Nicknames, Nicknames, Nicknames!!!

It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE TOP 100 RED SOX.

More fun from the Top 100 Red Sox Project.

1. Jim Tabor

Rollin', rollin', rollin'
His throws he’s not controllin’
40 error years need consolin’
Rawhide!

His hitting was much better
Though he din’ flash much leather
Sailing his throws so high and wide
His lifetime OP eh-hess,
It ain’t that great ya gu--hess,
740 don’t give him much pride

Men are on, Batter up
Batter up, men are on
Men are on, Batter up
Rawhide

Throw em out, drive em in
Drive em in, throw em out
Throw em out, drive em in
Rawhide!

Keep movin', movin', movin'
His swing it was improving
In ’41 he’s grooving
Rawhide!

Played well through ’44
‘Til the army wanted him more
That ended his good Boston ride.
He was sold to Philly .
His play was willy-nilly
At thirty six years old well, he died.

Men are on, Batter up
Batter up, men are
Men are on, Batter up
Rawhide

Throw em out, drive em in
Drive em in, throw em out
Throw em out, drive em in
Rawhide!

Rawhide!

As you may have guessed by now, Jose loves the Blues Brothers. Also, Jim Tabor, who played third for the Sox from 1938-1944 was nicknamed “Rawhide.” But what do we really know about the man from New Hope, Alabama, a little southern town named for the as yet to be produced fourth chapter of the Star Wars saga? While he debuted in 1938, he didn’t really make his mark as a true rookie until 1939, when his 14 home run 95 RBI debut season was cast into shadow by the far brighter light of fellow rookie Ted Williams. His career was respectable but by no means brilliant. For instance, his top comparable according to Baseball Reference is Aaron Boone, who, as we all know, has yet to do anything of note in his career.

Still, there are a few quirks that make Tabor more noteworthy than the typical .270 career hitter. First, he is one of the small fraternity of players to hit grand slams in consecutive innings, a feat he accomplished on July 4, 1939. Second, he is one of very few major league baseball players whose last name is actually an acronym. TABOR, of course, stands for the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, a controversial Colorado constitutional amendment that has, since 1992, greatly restricted the state’s ability to raise revenue. Among the other Major Leaguers who have an acronym for a last name is Melvin Mora, named for the Michigan Off-road Racing Association. Mora, curiously, is Baseball Reference’s third best comparable for Tabor.

2. Bob Stanley
Bob Stanley, nicknamed “Steamer” because like the Stanley Steamer vacuum, he sucks, is perhaps the best Red Sox player to be almost universally disliked in the popular imagination. Roger Clemens may be hated by many, but others still love him. Jose Offerman and Mike Lansing might be derided, but they weren’t terribly good, but ol’ Bob Stanley was both awfully good and awfully disliked by the Red Sox faithful.

Be honest, have you ever met a Bob Stanley fan? (Note: Okay, at his Baseball Reference page his fenwaynation.com sponsors describe him as “Forever beloved for plunking Mike Barnacle at the 1992 Sox Fantasy Camp In Winter Haven.” But they don’t count. And have you noticed Jose is borrowing heavily from Baseball Reference in these? Wikipedia too, but not that he’s mentioned it, it’s not plagiarism.)

But why was Bob Stanley so disliked? Was it his wild pitch that allowed Mookie Wilson to score the tying run in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series? Nope, every one knows that was a passed ball. Beside, Dave Stapleton should have been pitching, or something like that. Was it the relish with which he played his role as the bullpen fun police and heartless killjoy? Possibly, this is the guy who ceremonially popped a beach ball with a rake on his appreciation night at Fenway. Really. Still, probably not.

No the reason, that Bob Stanley is widely unloved despite being the Red Sox All-Time save leader with 132, despite having a career ERA of 3.64, despite being a two time All-Star is that Bob Stanley, for all of his excellence, never, ever allowed fans to feel safe when he entered a game. Even in 1983 when he was second in the A.L. in saves with 33 and plunked down a nifty 2.85 ERA, did you ever relax when he entered a game? No, you didn’t, unless you responded to his entering a game with 50mg of valium.

A while ago, Jose suggested that a new statistic be named after Steamer. He suggested that when a reliever picks up a win after blowing a lead, effectively stealing the win, he should be credited with a “Stanley.” Look at his numbers. In 1983, arguably his best season, Stanley saved 33 games while blowing 14 saves, tying a major league record. At the same time, he had eight wins and 10 losses. Do you ever feel good when your closer has that many decisions? Chances are quite a few of those wins should be scored as Stanleys.

Yes, yes, the single season blown save record is shared with a couple of pretty good pitchers named Fingers and Sutter, but still, 14 in a year? Only in a situation like that, could Calvin Schiraldi swipe the closing job.

3. Manny Ramirez
We have reached a strange and wondrous time in baseball writing. What else can you call it when age old sayings like “you’ve got to play who’s on the schedule” “Hit ‘em where they ain’t” and “I can’t pinch run, I’ve got a herpes outbreak” have all slid down the cliché totem pole behind what is unquestionably the most non-expository and overused platitude in the game today “It’s just Manny, being Manny?”

It’s just Manny being Manny. What the hell does that mean? In common parlance, it seems to suggest that one take’s the good with the bad, that along with the more than 30 home runs and 100 RBI every single year, one must accept the awkward fielding, the occasional failure to run to first, the peeing in the wall, and the incessant trade demands.

But is that what it should mean? How should we interpret this phenomenon of Mannyism. Is Mannyism some curse, some disease whose sufferers must be quarantined lest they contaminate the whole lot? Is it an infection or merely a functional disease? How far away are we from
nervous soccer moms pestering overburdened psychiatrists to prescribe gleemonex to treat their children’s latent Mannyism? And how far away are we from the day, when the most anxious among these mothers start blaming pesticides, refined sugar or vaccinations for the epidemic of Mannyism sweeping the country? But Mannyism is not a disease, and we should not treat it as such.

No, Jose rejects the clinical definition of Mannyism and instead proposes his own. “Mannyism. Noun 1. A condition wherein one competes without malice, plays without anger, and achieves astonishing excellence without forgetting that he is playing a child’s game.”

We live in a sporting world filled with angry men. These bitter ones fume that athletes do not adequately appreciate their gifts, they rage that stars are not as driven as they would be if only they had the arm, the speed the strength. To them Manny is anathema, a petulant, casual fool, to be derided for his unwillingness to sacrifice, body and soul for the game.

They are wrong. Manny is what the game is all about. You know the kid in little league who is so interested in the bugs in the grass that he forgets about a flyball headed towards him? That’s Manny. The kid who stands in front of the mirror swinging an imaginary bat and imagining the roar of the crowd? That’s Manny too. And the goofy kid who is loved by all of his teammates, regardless of what he does on the field? Manny being Manny.

Manny is the spacey kid made good. The kid who loves to have fun, who loves to swing the bat and grew up to be the man. He grew up to be the man who has been on ten All-Star teams, who won nine silver sluggers, two Hank Aaron awards, and a World Series MVP, all without ever losing his sense of fun.

From being taunted with chants of “Manny’s hitless,” when he roamed Fenway’s right field for the Indians in the 1999 ALDS to being cheered by the Fenway faithful for… well, pretty much everything. Manny has always been Manny. And that’s all we could ever ask.

I’m Jose Melendez and those are my KEYS TO THE TOP 100 RED SOX.

Jose Offerman is Not on This List

It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE 100 GREATEST RED SOX.

Can you believe it? Can you?

Jose is doing something for the common good. For the betterment of mankind, Jose is setting aside his current personal ambition, finding a suitable nickname for lefty reliever Hideki Okajima drawing either on the 1988 Michigan Democratic Presidential Primary or the West Coast Avengers comic book (note: Wonderman? Moon Knight? Jose’s got nothing.), and becoming part of the 100 Greatest Red Sox project that has brought together myriad Red Sox bloggers to not make money no longer as individuals, but as a collective.

Of course, Jose was initially drawn to the project by the fact that Jose Offerman was on the original list, and Jose desperately, desperately wanted to write the profile on Offerman, or as Jose prefers to call him “ The Great Man.” Unfortunately, by the time the acid wore off and the powers that were no longer in the mystical fantasyland where Jose Offerman is one of the 100 greatest Red Sox of all, Jose had already been roped into doing six profiles. Each of these profiles will be available here at KEYS whenever Jose feels like it, and when their number comes up on the top 100 list.

So now, without delay, Jose is proud to present the first of two sets of special KEYS that he agreed to do before thinking better of it.


1. Tom Gordon
As the first capsule profile of a top 100 Red Sox that Jose has dared to write, there was no formula for Jose to draw upon, none of the comforting rituals of banality in which to swaddle himself. So it falls to Jose to dive in forthwith lest he be branded Hamlet on the Charles. So let’s take a look at a moment, a single instant of time, that made Tom “Flash” Gordon the Red Sox legend he is today.

Gordon stands astride the Fenway mound, his wool cap tight and drawn down over his eyes, blinders to his thoroughbred, eliminating all distractions and concentrating all focus on the task at hand. He draws his hands in to his chest purposefully, like a spring compressing. What will it be? The 97 miles per hour of dynamite? Or the curve that shaves six hours off the face of a clock? The switch flipped, the spring that is Tom Gordon expands with violence, sending the a blur of red and white, pinball-like down the alley and towards home plate…

And then…

Tom Gordon’s greatest Red Sox moment arrives.

It arrives not with the slap of a ball in the tired leather of a well-worn catcher’s mitt, but with the thunderclap of ash on horsehide, as David Ortiz swings as smoothly and as surely as a pinball flipper on a spoke, and sends the ball flying, as if rolling up a ramp and into the Boston night.

Yankees 4--Red Sox 3 and six outs to go. TILT.

