First baseman Choi broke in with the Chicago Cubs in 2002 and has since bounced from Chicago to the Los Angeles Dodgers to the Florida Marlins, back to the Dodgers, then across the country to the Boston Red Sox, who sent Choi 40 miles down Interstate 95 to play the 2006 season with the Pawtucket (RI) Red Sox of the International League. He failed to resurface in the major leagues during the 2007 season. According to The Baseball Register, his name is pronounced hee sop choy.

Shin-Soo Choo
Shin-Soo Choo (1978- )

Like Choi, Choo is a native of South Korea. He is an outfielder who was brought up to the majors in 2005 after hitting .282 with Tacoma of the Pacific Coast League. He played briefly for Seattle in 2006, but spent most of the year with Tacoma, hitting .323. In July the Mariners traded Choo to Cleveland and he hit .295 in 45 games for the Indians. In 2007 he played only six games for Cleveland, batting .294.

I love the Korean names, though it's probably because they are, for the moment, unusual for major league baseball. That might not be the case twenty years from now.

Cuckoo Christensen
Walter Neils Christensen (1899-1984)

Christensen was an outfielder who came on like gangbusters in 1926, his rookie year with Cincinnati, hitting .350, finishing just three points behind the league leader, his teammate, catcher Bubbles Hargrave. Christensen's hitting wasn't entirely unexpected. He had great success in the minor leagues for several seasons before the Reds called him up.

What was unexpected was that Christensen would remain in the major leagues only one more season, playing 57 games in 1927 when his average dropped to .254.

It wasn't only his hitting slump that doomed Christensen. There was the matter of his nickname – and how he earned it. Christensen was a showman who sometimes seemed more concerned with entertaining spectators than helping his team. One of his bits was to do somersaults in the outfield, even when a fly ball was headed his way. In 1927 he lost a game for Cincinnati when he somersaulted under a fly ball – and dropped it. His manager, Red Killefer, reportedly chased Christensen all the way to the clubhouse. (When I checked fielding averages I was surprised to discover Christensen's was the highest of any Cincinnati outfielder in 1926; not so a year later.)

By 1928, Cuckoo Christy, as he was called, was back in the minor leagues where his average was up over .300 again and his somersaults were tolerated. He retired as a player in 1934.

Christensen also was nicknamed Seacap, but so far I've found no story to go with it.

Gino Cimoli
Gino Nicholas Cimoli (1929- )

This outfielder started with Brooklyn in 1956, went with the Dodgers to Los Angeles two years later, and then became the definition of well-traveled. From 1959-65, he played for St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Baltimore and the California Angels (who later became the Anaheim Angeles, then the Los Angeles Angels).

Along the way Cimoli had several special moments – scoring the Dodgers' first run after they moved to Los Angeles, being the leadoff hitter in the first major league game in San Francisco, but most of all, getting the single that started a five-run Pittsburgh rally in Game Seven of the 1960 World Series against the New York Yankees. Afterward, Cimoli told reporters, "They broke all the records, but we won the Series." Indeed, the Pirates were the strangest World Series champions ever – they were outscored by the losers, 55 to 27.

Cimoli's last name is a flashback to simoleon; that's oldtimey slang for "a dollar."

Cisco pitched for the Boston Red Sox, New York Mets and Kansas City Royals in the 1960s. His playing career was a bust, more or less, but afterward he was a successful pitching coach for more than 30 years.

He was well known before he pitched his first major league game because he was the fullback on Ohio State's 1957 national championship football team. He was inducted into the Ohio State University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995.

I guess I always liked Galen Cisco because I was a fan of TV's Cisco Kid.

Stubby Clapp
Richard Keith Clapp (1973- )

Clapp is 5-foot-8, but apparently he would have been called Stubby even if he were six inches taller. Stubby's a nickname handed down from his father and his grandfather. To differentiate the men in the family, the guy who played 23 games with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2001 ought to be known as Stubby Clapp III. In any event, people who judge baseball players by their names agree that Stubby Clapp is one of the greats.

