In any event, Bruno was a catchy monkier for the man I've long credited with having the longest string of given names in major league baseball, with the runner up being Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish, elsewhere on this list.

However, I've since found an even longer name: Alan Mitchell Edward George Patrick Henry Gallagher, aka Al Gallagher, aka "Dirty Al" Gallagher, a third baseman who played for the San Francisco Giants and the (then) California Angels in the 1970s. A good, solid name, certainly, with a strong historical reference in Patrick Henry. But it's mostly memorable for its length, while McLish's full name conjures up all kinds of images, what with Calvin Coolidge and Julius Caesar, plus Tuskahoma, taken from a Choctaw word meaning "red warrior."

On the other hand, Bruno Betzel is a name that would be on this list without benefit of the man's birth certificate.

Betzel was an infielder for the St. Louis Cardinals (1914-18), with a lifetime batting average of .231. Later he began a long career as manager in the minor leagues where he once pitched a double-header, one game right-handed, the other left-handed. At least, that's what I read in a Syracuse newspaper several years ago when Betzel was managing the International League team there. Apparently my memory was not playing tricks on me. Mike Coughlin, who lives near Portland, Maine, emailed me, identifying himself as Betzel's first grandson and a Syracuse Chiefs batboy while his grandfather was manager. Coughlin says Betzel really did pitch such a double-header, though he doesn't recall the details. There's no indication in his minor league record – part of a terrific recent addition on http://www.baseball-reference.com – that Betzel did any pitching in the minor leagues. Perhaps he did it in an Ohio amateur league before he turned pro.

Betzel managed in the minor leagues for 26 seasons, most of them in the American Association and International League, which put him as close to the major leagues as possible. One source said Betzel's teams won 1,887 games, lost 1,892. A losing record, yes, but he won seven pennants – in seven different cities. He was highly regarded enough to be inducted into the International League Hall of Fame.

Other notes from Coughlin:

Originally I had Betzel's hometown listed as Chattanooga, Tennessee, passing along information from The Baseball Encyclopedia. Turns out Betzel was born in Chattanooga, a small Ohio town near the Indiana border.

And how did someone named Christian Frederick Albert, etc., wind up being called Bruno? "When he was a boy, in a German family living amidst other German families in Ohio, he had a dog named 'Bruno'," says Coughlin. "Since the dog went everywhere with him, he eventually picked up 'Bruno' as his nickname."

Coughlin's email included this Bruno Betzel 1946 quote about Jackie Robinson: "I don't care if the man is purple, he will be a major league player."

I've seen a similar quote from Betzel online, though it substitutes "polka dotted" for "purple."

Betzel came within one year of managing Robinson himself since he was the Montreal Royals skipper in 1944 and 1945. What seems weird is that Betzel was let go by the Dodger organization after managing Montreal to a pennant in 1945.