinking days in his hometown of Meridian, Mississippi, where he and his friends referred to the beverage as "oil."

He tried a comeback in the minors in 2005 with Brockton (Mass.) of the Can-Am League. A few weeks after the season ended Boyd was arrested in Mississippi and charged with threatening his girl friend and her son.

Kitty Bransfield
William Edward Bransfield (1875-1947)

Bransfield was a National League first baseman (1901-11) with Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. His nickname was unusual, but not unique (there was a Kitty Brashear with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1902). Still, Bransfield's nickname would have been different were it not for a hearing-impaired sportswriter. The player was called Kid Bransfield until the sportswriter wrote what he thought he had heard – Kitty Bransfield – and the new name stuck.

Bunny Brief
Anthony Vincent Brief [born Antonio Bordetzki] (1892-1963)

The outfielder-first baseman hit .310 in 15 games with the St. Louis Browns in 1912, then began a three-season pattern in which he played in the majors only in odd-numbered years – 1913, 1915 and 1917, with three different teams (St. Louis, Chicago White Sox and Pittsburgh). He was a model of consistency, which isn't good when your batting averages are .217, .214 and .217.

It was a far different story in the American Association where Brief enjoyed amazing success. He led the league in home runs eight times; twice he led all minor leagues in that department. He played all or parts of 16 seasons in the American Association, putting together a lifetime batting average of .331.

Gates Brown
William James Brown (1939- )

Brown was an outfielder-designated hitter with the Detroit Tigers (1963-75) and one of baseball's best pinch-hitters.

The nickname? His mother called him "Gates" when he was a toddler. He didn't know why, but he preferred it to Billy.

Three Finger Brown
Mordecai Peter Centennial Brown (1876-1948)

Hall of Fame pitcher Brown won 239 games, most of them with the Chicago Cubs (1904-12) and his lifetime earned run average of 2.06, third best all-time, was a stunning figure even during the dead ball era. Chicago fans had much to cheer about in Brown's day; he helped the Cubs to two World Series championships, in 1907 and 1908.

Brown got his nickname in painful fashion, injuring his right hand twice in childhood accidents in Nyesville, Indiana. First he lost most of his index finger to a piece of farm machinery; later he broke several bones in the hand when he fell while chasing a rabbit. One of his fingers was paralyzed thereafter. Somehow Brown turned his disability to his advantage, mastering a baffling array of pitches.

Garland Buckeye
Garland Maiers Buckeye (1897-1975)

Buckeye's first major league experience fits that baseball cliche – he had a cup of coffee with the Washington Senators in 1918. Between sips he walked six batters in just two innings and was sent to the minors. He returned to the majors in 1925, with Cleveland, and had a 13-8 record. That was promising, but he hung around only three more seasons.

He was nicknamed Gob, which is slang for sailor, yes, but in this case it probably refers to another definition: "a mass or lump." Buckeye, you see, packed 260 pounds on his 6-foot frame, which helped him considerably in his other sport. Buckeye played five seasons of professional football, four of them as a guard with the Chicago Cardinals of the NFL.

Buckeye could be a whole separate category in Trivial Pursuit.

For example, his name is on a very short list of major league pitchers who hit home runs from both sides of the plate in the same game.

Also, Buckeye was one of two NFL players who pitched in the American League in 1927 and gave up home runs to Babe Ruth. The other? Ernie Nevers, who pitched for the St. Louis Browns. (Nevers was considered one of the best football players of his time.)

Buckeye pitched his final major league game in 1928, with the New York Giants. His catcher that day was Shanty Hogan, who weighed about 240 pounds. Thus Buckeye and Hogan may have been big league baseball's biggest battery.

Another weird piece of trivia: Garland Buckeye also is the name of a Kentucky-based rock trio.

Smoky Burgess
Forrest Harrill Burgess (1927-1991)

A rather ordinary name, I know. It's hard to explain personal preferences, so I won't even try. This catcher and pinch hitter extraordinare was a favorite of mine throughout his 18-year major league career.

While it was another catcher, Carlton Fisk, who was called Pudge, that nickname better suited Burgess, who looked as though he could have been the reincarnation of Babe Ruth.

Milwaukee Braves pitcher Bob Buhl admitted in 1993, long after the fact, that what was so remarkable about Harvey Haddix on the night he pitched a perfect game through 12 innings (May 26, 1959) was that the Braves knew every pitch that was coming. How did they know? Because, said Buhl, they were so easy to steal from Smoky Burgess, who caught that game for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Seems Burgess could not crouch down all the way and his fingers were constantly exposed. Buhl said pitchers in the Braves bullpen relayed signals to the batter by the way they placed a towel on the bullpen fence. Making it easier, added Buhl, was that Haddix used only two pitches all game – his fast ball and his curve.

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