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For a while now, mostly privately in my head, I have been keeping track of the most exceptional, humorous, and bizarre names in Major League Baseball.  Every year, it seems, there is a new candidate, and every year a new titleholder.  But, now that I have a blog and people read it and stuff, I would like to make it official.  I will now present the 1st Annual Arquimedez Pozo Memorial Award for Best Name in Baseball.

Before I run down the ten finalists, including this year's winner, I'd like to say a few words about the man for whom this award is named - Mr. Arquimedez Pozo.  Some of you may remember Mr. Pozo; over three seasons between the majors and AAA clubs, Pozo managed only 74 at bats in the Show - 1 for the Seattle Mariners in 1995, and the other 73 between 1996 and 1997 for the Boston Red Sox, for whom he primarily played third base.  His numbers were unimpressive, his impact negligible, but for my generation, the name 'Arquimedez Pozo' is synonymous with one truly great thing:  The name 'Arquimedez Pozo'. 

Perhaps it's not flashy, like Urban Shocker, or mellifluous, like Hiram Bocachica; it lacks the tongue-twisting qualities of Mientkiewicz and Yastrzemski, or the deceptively simplistic formulations of Daff Gammons or Joe Zdeb.  But the qualities it possesses - a timelessness, a nearly spiritual quality of pronunciation that links the greatest thinkers of ancient Greece to the greatest dreamers of the Latin world, a fun and exciting alternate spelling, two z's - these are the things of which great names are made.  Arquimedez Pozo's time in the hallowed clubhouses of major league baseball may have been short, but his name still comically and cosmically echoes through them.

So, without further ado, I present to you the 2005 finalists for the Arquimedez Pozo Memorial Award for Best Name in Baseball (or, as it shall henceforth be known, the Pozo).  The requirements for consideration are simple:  The player must be on a 25 man major league roster right now.  The finalists, and winner, are, in order:

10.  So Taguchi, OF (St. Louis Cardinals) - He's not just Taguchi, he's very Taguchi.  He's extremely Taguchi. He is So Taguchi.  Plus, the last name.  Taguchi.  It sounds almost cute, but you cant quite place what it is.  But still, the last name is pedestrian without the qualifier.  Good enough to make the list, but not to climb higher.

9.  Placido Polanco, IF (Detroit Tigers) - Traded for another man with an excellent name, Ugueth Urbina, in what has to be the greatest alliterative trade of all time, Polanco is more than simply the same letters as bookends on both his given and familial names.  His is the only name on this list that most people mistake for a member of the Three Tenors.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is name power.

8.  J.J. Putz, RP (Seattle Mariners) - There's very little to say about J.J. Putz's name that no one said behind his back in middle school.  He is also the only member of this list who uses initials, and I must say that 'J.J.' is a far better set than most others.  The J's stand for 'Joseph Jason', which is also humorous.  For six letters, that's a lot of laughs.

7.  Yorvit Torrealba, C (San Francisco Giants) - it really just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?  Yorvit!  Torrealba!  I've got nothing, but this is a fantastic and oft-overlooked entry.

6.  Chone Figgins, Util. (Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) - the guy with the best name on the team with the worst name, Figgins has confused thousands of baseball fans who try to figure out how 'Chone' can be pronounced 'Shawn'.  Figgins' real name is perhaps as good: Desmond DeChone Figgins doesn't quite have the bunch of its shortened version, but it adds a layer of faux-riche charm to the comedy.

5.  Kiko Calero, RP (Oakland Athletics) - Possibly the must fun name to say in the majors, if not the very best.  It's nearly impossible to say this man's name without smiling.

4.  Franquelis Osoria, RP (Los Angeles Dodgers) - The Dodgers have the greatest collection of fantastic names in the majors: from Giovanni Carrara to Kelly Wunsch to Hee-Sop Choi, and one name a bit further down this list.  Osoria's, however, stands out; it may be the most mellifluous on the list, and bears a slight resemblance to this award's eponymous player.

3.  Coco Crisp, OF (Cleveland Indians) - Even if he had gone by his given name, