Rules of the Game: Calling a Santana a Santana

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If there’s one thing Carson Cistulli is all about it’s feeling good and looking better. If there are two things Carson Cistulli is all about, the second one is making mountains out of molehills wherein matters of baseballing etiquette are concerned.

It’s the latter of these pastimes that I’d like to address presently.

This afternoon, while enjoying an entirely drinkable rosé, I found myself watching the Cleveland-Los Angeles Americans game via MLB.TV. Did I happen to notice that beardless youths Peter Bourjos and Mike Trout were not only playing beside each other in the Angel outfield, but also batting back-to-back in the Angel lineup? No, not at all. That’s ridiculous.

Okay, maybe a little bit.

Fine. Yes. Totally.

In fact, while the prospect of a Trout-Bourjos-Whoever outfield certainly captured the author’s imagination, everything was not — in the words of one contemporary philosopher — flowers and a piece of cake.

Specifically, it was with the Fox Sports West broadcast duo of Victor Rojas and Mark Gubicza that I found myself contending. For Rojas and “Gooby,” despite their myriad charms, appear to be in the habit of referring to Angel starter (and, now, no-hitter-thrower) Ervin Santana as “Ervin.”

This, as any person with sense will acknowledge immediately, is not acceptable behavior. Ervin Santana, on account of he’s Ervin Santana, is a person to whom everyone — his teammates, his wife, his priest — everyone should refer to as “Santana.”

Nor are Rojas and Gubicza the only broadcasters involved in such deleterious conduct. The practice of referring to players by their first names, so far as I can tell, is ubiquitous on both the radio and TV dials.

Of course, it goes without saying: merely because a practice is widely, uh, practiced, this oughtn’t speak to its propriety. No less an authority than the Old Testament, in fact, states (in Ruth or Maccabees or whatever), “Thou shalt not calleth an athlete by his given name.”

Are there exceptions to this Biblical Law? Surely. Chipper Jones, owing to how his name is a fake name, is “Chipper.” Manny Ramirez, because he’s crazy and the best, has been rightly referred to — and shall henceforth be known — as “Manny.”

Apart from these Giants of the Game, however, there are few exceptions. Ervin Santana is very much “Santana.” Brendan Ryan is “Ryan.” Even Charlie Blackmon — until he begins producing the MVP-like numbers that he will inevitably produce — remains “Blackmon.”

This is the word of NotGraphs.