Nickname Seeks Player: Stainless Steel Meat Hammer

What we do is assign cool nicknames to players rather than perpetuate the tired, lamewad practice of assigning cool players nicknames. Last time out, Jon Rauch seized the nickname “The Call Is Coming From Inside the House“. So Mr. Rauch has been added to our Hall of Honouur, which is so stately, so regal, so much itself a celebration of the Norman Conquest, that an extra British-English unstressed “u” is required for proper spelling …

“Bad Miracle” – Wily Mo Peña
“Captain Black Tobacco” – John Danks
“$45 Couch” – Yuniesky Betancourt
“Liván Hernández” – Liván Hernández
“Frog in the Pot” – Carlos Zambrano
“Aqua Velva Man” – Chase Utley
“Victorian Sex Rebel” – John Axford
“Good, Round Friend” – Prince Fielder
“I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass” – Kyle Farnsworth
“Interrobang” – Adrián Beltré
“Turbaconducken” – Ty Wigginton
“Hot Lettuce” – Jeff Mathis
“Gargoyle O’Boyle” – Joba Chamberlain
“Science or Bravery?” – Zack Greinke
“Dionysus with Rabies” – Nyjer Morgan
“The Call Is Coming From Inside the House” – Jon Rauch

And the nickname now hanging in the balance? It’s “Stainless Steel Meat Hammer”!

Denotations, Connotations, Implications, Intimations, and Incriminations:

This is a very specific product I encountered in a very specific in-flight magazine. My thoughts at the time were not that I needed said product but rather that the name of said product — Stainless Steel Meat Hammer — would make a good, fine nickname. And so it shall.

While there will forever be only one Hammer — Mr. Hank Aaron — this is a different kind of hammer. This is a hammer designed to beat flesh. Living flesh or dead? Yes. So this could be a player whose manner, bearing and playing style call to mind a blunt object. Or it could be a player whose raw power reminds one of the ritual abuse of meat. Or he could look like a cooking utensil.

Prototypes from Baseball’s Gauzy Past:

Hank Bauer reminded one of a blunt object. Frank Howard hit the ball so hard one inevitably thought of pounded hamburger. And Richie Sexson looked like a cooking utensil.

Guiding, Determinative Query:

What current major-league player, because he tenderizes chops, should be nicknamed “Stainless Steel Meat Hammer”?

The convention floor, which is filled with a selection of meats, hammers and whores, is open for nominations …