Boomer And Yoshinobu

I was listening to a discussion on the baseball channel of my XM radio and they were talking about the upcoming start of the baseball season. It will begin with a series in Japan (?) between the Cubs and Dodgers. When they mentioned that Yoshinobu Yamamoto might pitch for LA, I immediately thought of Chris Berman. You may wonder why - I’ll explain later.

Chris Berman, known as Boomer, has been on ESPN since 1979. He has limited time on the network now, but there was a time when he presented more baseball highlights than anyone. He was always enthusiastic and humorous, best illustrated by his bestowing outrageous nicknames on the players. Here is a list of a dozen of my favorites:

Ron “Born in the US” Cey

Steve Lyons “And tigers and bears, oh my”

Cookie “Days of wine and” Rojas

Roberto “Remember the” Alomar

Eddie ‘Eat drink and be” Murray

Wally “Absorbine” Joyner

Tony Gwynn “And bear it”

Darryl Strawberry “Fields forever”

“Fettuccini” Alfredo Griffin

Chuck “New kids on” Knoblauch

Bernard “Innocent until proven” Gilkey

And my favorite - Jim “Two silhouettes on” DeShaies

Then here are a half dozen names Boomer gave to players who spent time with the Texas Rangers:

Darryl “Green eggs and” Hamilton

John “Tonight let it be” Lowenstein

Sammy “Say it ain’t” Sosa

Frank Tanana “Daiquiri”

Oddibe “Young again” McDowell

And the best - Bert “Be home” Blyleven

So when I heard the name Yoshinobu Yamamoto I thought of Chris Berman and began to sing Yamamoto Runnin’ - Head Out on the Highway

That’s one man’s (goofy) opinion - what’s yours?