Hence is the Relief Pitcher

Tink Hence, a relief pitcher, is a prospect in the Cardinal's farm system.

I hope that he makes the Majors, so that we can bring back more of these jokes. My favorite one was when Chin Lung Hu came up with the Dodgers; I always wanted him to reach first base.

And Hence's first name is also great. "Tink Hence" is such a great baseball name. Because.

The Cleveland Baseball Team

The Major League Baseball team that is situated in Cleveland will no longer be called the Indians. Finally! This is long past due. Hopefully, the Atlanta Braves will eventually follow suit.

A Band Called "f(x)"

I know nothing about the band — and K-Pop isn't exactly my style anyway — but I definitely like the band's name!

An Author Named "Tapas Bar"

The first author of this new paper is named "Tapas Bar".

Suddenly, I feel hungry.

Best. Erratum. Ever.

Because they have so many coauthors, one letter wrong in a name led to this. :)

This is quite a correction for the misspelling of one author's name by a single letter. pic.twitter.com/PJgwmETSIj

— Retraction Watch (@RetractionWatch) March 13, 2018

(Tip of the cap to Nalini Joshi, whose 'liking' of this tweet led me to find it.)

Children to be Named Later (Best. Erratum. Ever.)

The excellent new book by Kiss, Miller, and Simon on epidemics and networks also has an erratum that is one of my all-time favorites. (See their website of errata.)

In fact, I think this error is a feature of the book, rather than a bug (especially given that I automatically think of Paul Erdős). By the way, the book itself is awesome, so go take a look at it. Here is a screenshot of the erratum.

(Tip of the cap to my Ph.D. student Yacoub Kureh for pointing this out to me in our meeting today. This erratum is an instant classic.)

Tales from the ArXiv: An Interesting Journal Name

By the way, it's from this paper.

Is it Wrong to Publish in the Journal Complicity?

Note: There need not be anything inherently wrong with publishing a paper in the journal Complicity, despite its name.

"Wild Thing": Now Pitching for the Rockies

Dodgers broadcaster Joe Davis likes to use the nickname "Wild Thing" for Rockies' relief pitcher Carlos Estévez (for obvious reasons). I love it!

In case you don't remember and don't want to follow a chain of links on Wikipedia, go to this page.

Triple García Outfield

Tonight, the Chicago White Sox are starting an all-García outfield (i.e., in which all three outfielders have the last name "García)".

This is the first time in Major League Baseball history that a team started an outfield where all three outfielders have the same last name. Nice! (The Alous were in an outfield together, but they didn't all start a game together.)

My favorite starting outfield, however, is when the Cincinnati Reds started an outfield of Young, Frank, and Stynes. (It consisted of Dmitri Young in left field, Mike Frank in center field, and Chris Stynes in right field.)

Also see this recent blog entry.

A Putz Hitting a Mench with a Pitch (and Another Baseball Naming Oddity)

One of my all-time favorite baseball box scores is for a game in which a Mench* was hit by a pitch thrown by a Putz. Naturally.

* It's too bad that Kevin Mench's last name isn't spelled "Mensch". (And here is a definition page for the Yiddish word putz.)

But my favorite baseball name-combination game is the following: In (at least) one game in 1998 (I think quite a few), the Cincinnati Reds had an outfield of Young, Frank, and Stynes.

(The players were Dimitri Young, Mike Frank, and Chris Stynes.)

There are other good ones as well (e.g., the Giant hardware, with a battery of pitcher (Bud) Black and catcher (Steve) Decker).

Nomenclature for a Few London Tube Stations

This very interesting article has some really cool stuff about the origin of the names of a few stations in the London Underground ("The Tube") transportation system.

Awesome UK Location Names

When it comes to naming locations, the UK definitely wins big!

Take this "Brokenwind"... (and learn to name again?)

Map of the #UK's weirdest place names.https://t.co/q4M1qbnOgo pic.twitter.com/hVVNBEfP4y

— Randy Olson (@randal_olson) November 11, 2016

Another Great Baseball Name: Forrestt Allday

Browsing through Spring Training box scores, I have found another great name: Red Sox outfield prospect Forrestt Allday.

I could do this... well... all day. :)

Baseball Name of the Day: David Goforth

I saw the last name "Goforth" in the box score from the Brewers' spring training game yesterday, so I felt compelled to figure out the identity of this mystery hurler. It is David Goforth. I can already imagine amusing headlines along the lines of "Goforth and Multiply".

Headlines and the Name Game

Sometimes, somebody has a last name that makes a headline awesome. No umlaut, but this headline from today's Beverly Hills Weekly is still pretty damn good.

Update: This of course reminds me of a certain scene in a certain Mel Brooks movie. (And while I'm thinking of that movie, don't forget this scene.)

"Longdaysin"

I just learned (in a talk by Frank Doyle) about an appropriately-named compound called "longdaysin" because of its ability to slow down biological clocks. Even cooler than "ubiquitin". Those wacky biologists...

Estimating Expected Age from a Name

Fivethirtyeight.com has some very cool infographics that summarizes some basic features of distributions of names for people based on age. Very cool stuff!

One of the plotted examples is "Joseph", which has a median age of 37. The median "Mason" is age 6. I am around that age mentally, so I guess it fits. (Or maybe I'm just ahead of my time?) One thing I noticed is that the female names with old medians include many that I definitely associate with older people (but I don't feel the same association for the male names with old medians), though that might well be a function of things like The Golden Girls --- which was brought up in the article --- and panels from The Far Side.

(Tip of the cap to Anna Iwaniec Hickerson.)

Name of the Day: Socrates Brito

I was watching some of the Dodger game tonight (once I was done with yet another meeting to work on the 'multilayer networks' review article), and I noticed that the Diamondbacks have a minor league player with the delightful name of Socrates Brito.

I really hope that Socrates Brito makes the majors just because I am eager to enjoy the clever headlines that I am sure will result.

(It's not close to as cool as the 'Hu's on first' jokes from when Chin Lung Hu reached first base safely, but it will be good nonetheless.)

It's All in the Name

Some scientists have names that reflect what they study. A recent one to make a public appearance is K. Cheeseman, who just published a paper on cheese-making fungi. In this vein, I should also point out that one of my Somerville College colleagues is Charlotte Potts, who studies Etruscan and Italic archaeology and art.