I was wondering how many players had no conventional vowels in their name as Drew Smyly was pitching for the Tigers. 50 others was the total, including Fred Lynn, Tony Gwynn, Early and Jimmy Wynn. There was a mob of Lynches (11 total), 9 Flynns and one real Dyck.
On the other end, Al Alburquerque is one of 12 folks tied for the record with six vowels, including the guy with the longest last name on record in the bigs, Jarrod Saltalamacchia.
A database, the ability to write a vowel-finding function in Visual Basic, and a little time; yes, I do have a life, but it takes me on odd tangents at times.
Aurelio Rodriguez!
Posted by: alan | June 27, 2012 at 12:55 PM
Yep, I think he set the record as the first guy to use all five vowels in his first name, matched by fellow Tiger Aurelio "Señor Smoke" Lopez. The original A-Rod was a great defensive third baseman who, if memory serves, finished up with the Yankees.
Lopez was portly and wore 29, the number of equally rotund '68 World Series hero Mickey Lolich; the joke was that was the one number that fit.
Posted by: Mark Byron | June 27, 2012 at 05:31 PM