What we are doing is assigning cool nicknames to players rather than the opposite, which is a bloodless tradition that has been with us too much and too long.

So how does this running feature differ from the dear, departed exemplar of the genre? “Nickname Seeks Player” was devoted to active base-ball-ists, while “Nickname Seeks Former Player” is the province of those who no longer play this fine game because they are dead in spirit and perhaps also dead in the corporeal sense. Boileryard Clarke? Eligible! Sal Maglie? Eligible! Fred Lynn? Eligible! Dontrelle Willis? Eligible! Pete Rose? Asshole!

You may surmise from this that almost the entire sprawl of baseball history lies before you, like a sexy patient etherized upon a table. So prepare yourself to plumb both depths and heights as we ponder fitting candidates for this week’s name to nicked: “Colonel Sanders’s Drinking Buddy”!

Before we proceed, though, let us remember those who have previously survived this crucible of sturdy ghosts. Last time out, Matt Stairs made love astride trash and claimed the nickname “A Garbage Truck That Runs on Lightning.” So now let us — snifters in hand, cardigans beswaddling our mortal parts — gaze upon The Fireside Mantel of Reposed Fortune-Hunters:

“Museum of Questionable Medical Devices” – Ted Williams
“A Garbage Truck That Runs on Lightning” – Matt Stairs

And now … “Colonel Sanders’s Drinking Buddy”!

Implications and Intimations

Colonel Sanders dressed like landed gentry, wore his whiskers like Cardinal Richelieu and otherwise had the mien of a huge-ass racist. He carried a rapier-tipped walking cane and 11 herbs and spices with him everywhere. One assumes he enjoyed surveying his holdings from the breezy wrap-around porch with a vast bourbon toddy in hand. Sometimes, lonesome from drink, he would invite this ballplayer over to sit on the breezy wrap-around porch and wassail, most of the while encased in the silence of men.

“You’ve done well for yourself, Colonel,” the ballplayer would say.

The colonel would take a sip. “Reckon so.”

“Welp,” the ballplayer would begin. “Best be getting on. Got a ballgame.”

“Reckon you do.”

“Thanks for the hooch, Colonel.”

“God almighty damn.”

Who, citizens of sufficient origins, should be nicknamed “Colonel Sanders’s Drinking Buddy”?

The nomination process, which was, at heart, a bacchanal of trash and thunderclaps, is complete. Now all that remains is the voting, which will be supervised by the Lidless Eye of Right-Wise Outcomes. You, ballotteer, are tasked with choosing among the chosen. Which of the 10 baseball-ists to follow should forevermore be known as “A Garbage Truck That Runs on Lightning”?

Vote carefully, citizens, for ward heelers are authorized to slaughter you on whim …

Thank you for exercising the franchise.

What we are doing is assigning cool nicknames to players rather than the opposite, which is a bloodless tradition that has been with us too much and too long.

So how does this running feature differ from the dear, departed exemplar of the genre? “Nickname Seeks Player” was devoted to active base-ball-ists, while “Nickname Seeks Former Player” is the province of those who no longer play this fine game because they are dead in spirit and perhaps also dead in the corporeal sense. Boileryard Clarke? Eligible! Sal Maglie? Eligible! Fred Lynn? Eligible! Dontrelle Willis? Eligible! Pete Rose? Asshole!

You may surmise from this that almost the entire sprawl of baseball history lies before you, like a sexy patient etherized upon a table. So prepare yourself to plumb both depths and heights as we ponder fitting candidates for this week’s name to nicked: “A Garbage Truck That Runs on Lightning”!

Before we proceed, though, let us remember those who have previously survived this crucible of sturdy ghosts. You’ll recall that last time out, Ted Williams laid somewhat extralegal claim to the nickname “Museum of Questionable Medical Devices.” So now let us — snifters in hand, cardigans beswaddling our mortal parts — gaze upon The Fireside Mantel of Reposed Fortune-Hunters:

“Museum of Questionable Medical Devices” – Ted Williams

And now … “A Garbage Truck That Runs on Lightning”!

