Some guys have pretty distracting names.
Onomastics is the study of proper names. I had to look it up.
It's an interesting field though, however obscure. Your surname might mean exactly what it sounds like it means, especially if you're a Baker or a Townsend.
You know Jeff, don't you?
Which one? The Baker or the one that lives at town's end?
Boom.
Jeff Townsend.
Some names are pretty simple, but of course, there are nearly 7,000 languages in existence, according to Ethnologue, and then again, sometimes people just make stuff up.
It seems like there's always a pale tatter of a thought whisping around in the back of my mind when I hear or read a player's name that is also a somewhat common word. Its never the main focus when, say, Travis Wood is pitching to Brandon Moss, but the reverie of a pseudo-Tolkien forest creature battle exists somewhere -- even if it's ephemeral.
The world would be a much more confusing -- and probably much more interesting -- place if people were somehow genealogically willed to break out in the actions of their namesake at any given moment, or if the signals that represent them could become confused or manifested in reality from time to time.
Instead, in boring reality, names just remind me of stuff. Here are a few of the first things that come to mind when these players are mentioned:
Brett Gardener, New York Yankees
"And here's Brett Gardner ... hitting .281 on the season ... seven stolen bases. Buchholz looks in. Here's the pitch ... and Gardner got into that one. It's going to get into the gap. He's thinking three. Kelleher makes the hand off at first ... Gardy's diggin'. The throw is in ... and ... he's got 'em in there for a triple. Three stunning pink petunias just short of center field ... those are petunias, aren't they David?"
Anthony Rizzo (the rat), Muppets/Chicago Cubs
Rizzo the rat certainly isn't the first Rizzo ever, but it was the first I had ever heard the name. It's actually pronounced REET-so, and is a derivative of the Italian adjective riccio -- which means curly, as in curly hair. Rizzo the first baseman and human being has been sporting the two-guard close crop hairdo recently, but when he let's it go, it's suits him rather well -- onomastically anyway.
Josh Reddick, Oakland Athletics
Just kidding.
Yusmeiro Petite, San Francisco Giants
Yusmeiro Petit is actually 6'1", but wouldn't it be overwhelmingly precious if he was exactly the same in every way except instead of 6'1" he was 1'6"? I think so.
Chris Archer, Tampa Bay Rays
Well, that was kinda easy.
(Thomas) Edi(n)son Volquez, Pittsburgh (Idea) Pirates
Edinson Volquez was briefly Edison Volquez. He added the N (for Nikola) in 2007, presumably after he learned that Thomas Edison was actually just a chubby corporate punk that jobbed over Nikola Tesla really hard. That last part has not been confirmed by any sources. In other words, I made it up, but that could be why Volquez added the N.
Anyway, just about everyone that has heard of the pitcher thinks of the "inventor" every five days or so.
Carlos Newton, Chicago Cubs
Villanueva is kind of an easy one if you have a cursory understanding of the Spanish language. Villa is "town" and -nueva is "new", therefore -- Newton.
The apple story is somewhat apocryphal. Newton has been one of the most influential people in the historicity of mankind. He did not stumble into the theory of gravity by getting plunked on top of the head with an apple like a doofus. He did however, say that he was inspired by watching an apple fall from a tree -- which is exactly why Carlos Villanueva throws apples instead of baseballs in our sister universe.
Torii Hunter, Detroit Tigers
There are 182,083 Hunters in the United States -- that's the amount people with that last name, not the amount that enjoy shooting stuff to death. Torii Hunter is best baseball Hunter of that group. Catfish Hunter -- a doubly fantastic name unless you count the fact that his real first name was Jim -- was probably the best baseball Hunter of all time, and unfortunately for Torii, Catfish is likely to continue to be the only baseball Hunter in the Hall of Fame.
Justin Smoke, Seattle Mariners
Arquimedes (Caminero), Miami Marlins
Arquimedes was an ancient Greek mathematician, physicists, engineer, inventor, and astronomer, but he is perhaps most famous for his bath time exclamation, "Eureka!" Actually, he's probably remembered more for running naked through the streets of Syracuse, but the exclamation, meaning "I found it" was pretty solid too.
Modern day Arquimedes might not be a science-bending dilettante like his namesake, but he could have a similar moment if he cracked the spine of The Book.
Bartolo Colon, New York Mets
Eh, close enough.
Mike Moustakas, Omaha Storm Chasers
Moustakas means "mustache" in Greek. This -- ήσσονος σημασίας συνδεσμού -- means "minor leaguer," according to Google translate.