The Real Meaning of Donkey

• If you're an Indians fan or someone who occasionally watches Baseball Tonight, you're probably aware that Cleveland DH Travis Hafner is nicknamed "Pronk," a combination of the words "project" and "donkey." During Sunday's Indians-White Sox game on ESPN, Jon Miller and Joe Morgan got into a discussion of the origins of this nickname. Project, they said, was something his teammates called him (in sports terms, this of course refers to a somewhat raw and unpolished player who needs fine-tuning to excel). As for the donkey aspect of the nickname, Miller and Morgan seemed to be under the impression that it had come from the character named Donkey in the movie Shrek. Hmm...I'm not sure if Jon and Joe were aware that they were way off base here, but according to my sources, the "donkey" in Pronk is not a reference at all to said movie character but is in fact a nod to Hafner's absurdly gigantic schlong. Which leads me to wonder: Were Jon Miller and Joe Morgan somehow not aware of this proverbial elephant in the shower, or were they aware of it and just intentionally chose to completely sidestep it and give the PG explanation? Either way, makes them look pretty stupid if you ask me. The way they handled this, it probably would have been best to avoid talking Pronk altogether.

• A slightly amusing offshoot of the recent Jason Grimsley steroid revelations is that all of a sudden amphetamine use in baseball is a hot-button topic again. So, when Jim Leyritz admits that he used amphetamines during his career, as he did last week, somehow it's expected to be a big deal. My question: Didn't we already know, 100 percent for certain, that use of amphetamines (usually called "greenies") was absolutely rampant in baseball? Haven't we known this since, like, 1970, when Jim Bouton published Ball Four? Right. That's what I thought. I will say that I found one thing rather amusing about last week's Leyritz story: As Leyritz recalls, he first found it necessary to dose up on amphetamines early in his career when Don Mattingly hurt himself and was out of the lineup. But as the news story points out, "[Leyritz's] recollection of the day isn't perfect spot-on, however, as Mattingly played first base and Leyritz manned third." This kills me. Recollection wasn't spot-on? Of course it wasn't spot-on -- he was jacked up on amphetamines! I for one have never popped greenies, but I can only imagine they don't do wonders for the mind's efforts to accurately recollect precise events during the time of use. I don't claim to be an expert on this stuff, but I would wager saying that someone has trouble remembering what happened while he was on ampetamines is about as noteworthy as pointing out that someone hopped up on PCP feels inclined to run through a plate glass window and jump in front of moving traffic. Which is to say, not noteworthy at all.

• One other thought on drug use, or lack thereof: Has anyone else taken notice of Brandon Fahey, who has been starting in left field for Baltimore for about the past week? Dude is listed at 6-2, 160. For frame of reference, The OCC goes 6-0, 165, and I'm not exactly breaking down walls Incredible Hulk style. Which is to say that 6-2, 160 makes Fahey something like the skinniest man alive (warning: disturbing photo). So it follows then that this guy is probably the ultimate antithesis of the Steroids Era. Which is obviously great -- he's like a throwback to some of the players we saw in the 80's and early 90's. But could someone tell Brandon that just because you're (probably) not juicing doesn't mean you can't hit the weight room every now and then, or at the very least double up on fried shrimp at the Ponderosa buffet. I'm pretty sure if this guy got hit by a pitch his torso might just fall off, leaving his teetering legs still standing in their exact batting stance at home plate.

• Lastly, I haven't seen the numbers, but I can't think that the ratings for Game 2 of the NBA Finals were anything short of terrible. I don't know about the rest of you, but at 9 p.m. (when the game started), I watched the season premiere of "Deadwood" on HBO, and followed that up with the season opener of "Entourage" at 10. By 10:30 I flipped to the basketball game, but was so disengaged that I found myself more curious to see if Bob Wickman was going to nail down a save for my fantasy team over on Sunday Night Baseball (he did. Hooray!). Unless Miami really gets it going at home in Game 3 (certainly not out of the question), this is looking like a "Wake Me Up When Mark Cuban Goes Completely Insane Celebrating Mavs' Win" kind of series. I'm sure it's nothing a couple of greenies couldn't fix, though...