Implications and Intimations

A few days ago, my four-year-old male spawn accompanied me to put petrol in our shitty van. We had an exchange that went something like this:

“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Did we just get gas?”
“Yes.”
“Do garbage trucks run on gas?”
“Yes, they do.”
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Can garbage trucks run on lightning?”
“Absolutely.”

And here we are. A garbage truck is something frowned upon by people who drink wine and talk about market corrections. But garbage trucks are, if you think about it, both bad-ass and necessary. A garbage truck that runs on harnessed lightning? Exquisite savior to the world.

So we’re thinking of a player disliked by awful people, awesome in secret, powered by vivid fulminations.

Who, citizens of sufficient origins, should be nicknamed “A Garbage Truck That Runs on Lightning”?

You may recall that we recently presented the reader with every appearance of a meaningful and democratic vote on the nickname “Museum of Questionable Medical Devices.” It turns out that Barry Bonds, by a rather leisured margin, won the voting. Established practice would suggest that the nickname is now his. But, lo, the powers that be are as capricious as the nuts of lightning!

As such, it took but a simple peasant’s Internet comment to derail the process. Witness:

Egad, the lad has a point!

The nickname is “Museum of Questionable Medical Devices,” and Ted Williams, of course, had his coconut preserved in scientific pickle brine in the hopes that he would one day return to take back the streets. As such he seems an impossibly fine match for the nickname “Museum of Questionable Medical Devices.” On the other hand, the people — just look at them — have already spoken in their wee voices, and they want Barry Bonds. The best compromise at this point is a Final Vote Showdown Final. And that is what you shall find below …

Thank you for exercising the franchise.

The nomination process, which necessarily entailed the besoiling of things theretofore unsoiled, has climaxed, withdrawn, rolled over, and drifted off to sleep while reading a Buffalo Wild Wings delivery menu. Now all that is left is the voting.

Debauched functionaries have whittled down the list to a manageable 10, and from those 10 names you will choose one. That chosen one, because he was a super-tuffy and or scurrilous mountebank, shall forevermore be nicknamed “Museum of Questionable Medical Devices.”

Choose carefully, citizens, for those more important than you are watching …

Thank you for exercising the franchise.

What we are doing is assigning cool nicknames to players rather than the opposite, which is a bloodless tradition that has been with us too much and too long.

So how does this running feature differ from the dear, departed exemplar of the genre? “Nickname Seeks Player” was devoted to active base-ball-ists, while “Nickname Seeks Former Player” is the province of those who no longer play this fine game because they are dead in spirit and perhaps also dead in the corporeal sense. Boileryard Clarke? Eligible! Sal Maglie? Eligible! Fred Lynn? Eligible! Dontrelle Willis? Eligible!

You may surmise from this that almost the entire sprawl of baseball history lies before you, like a sexy patient etherized upon a table. So prepare yourself to plumb both depths and heights as we ponder fitting candidates for this week’s name to nicked: “Museum of Questionable Medical Devices”!

Implications and Intimations

The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices was an actual place in, as you might have already guessed, Minnesota, where love is made without ceasing. That there was ever a real thing called the Museum of Questionable Medical devices is to be celebrated as unceasingly as love is made in Minnesota. But what of the nick ‘o name “Museum of Questionable Medical Devices?

It calls to mind leeches and liquor-as-anesthesia and bone saws. It calls to mind a base-ball-ist who was tough enough to have played despite having an amputation wound field-dressed before continuing to fight on for God and country. Or perhaps he seems the embodiment of something a phrenologist would use to false-cure a desperately ill member of a Western-Ohio temperance league.

With those guidelines foremost in your mind, please do nominate the dead or retired.

So who, citizens of sufficient origins, should be nicknamed “Museum of Questionable Medical Devices”?