A Cunning Lefty

Some strange and disturbing things are going on in the world of baseball with regard to names.

Just the other day, we were watching a Reds game when they brought a reliever into the game who went by the name of Jon Coutlangus.

Perhaps some of you “sophisticated types” can see a name like Coutlangus and not so much as bat an eyelash, but we couldn’t help but notice a shocking similarity between this name and an intramural basketball team we once played on called the Cunning Linguists.

In any case, we were willing to more or less look past this somewhat filthy name as an isolated incident, until Tuesday, when watching the Cubs game, we heard one of their TV announcers refer to their recently called-up centerfielder as “Felix Pee.” Look -- his name is Felix Pie. P-I-E. That's pronounced "Pie," not "Urine." Get your mind out of the gutter, people.

Then, a couple innings later, we heard them say his name again and this time they said "pee-AY."

Which calmed us down for a moment, until we realized – much to our horror – that in certain parts of France, the word “pee-AY” actually means “festering pile of dog shit.”

Alarming stuff, to say the least. And if that’s not enough to make you concerned, people are throwing pizza at Fenway Park.

But at least things are relatively normal somewhere in the baseball world. Today in Detroit, injured KC Royals closer Octavio Dotel is scheduled to throw as he recovers from a strained left oblique. Explained Royals manager Buddy Bell:

“That means he’s just going to pick up a ball and throw it.”

And somehow, we find that strangely comforting.

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On the subject of baseball names and interesting/unusual baseball happenings, apparently there was some dude named Jackie Robinson who did something kind of important 60 years ago. We bring this up because the Broken Cowboy recently donned his journalism cap (as he’s known to do) and sat down for an interview with a man who wrote a book about this Jackie Robinson character. You learn more.