Our ongoing quest, in the manner of the noble knight-errant, is to assign players to cool nicknames rather than indulge in the tired, shopworn paradigm of assigning nicknames to cool players.

First, though, a brief jaunt through our Nickname Seeks Player Vaulted Halls of Honor:

“Bad Miracle” – Wily Mo Peña
“Captain Black Tobacco” – John Danks
“$45 Couch” – Yuniesky Betancourt

Moving on … The nickname up for grabs in this episode? It’s “Liván Hernández”!

Yes, that’s right: Liván Hernández. We don’t mean Liván Hernández the given legal name, although Liván Hernández the person is certainly eligible for Liván Hernández the nickname. Rather, we pay homage to Liván Hernández the person and his strong yet ultimately failed showings in previous rounds of balloting. As well, we wonder whether someone out there in baseball embodies what it means to be Liván Hernández better than Liván Hernández himself. So this week’s nickname is Liván Hernández.

Denotations, Connotations, Implications, Intimations, and Incriminations:

You might a be large, frumpy pitcher with enough guile, tenacity and Eric Gregg to stick around in the majors until the mountains crumble into the sea. You might be the knuckleballer who never throws a knuckleball. You might be the durable embodiment of average-ness, regardless of role and deployment. You might be a player who, despite that frumpy appearance, for some reason strikes you as a man who makes love like a godhead.

More generally, you might be a ballplayer who readily brings to mind and lips this observation: “This guy seems like Liván Hernández more than Liván Hernández does.” Yes, you might be what we talk about when we talk about Liván Hernández.

Prototypes from Baseball’s Gauzy Past:

Rick Reuschel? Gary Gaetti, who in some ways seems like the position player’s analog of Liván Hernández? Mike LaValliere? Jeff Juden on his best day ever?

Guiding, Determinative Query:

What current major-league player should be nicknamed “Liván Hernández?

The floor, lovesexies, is open for nominations …

Because Stubby Clapp’s name is Stubby Clapp, anything having anything to do with Stubby Clapp is at least somewhat noteworthy. This time, however, Mr. Clapp makes these pages not because of his perfect name, but rather because he recently got himself ejected like a super champion. He’s presently skipper of the minor-league Tri-City ValleyCats, and, unlike the ninja, he does not flip and kill people. Stubby Clapp does, however, flip out …

Somewhere in America, Earl Weaver’s vast evening toddy tastes a bit better to him tonight.

(Hosannas: Todd and his Twitter)

A daguerreotype for your review …

Survey this man’s bewitching countenance, and you’ll find it inevitable that his name is … Adrian Devine.

There are names so heavy-handed in their suitability that they seem plucked from some Hawthorne novel that the professorial and elbow-patched among us say you must read. So what do you name a man whose aspect suggests a Picaresque life of invading boudoirs and ripping bodices? You name him Adrian Devine. Or Caspian Sexworth. But probably Adrian Devine.

I wrote a book that some people — people not even related to me — think is pretty good. That book [deep breath], Reggie Jackson: The Life and Thunderous Career of Baseball’s Mr. October, is now available in trade paperback at championship retailers everywhere. Just look at it!

If you’ve previously purchased and enjoyed the the boundless charms of the hardcover edition, please know that this one is much more ergonomic and comfortable. But that’s not all! Here’s an interview with me about said book, which, I may have mentioned, is available for purchase.

In the timeless words of the Video Professor, “Please try my product.” In fact, if you purchase this book, then I’ll come to your house, place of business or favorite darkened boulevard and sign it for you!*

^{*I will almost certainly not do this. But I do love all of you.}

It’s time for another installment of “Shorter Baseball Columnists,” in which we read mainstream baseball columnists and marginalized bloggers like Murray Chass so you don’t have to! Let us begin!

Shorter Gerry Callahan: Erik Bedard hates the media. Ergo, he will destroy the Red Sox.

Shorter Steve Rosenbloom: Alex Rios is having a bad season, and that, obviously, is a personal attack on me.

Shorter Jim Souhan: The Twins should trade for someone like Donovan McNabb. Or they should trade away someone like Donovan McNabb. Something like that.

Shorter Murray Chass: The New York Post, which is a newspaper, recently practiced what I consider to be shoddy journalism, which is why I hate bloggers.

Shorter Bill Dwyre: I like Derek Jeter.

Shorter T.J. Simers: No one connects with today’s youth quite like Tommy Lasorda.

Shorter Joe Cowley: No one’s ever made a joke about how statheads live in their parents’ basements, right?

The “Shorter” approach to Internetty commentary traces back, as best as one can tell, to Daniel Davies.

In part because I’d love to contribute to our new category “Comedy Jokes,” I have embedded an Internet Comedy Video. This Internet Comedy Video is of Joke-Cracker and Cracker of Jokes Louis C.K.’s riffing on how human society could be improved by the presence of Wild Lions. At the 4:40 mark Mr. C.K. will, as part of this Comedy Monologue, briefly insult the Kansas City Royals Baseball Club.

I should caution you that because this was first broadcast on Lamewad Network Color Television, you’ll notice the troubling absence of Reliable Curse Words like “!@#$%” and “#$%!@” and “Longinus.” My hope is that the Customer will nevertheless be satisfied by this Internet Comedy Video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-CvigrOuqE&feature=player_embedded

Thank you for watching the Preceding Internet Comedy Video.

In which the Royal We insert Dick Allen’s name into various works representative of the Western Canon, thus adding to those various works the patina of blessedness.

Today’s episode: Rainer Maria Rilke’s haunting sonnet, “Archaic Torso of Apollo.” We present it here already translated from the original German for today’s busy executive. Spoiler alert: Dick Allen’s name shows up as a verb this time!

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must Dick Allen your life.

This has been the latest episode of Inserting Dick Allen’s Name Into Works of Literature.

What follows is not especially new, but neither am I.

You’ve often heard loose talk of the “Drums of War,” no? What follows features the less famous though equally rousing and deadly, “Guitar and Lead Singer’s Voice of War.”

If the voice strikes you as “Wagnerian” — and it surely does — then that’s because it’s actually Wagner singing.

I don’t have unassailable proof that Alexander’s muscled, glistening, loiny troops listened to this heart-pumping anthem before vanquishing Darius III, but, after allowing this song to course through me over and over on my Sony Walkman with auto reverse, I’m willing to test that theory in the streets. With my war-fists.

(Hot, knowing glance: BBTF)

So robust was our initial list of nominees that some culling was in order. So the list of final candidates for the nickname “$45 Couch” is the product of some painful yet necessary “executive decisions.” Please direct any complaints to the convention parliamentarian, who neither cares about your complaint nor exists.

By all means, please revisit the nomination thread, which includes some feverish and well-stated arguments for all involved, in addition to the cracking of wisecracks.

Now, however, the question is before us for a final time: who should be nicknamed “$45 Couch”? Vote, beautiful sons and daughters of the Republic!

I never got to see Rick Kaminski, Seattle’s “Peanut Guy,” ply his trade in person. But I knew of him and was glad to know he was out there. He died late last night.

No one is reducible to his job or what you think you know of him from afar, but, based on those distant impressions, here’s to a guy who seemed to love his life, which would strike most as a simple life, and who, over the years, gave a lot of people a laugh or two that they probably needed. To be honest, that’s more than most of us are good for.

Tonight, I’m raising a drink to Rick Kaminski. Join me?