William Eagan? Nice, ordinary name.

Bad Bill Eagan? I'm curious

Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything on the nickname for this second baseman who played for the St. Louis Browns of the American Association (1891), the Chicago Colts of the National League (1893) and the Pittsburgh Pirates (1898).

He hit just .236 in 108 games, though his average with the Pirates was .328 in 19 games.

He was born in Camden, NJ, but died in Denver in 1905. He was only 35.

Vallie Ennis Eaves was born in Allen, Oklahoma, and was part Cherokee, which gave the pitcher an inevitable nickname: Chief.

He also fit an unfortunate stereotype: he was an alcoholic, which gave him and his managers problems throughout his long career.

At six-foot-three, Eaves was quite a presence on the mound, but he often had trouble finding the strike zone, which is why he made only 24 major league appearances which were spread over five seasons, eight years (1935-42), and three teams (the Philadelphia Athletics, Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs). In 1940 he gave up 12 bases on balls in a single game, which remains a Chicago White Sox record.

He had outstanding years in the minor leagues:

1938: Texarkana (East Texas League) – 15-4
1939: Shreveport (Texas League) – 21-10
1945: San Diego (Pacific Coast League) – 21-15
1947: Texarkana (Big State League) – 25-5
1950: Leesville (Gulf Coast League) – 26-10

He pitched until his 40s, making his last appearance for Hobbs of Canada's Southwestern League in 1957. He'd retired three years before, but briefly unretired so he could join his son, Jerry, on the Hobbs roster.

Vallie Eaves died in 1960. He was 48.

This outfielder-pitcher has a name that sounds like either a Damon Runyon character or a member of Tony Soprano's mob.

He played in just 114 major league games over three National League seasons with three teams – Pittsburgh, Brooklyn and Boston. In 1920, with the Braves, he hit .328 in 87 games. (His other averages were .167 and .095.) As a pitcher he was 1-2 in 11 games with a 6.23 earned run average.

Edwin Eayrs was a Brown University graduate who returned to his alma mater and coached the school's baseball team in the 1940s.

Horace Owen Eller was a pitcher who won 20 games for Cincinnati in 1919, including a no-hitter against the St. Louis Cardinals. Then he beat the Chicago White Sox twice in the World Series, but those victories lost their luster a year later when it was revealed that eight White Sox players had been paid by gamblers to fix the series. In the opening game at that series Eller struck out six straight Chicago batters, setting a Series record that still stands, though it has been tied.

Eller had a dirty little secret – a pitch called the shineball which involved dirt, spit and some hard rubbing. The result was a pitch that fluttered as it approached the plate. Sounds weird, but Major League Baseball outlawed the pitch in 1920 and a year later Eller was out of the majors. He was only 27.

James Thomas Elliott was a pitcher – primarily for Dodgers and Phils (1925-34) – and was called Jumbo because he was big (6-foot-3, 235 pounds). His best season: 1931, when he was 19-14 for Philadelphia.

On his way up to the major leagues Elliott spent five seasons with Terre Haute of the III (Illinois-Indiana-Iowa) League, twice winning 20 or more games. He must have enjoyed Terre Haute because that's where the St. Louis native chose to settle down when he retired from baseball. He became sheriff of Vigo County, Indiana, a post he held for several years until he was defeated in the 1968 election by another former professional athlete, one-time basketball star Clyde Lovellette, who stood six-feet-ten-inches. They might have been the biggest pair of political opponents in American history.

Nowadays this Jumbo Elliott is the least famous of no less than three Jumbo Elliotts who made their marks in sports. Most famous is the former National Football League Jumbo, an offensive tackle for the New York Giants and Jets. The other Jumbo Elliott was the long-time track coach at Villanova University whose teams won eight NCAA track titles. Along the way this Jumbo Elliott coached 28 athletes who competed in the Olympics, with five of them winning gold medals.

Jewel Winkelmeyer Ens was an infielder (1922-25) and longtime manager, mostly in minors. He had an older brother named Anton, a first baseman known as Mutz Ens.

Jewel Ens was the Syracuse manager when I attended my first game there. Now that I know his middle name, Ens is even more memorable.

Aubrey Lee Epps was a catcher who was nicknamed "Yo-Yo." I'm surprised he wasn't called "Hic."

Epps? He'd have preferred to be called back for a second chance. After all, he had three hits, including a triple and three RBIs, in the only major league game he ever played, with Pittsburgh in 1935. The fact he committed two errors might have been the reason the Pirates never used him again.

Still ... how many baseball players can say they had a lifetime major league batting average of .750?

Walter Arthur Evers was a promising Detroit Tiger prospect who played his first American League game in 1941. World War II then interrupted his career and he didn't rejoin the Tigers until 1946. He seemed on his way to fulfilling his promise in 1947 when he hit .296, then had three .300 seasons in a row, peaking in 1950 with a .323 average, 21 home runs, 103 runs batted in and scoring 100 runs.

Then, THUD! His average fell to .224 in 1951. Evers played until 1956, but never again hit better than .264.

Evers was part of a nine-player trade in 1952 that sent him to the Boston Red Sox. He played for Boston again in 1953, but during the next three seasons he learned it was a good idea to keep his bags packed. He went from Boston to the New York Giants then back to Detroit in 1954; to Baltimore, then Cleveland in 1955, and from Cleveland back to Baltimore in 1956.

After his playing days, Evers remained part of major league baseball. He worked for awhile in the Cleveland Indian farm system and in 1971 became director of Detroit Tiger player development.