In what is likely the ugliest Cubs season since 1966, there’s been little in the way of baseball to appreciate. On their way to an ungodly 100-loss season, watching the parade of rookies and minor league journeymen going back and forth on the I-80 shuttle from Des Moines to Chicago has been an often wearisome, sometimes interesting distraction.
From among this crowd of unconsummated heroes, fans found more than one to like in name, if not in gameplay. Ever since Duke Justice showed me his Drungo Larue Hazewood baseball card in 1981, I knew there was a thing called “great baseball names”, applied usually to obscure bench players with Dickensian surnames who barely stayed in the majors long enough to get their “cup of coffee” in The Show. This wretched Cubs season produced at least two, and Buck Coats, who received many votes from fans, fit the criteria extremely well (he was sent down to Iowa today after getting into only four games and going 0-3, striking out twice). When asked about it, he said it was his real name, explaining that he grew up “in the country.”
But as good as Buck Coats is as a baseball name, my vote goes to outfielder Angel Pagan, acquired from the Mets' minor league system in spring training, and, amazingly, sticking with the big club since opening day. Humiliated manager Dusty Baker liked him so much that he made him one of “his guys” during his trip to the disabled list in June, blaming that month's traditional "Swoon" on the absence of Our Angel.