Yup, Tom Gordon did a lot for the Boston Red Sox, and we should appreciate him. Heck, he did more that night alone, walking Kevin Millar, and panicking with Dave Roberts pinch running for Kentucky Fried Kevin, allowing Mosey Nixon to slap single Roberts to third on a hit and run. He did more for the Red Sox that one night than in his entire stint with the team. And that’s why he is one of the all time greatest Red Sox, even if it was for his work in pinstripes.

But of course this is totally unfair. In his time with the Red Sox, Tom Gordon was, well, flashy. He came aboard as a starter, as he had been in Kansas City before, and put in mediocre inning after mediocre inning before trying his hand in the bullpen. It was then that he discovered that free from the awful burden of pitching more than one or two innings at a time, he could throw quite a bit harder. Indeed, he was almost incapable of blowing a save, at least between April and September. But in October things were different. When the apples got big and ripe, Gordon would wither and fade, such as in 1998, when his blown save against Cleveland in Game 4 of the ALDS, only his second of the season, prevented Jimy Williams from looking like a genius for starting Pete Schourek over Pedro Martinez. At least some good came of it. No, Gordon seemed to be a Vanderjagt or Schiraldi, brilliant in the regular season and soft in the post season, than he did a Mariano Rivera.

It got worse, Sox fan and author Steven King authored a book that off-season entitled The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon with predictable results. King got hit by a truck and Gordon blew out his arm, all but ending his Red Sox tenure. We all know King is comfortable meddling with the forces of the dark, but seriously, he should have known that messing around with the Red Sox would have dire results.

2. Troy O’Leary
As soon as Jose signed his letter of intent declaring his plans to participate in this project, he knew he wanted Troy O’Leary. Let’s look at the facts. First, O’Leary hit one of the two batting practice balls Jose owns from his time working at Fenway in 1995. (Note: The other belongs to the then hitting coach a washed up hack named Jim Rice who could still crush batting practice.) Second, O’Leary, like Jose frequented a bar named O’Leary’s on Beacon St. just West of Kenmore Square. They have good soda bread there. Third, the rumors about the personal problems that distracted O’Leary in 2000 involve the delicious combination of Mrs. O’Leary and a speedy teammate, making this the most interesting story involving a Mrs. O’Leary that does not involve the incineration of Chicago. Fourth, his nickname “Yummy,” given for his sweet tooth, is maybe the best official Red Sox nickname of all time. Jose only regrets that he was not writing at the time, so he could have demanded that “yummy, yummy, yummy I’ve got love in my tummy” by Ohio Express become O’Leary’s theme song.

But let’s be honest, as much as Jose loves all of these things about Troy O’Leary, they are not the reason he is on this list and they are not the reason Jose wanted to write about him. No, Troy O’Leary became a legend… that’s right a legend... one night in October 1999 when the Cleveland Indians twice made a tactically perfect move. Two times they intentionally walked Nomar Garciaparra, the only frightening hitter on that Red Sox squad, in order to face the man they call Yummy. And Yummy ate them up like so many chocolate covered gummi bears. Each time he launched home runs a grand slam and a three run shot that, in combination with Pedro Martinez’s six innings of hitless relief, gave the Red Sox a 12-8 win. When asked after the game how he had overcome his poor performance earlier in the series to emerge as a star, O’Leary a black ballplayer in Boston answered with a reply that would have made any Sully in Southie proud “Luck of the Irish.”

3. Pete Runnels
When Jose selected Pete Runnels as one of the old-timey players he would profile, Jose just assumed that he was related to professional wrestler Virgil Runnels III, a.k.a. Goldust, and his father Vigil Runnels Jr., a.k.a. the American Dream Dusty Rhodes. Pete Runnels is not. Nuts.

However, all is not lost, as it turns out that Pete, like his fellow Runnels’ has a secret identity. His shocking true identity is James Edward Runnels. So going by Pete is kind of pathetic. Jose hates people who hide behind fake names. They’re kind of sketchy.

Come on, see the resemblance? They've got to be related.

But as it turns out Jose is glad that he ended up with Runnels. You know why? Because Baseball Reference lists, as his eighth most comparable player… get ready… Jose Offerman! Ergo, this profile is the eighth most like writing a capsule pinup of Jose Offerman. It has to be, it’s sabermetrics.

That said, there are still a lot of differences between Runnels and Offerman. For instance, Runnels was a three time All-Star in 1959, 1960 and 1962, whereas Offerman was an All-Star, well, never. Runnels won two batting titles, and barely lost a third to Ted Williams, whereas Offerman won none and narrowly lost a race with Dante Bichette for biggest jackass on the team. And with on base percentages ranging from .396 to .416 in his years with the Red Sox, Runnels could have done a far better job replacing Mo Vaughn’s “on base capability” than Offerman ever did.

Of course, Offerman does have his advantages too. Even though Jose has never seen tape of Runnels, he’s pretty sure he didn’t make that over the shoulder play running into the outfield as well as Offerman… come on, no one made that play as well as Offerman.

I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE 100 GREATEST RED SOX.