As for the young man who carries it, he returned to the minor leagues after his brief fling in the bigs. He also played for the Canadian national team during the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, but his team lost to Japan in the bronze medal game.

Harlond Clift
Harlond Benton Clift (1912-1992)

If you said Harland Clift's a famous writer, people'd probably believe you. Instead, Clift is one of the major leaguers that time has pretty much forgotten. Lots of walks, flashes of power, the third baseman averaged more than 100 runs scored in his first nine seasons – with the St. Louis Browns, yet. He was the first third baseman to hit more than 30 home runs in a season (34, in 1938).

One source said Clift's decline began with the mumps, often a debilitating disease for an adult, and got worse when he fell from a horse in 1944, injuring his shoulder. His batting average fell to .211 in 1945, his last season. He was only 33. In his prime he was considered one of baseball's best third basemen ever.

Buck Coats
Buck Coats (1982- )

That's no nickname. Coats was born Buck in Fort Benning, GA, in 1982. He has played infield and outfield in the Chicago Cubs organization since 2000. He played in 18 games for the Cubs in 2006, but started 2007 with the (Des Moines) Iowa Cubs of the Pacific Coast League. He wound up with the Cincinnati Reds in 2007, playing 20 games, batting .206 as a center fielder.

Choo Choo Coleman
Clarence Coleman (1937- )

This catcher was a New York Met favorite in 1961-62 because of his catchy name, certainly not because of his hitting. His 1962 batting average was .178.

What folks seem to remember most is a radio interview with Ralph Kiner, former Pittsburgh Pirate great who went on to become a New York Mets broadcaster. At one point in the interview Kiner noted the Mets catcher had recently gotten married. "What's your wife's name?" he asked. And Choo Choo replied, "Mrs. Coleman."

Ripper Collins
James Anthony Collins (1904-1970)

Collins was first baseman for St. Louis Cardinals in the early 1930s until he lost the job to Johnny Mize and was traded to the Chicago Cubs. Collins led the National League in home runs (35) in 1934.

The first baseman left his mark on the International League during his two seasons with the Rochester Red Wings (1929-30). He averaged .348, hit 78 home runs and drove in 314 runs. His 180 runs batted in during the 1930 season remains the league record.

After his playing days were over he was a minor league manager.

Collins also was frequently called Rip, but that invites confusion with Harry Warren (Rip) Collins, an American League pitcher who won 108 games in his long career (1920-31). Of pitcher Rip Collins, it was once said he had a million dollars worth of talent and 25 cents worth of enthusiasm. He was a party animal from Texas who said he started drinking beer when he was six years old. He got his nickname from a pre-Prohibition whiskey called RIP (probably initials for Rest In Peace).

As for Ripper Collins, he claimed he got his nickname as a youngster in Altoona, Pennsylvania, when he hit his team's only baseball and it landed on a nail that was sticking out of a fence. The nail ripped the cover off the ball. Sounds contrived, but if he were lying you'd like to think he could have made up a more interesting tale.

Shano Collins
John Francis Collins (1885-1955)

Outfielder, sometimes first baseman who played 16 seasons (1910-1925) with the Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox. Collins was one of the White Sox players who survived the scandal over the 1919 World Series. He was regarded as a good defensive player, though his statistics don't seem impressive. He had a lifetime batting average of .264.

He managed the Boston Red Sox in 1931, lifting the team out of last place for the first time in seven seasons. (They finished sixth.) But Collins was fired in 1932 after Boston lost 44 of its first 55 games. The Red Sox finished last again, losers of 111 games. Meanwhile, Collins resumed managing in the minor leagues.

Jim Command
James Dalton Command (1928- )

Command played briefly with Phils (1954-55) and is listed as third baseman, though I swear I saw him catch in the minor leagues.

Nickname: Igor. There has to be a story behnd that. Unfortunately, I haven't found it yet.

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