I don’t know why the draft posts haven’t been more lively this year, but I’m going to take my whole 15 minutes. If you’re old enough not to have to Google anyone in here, congratulations.
My dad once told me a story of attending a night of Groucho Marx telling stories in a Hollywood theater. At one point, Groucho pulls a letter out of his pocket and tells the story that he received this letter in the mail from Dick Cavett. He opens it and reads it. Wrote Cavett: “Did you ever notice that Peter O’Toole is a double phallic name?” ... And with that Groucho puffed his cigar and put the letter back in his pocket as the audience cracked up.
You may know this other story, and it’s possibly apocryphal. Groucho got into a little trouble on You Bet Your Life when a contestant came on and told Groucho how many kids she had (it was like 12 or 13) and he expressed astonishment. She told Groucho, “I love my husband.” Replied Groucho, “I love my cigar, too. But I take it out of my mouth every now and then.”
I digress ... No wait, I need to make up for the missed opportunities thus far and digress a bit more to share this frightfully witty song from Monty Python:
https://youtu.be/p9PiqCeLEmM
Now, we are gathered here to pay homage to the double entendre as well as the double phallic, as well as some of the lesser known legends who carried the burden of a name that causes titters in adolescents. Can you really ever be too old for a dick joke, though? If you are, I’ll be frank that you’d better pull out now because I’m going whole hog and giving you the shaft. It’s a stiff competition and I’m up for it.
Let me start by telling you about the Cooperstown Historical Replay League that is simultaneously replaying seasons forward and backward. We’ve just finished 2005 and have started 1979, in which I have the great honor of managing the KC Royals and their first baseman with the nearly unbeatable double phallic name of Pete LaCock (arguably Dick Pole is the only superior choice in the category). It would be so easy to use him here, of course, but I happened to spot another fine player in one of the league box scores whose phallic fame heretofore eluded me.
Unless you followed the Red Sox or Braves in the 70s, you likely never saw lefty reliever Craig Skok. His full name was Craig Richard Skok, which means he came very close to being known at some point as Dick Skok, and the world is a far less interesting place because that double phallic didn’t come to pass. Here are some facts, according to his SABR bio: Craig Skok married the former Sandra Cummings. He was signed by a scout named Tony Ravish. He pitched most of his career for Bobby Cox. His dad was a vacuum cleaner repairman, so he was – literally – Joe Skok, sucker. I couldn’t make this up.
Now WIS hasn’t been exposed to Craig Skok much, and no mound is safe with Craig Skok around. We’re seeing Craig Skok all the time in the Cooperstown League now, but almost no one else has played with Craig Skok around here. It appears no one has ever touched Craig Skok for a couple seasons in fact, which is disappointing for hitters because you can whack Craig Skok around all day. I feel we are all overdue to have Craig Skok in our faces much more often.
The question in this draft was, how much of Craig Skok can we handle? I think we can all agree the answer is: Don’t pussyfoot around with Craig Skok. So that means either 54 or 62 innings of Craig Skok in full glory and not the tiny tadger of that 29-inning season. I’m not a cruel person, so I won’t shove $940K worth of Craig Skok at you, but you’ll learn to stretch him out and get some length out of him nonetheless. Ready or not, here comes Craig Skok.
P $500K-1M:
1979 Craig Skok, Braves LHP, $798,841