What's In A Name?
Written by Chriso, Sunday August 09 2009
That's what my friend Bill Shakespeare said. At least it was a quote from Romeo.
Now I'm not talking about made-up names, like "Ocho-Cinco". Or one of my favorites from the XFL "He Hate Me". Very creative, but just not this topic. I'm talking about real names, not stage names like Jon Sterling. And this is not about the great nicknames, like the Splendid Splinter, the Yankee Clipper, or the Say "Hey" Kid. Maybe another article, another time. This is about real names.
It started when I was talking about the AFC East, I wrote a comment about Tony Soprano here. Then Kerri told me that she could root for the Dolphins based on the name of the head coach. This will of course not make for marital bliss, but I still have not successfully explained how a team can have a 1/2 game lead. So there still are things to be decided before we are officially married.
In case you didn't check the link, my joke about Tony Soprano was "Tony Soprano is the coach after a succesful run on HBO, and winning coach of the year last season." This is borrowing from my own joke from 2004 when Mike Myers pitched for the Red Sox. I would often follow it up with the line "I just loved him in The Cat in the Hat". I never even mentioned the Halloween series.
The 2004 Red Sox also had Bill Mueller, pronounced Miller, no relation to Bill Miller the umpire. I am not sure if Bill Miller ever called Bill Mueller out on strikes, but he probably did. Mueller's teammate was Kevin Millar. And in 2005 the Sox picked up Wade Miller, giving them the trophy for most players with a variation on how to spell Miller.
The Sox also have a history on players that share names with cities and towns in the Boston area, including a couple of current Sox. Lowell, MA is a mill town north of Boston. To increase tourism, they created a song "There's a lot to like about Lowell". Surprisingly, Sox fans did not start singing the song as Mike Lowell won the 2007 World Series MVP. Wakefield is a nice suburb, nothing extra special, but it kind of matches what you get out of a dependable pitcher Tim Wakefield.
Going back into the Sox history, they had Carl Everett, and traded Adam Everett to get him. There is no truth to the rumor that talks for the trade were in Everett, MA. Lynn, MA has the famous rhyme: "Lynn, Lynn, city of sin, you never go out the way you came in." Fred Lynn was one of the Gold Dust Twins along with Jim Rice back in the 1970s.
One final point, perhaps you noticed a change in my real name. A new name, new start, new place to live. New identity. It's in the Bible, Genesis and the New Testament. And besides, Bill told me that a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.
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