Lahman Baseball Database

The Chris Wi-THROW All-Stars

This morning’s “Effectively Wild” Baseball Prospectus podcast had Sam Miller recalling that Chris Withrow‘s write-up in the BP Annual mentioned that he’s the only Major Leaguer with the word “throw” in his name.

This caused us to wonder what other players had baseball terms secreted within their names. With the Lahman Baseball Database supplying the names, here are the players with at least one of the following terms in their name: hit, run, throw, single, triple, homer, bunt, walk, bat, swing, out, ball, strike, inning. Note: the term can be split across first and last names.

There is ONE player with two terms (OUT, HIT) in his name:

Taylor Douthit

Read moreThe Chris Wi-THROW All-Stars

The VORG’s “Beige Whale”: Longest Name Chain

“The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung” - Moby Dick, chapter 41 I don’t think that any particular data research project has left me missing … Read moreThe VORG’s “Beige Whale”: Longest Name Chain

The Complete List of “Spoonerized” MLB Names

Last month we introduced the concept of “spoonerized” names. A “spoonerism” is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched (see metathesis) between two words in a phrase. Fans of the VORG apparently love them: Craig Goldstein @cdgoldstein Wandy Rolf Jesse Spector @jessespector @cdgoldstein Randy … Read moreThe Complete List of “Spoonerized” MLB Names

If All “Initialed” Players went by their Given Names

Yankees catching prospect J.R. Murphy has informed the club he wants to be known by his full given name, John Ryan Murphy. This got the VORG wondering about the given names of other “initialed” players, and how long their names would be if they went by their full given names (we’re excluding all hyphens, periods … Read moreIf All “Initialed” Players went by their Given Names

All the Sets of Same-named Players

A few days ago, this tweet flashed across my timeline:

No offense to Pedro A. Martinez, but I wish he’d have gone by a different name so @baseball_ref would automatically pull up the other guy.

As a public service to Jacob and other users of Baseball Reference, the VORG has culled a fairly complete list of all sets of same-named players, as generated from the Lahman Baseball Database. There have been 506 sets of same-named players in baseball history, totaling 1,098 names. The most-repeated name is John Sullivan, of which there have been five.

You’ll see the name, their debut, their most frequent position where available and the Baseball Reference ID:

Read moreAll the Sets of Same-named Players

The All-Left (or Right) Side of the Typewriter Roster

Its pretty slow at the Winter Meetings so far, with most of the big deals happening in the days PRIOR to the actual gathering. So the VORG is passing the time presenting you with the list of players whose names can be typed with only the left or right hand on a standard QWERTY keyboard: … Read moreThe All-Left (or Right) Side of the Typewriter Roster

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