Idiots Write About Sports

So as a part of his weekly baseball column on ESPN.com’s Page 2, Eric Neel is asking readers to choose nicknames for today’s ballplayers. This week, it’s Eric Chavez’s turn in the nickname spot shadow. In keeping with the current operating procedure at Page 2, the choices are numbingly idiotic:

• Eazy E
• Fly Paper
• Salty Bob
• Leather
• The Viking
• The Rake
• Cha Cha
• Young Gun
• The Lion of Alameda County

So that’s a dead rapper, Orlando Cepeda’s old nickname, a terrible Terry Jones movie, an even worse Emilio Estevez movie, and a bunch of other choices so dopey I was embarrassed to even type them. That’s some top-notch work going on there at the Worldwide Leader.

Hey — here’s an off-the-wall suggestion: Why not call him Chavy? That’s what A’s fans call him. That’s what the A’s announcers call him. That’s what his teammates call him. I’d say the people have had their say on this subject.

Hmmm? Chavy’s not even a choice? Yeah, well, when you have “Salty Bob” as an option, that makes perfect sense.

But now that Eric Neel has stumbled upon the entertaining-if-redundant process of assigning nicknames to players who already have nicknames, one can only imagine future installments now being planned deep within the bowels of ESPN.com.

Hey, let’s give Hank Aaron a nickname!

Eric… he already has a nickname.

He does?

Uh… yeah. Several in fact. The Hammer. Hammerin’ Hank. Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax used to call him Bad Henry…

Aw, those nicknames don’t make any sense! Let’s call him Peaches! Or Memphis Freddy! Ooooh… I know! The English Patient!

So I can hardly wait until next week when I learn the nickname I won’t be using for Eric Chavez, now or at any time in the future. And should Eric Neel want to pick nicknames for Goose Gossage, Lefty Grove, and Oil Can Boyd, I’d like to go on the record now as favoring Mr. Quackers, Righty, and One-Eyed Pete.

[Update: As I was ranting to Jason about this yesterday, he clicked on the above URL and, right before my eyes, voted for the nickname “Salty Bob.” Before I could properly throttle him, he calmly explained, “A vote for ‘Salty Bob’ is a vote for idiocy.” And it was then that the scales fell off my eyes, and I saw the brilliance of his actions. By voting for the stupidest of the half-witted choices offered to us, we are exposing this exercise for the mockery of a sham of a travesty that it is. So I urge all four readers of the Idiot Sports Weblog to get thee hence to Page 2 and click on “Salty Bob” until you lose feeling in your index finger. Vote “Salty Bob” in ‘04!]

It's extremely heartening to read this, as my reaction after perusing Neel's column the other day was identical to yours' and Jason's.

Now I can only hope that the current third place status of "Salty Bob" is due to thousands of others echoing the "vote for idiocy" strategy, and not because they think it's a catchy moniker.

"Mr. Quackers," on the other hand, is just plain genius.