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Bantermetrics: Chicks Dig the Long Names (NYY Edition)

Over at my VORG site, I ran down the players with the longest names in Major League history.  Let’s do that same exercise, but only for the Bombers.  A few ground rules first.  We won’t include dashes, periods or hyphens in the letter count.  We won’t include nicknames unless the nickname was the player’s entire first name (ex. Catfish Hunter would be allowable, Bullet Joe Bush would not.)

Let’s start with first names.  The Yanks have had five players with nine letter first names. Everyone’s favorite Brains, Francisco Cervelli, is the most current entry.  The Yanks employed Jonathan Albaladejo from 2007-10 (he’s now pitching in Japan, and yes, we’ll again be seeing him later on in this piece).  Wormkiller Chien-Ming Wang was a 19-game winner in 2006 and 2007.  We next come to Christian Parker, who made one poor start for the 2001 Yankees (but they gladly took Parker and others in order to make Hideki Irabu an Expo).  Finally, there is Glenallen Hill, a mid-2000 acquisition who posted a .735 slugging percentage (16 homers) in 143 PAs.

Turning to last names, you might think Doug Mientkiewicz’s 12 letter surname has the honors, but Dougie is beaten out by Bill Knickerbocker.  Knickerbocker, a marginal middle infielder in the late 1930s, compiled quite the stolen base record in his career, netting a mere 25 steals in 71 attempts.

Finally, for total name length, Albaladejo’s 18 is matched by Claudell Washington.  Washington’s most memorable Yankee moment might have been April 20, 1988, when he launched the franchise’s 10,000th homerun, a pinch-hit job off of the Twins’ Jeff Reardon.

Till next time!

[Photo Credit: Was Watching]

6 comments

1 birdiebird   ~  May 13, 2011 3:52 pm

In my Senior Year in High School I went to a game on a shool night and left after the 11th inning. This is what I remember about Claudell (it occurred the minute I walked through the door).

September 12, 1988 NEW YORK TIMES

The game had stretched into its sixth hour, and day had slipped into night. For the Yankees, the wait was agonizing and exasperating. It took just an electric instant for the wait to be worth it as well. Claudell Washington, who had not hit a home run off a left-hander this season, smashed a two-run home run off Guillermo Hernandez with none out in the 18th inning last night to lift the Yankees to a dramatic 5-4 comeback victory over the Tigers at the Stadium. With one swing of the bat, Washington, who had belted a homer in the ninth inning of Friday night's 3-2 defeat of the Tigers,...

2 Ken Arneson   ~  May 13, 2011 4:03 pm

[1] Claudell Washington hitting a homer off Guillermo Hernandez has to be one of the longer hitter/pitcher name combinations of such an event, no?

3 Diane Firstman   ~  May 13, 2011 4:28 pm

[2]

I have a feeling that any homer off of William Van Landingham might also have a chance. I also know that Andy Stankiewicz and Mark Grudzielanek have the record for most letters in last names (23) for back-to-back HR hitters

Top of the 9th inning:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN199708230.shtml

4 Diane Firstman   ~  May 13, 2011 4:31 pm

[3]

I just checked. The longest last name to victimize Van Landingham was only 8 letters, for a total of 21.

(or are you speaking of both first AND last name?)

5 Diane Firstman   ~  May 13, 2011 4:33 pm

Jarrod Saltalamacchia took Horacio Ramirez deep once, for a total of 34 letters.
http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/BIdsF

And VanLandingham's best is 34 letters also.

6 William J.   ~  May 14, 2011 1:30 am

[1] That 4-game sweep of the Tigers was one of the Yankees last gasps as a contender until 1993. It included three walks offs, CDub's two that you mentioned and one by Gary Ward (one of the headlines was AWard Winning Peformance, as well as a comeback on the Saturday game of the week.

Also notable about the 18 inning game was Mike Henneman pitched 7 innings in relief (the Tigers only used 3 pitchers).

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