When I looked at the brackets for MiLB.com’s Moniker Madness last week, my first reaction was disappointment.
Don’t get me wrong, there are few things I love more than silly names. One must embrace the likes of Rusty Kuntz, Dick Pole, and Razor Shines, hold them close, and never let them go, for it is them that make life happy and fun and carefree.
(I’ll never forget the summer of 2002, when a fellow intern at the Hall of Fame stumbled onto the Rusty Kuntz player file. It basically put him out of commission for the rest of the day. Such is the power of Rusty Kuntz.)
So no, my dissatisfaction wasn’t directly related to any of the names on the list. They were all pretty much fantastic. Rather, I was disappointed because two of the players in the Razor Shines Bracket, Bubbie Buzachero and Callix Crabbe, played for Double-A New Hampshire this season but had recently been promoted to Triple-A Las Vegas.
Cue: sadness.
At least until a few days later, when I casually checked a game recap for the Fisher Cats and noticed that Buzachero had picked up the win. Or maybe it was the save. Whatever. Point was, Bubbie was back in Manchester!
I went to the ballpark tonight with the intention of speaking with Zach Stewart, one of Toronto’s top pitching prospects. That happened, and it was good. It’ll be up as soon as I get it transcribed, which may be awhile considering my attention keeps getting diverted onto this game going on in front of me. John Lannan vs. Kyle Drabek? Psssh – who wants to see that? Oh, wait – I do.
But I also mentioned to the Fisher Cats media guy, Rich Sheldon, that I was interested in talking with Bubbie. I had no questions prepared or anything – I am neither Branch Rickey nor a Boy Scout – but I had to get some of his thoughts on the contest.
We met on the outskirts of the clubhouse and fumbled our way through the most awkward eighty seconds of conversation in recent memory. Correction: I fumbled. Bubbie is a professional baseball player. They, as a general rule, are skilled in the art of small talk. I am not, especially when surrounded by professional baseball players. You can see the conundrum. It’s like that old rule that good pitching beats good hitting, except in this case, bad small talk beats good small talk.
He did seem genuinely interested in his advancement to the second round (by virtue of a win over Cedar Rapids’ reliever Buddy Boshers) and even more interested in the news that a Round Two win over Tulsa’s Al Alburquerque could mean a head-to-head matchup against his old teammate, Crabbe, who is still in Vegas.
“Ah, me and Crabbie going together,” he said.
Any thoughts on the contest? Trash talk? Shameless begging for votes?
“Well obviously, Bubbie Buzachero is gonna win over Callix Crabbe if we make it to that round. If I get past this round, next round is like a bye week.”
He assured me that he was just joking around – “It’s funny, I think they interviewed Callix up there, so we had a nice little banter about it going on up there too” – before I thanked him for his time, wished him good luck, and started on my way.
“Thank you,” he said as he turned to head back into the clubhouse. Then he stopped and yelled to me as I headed down the hallway back to the outside world.
“Hey – you’re gonna vote for me, right?!”
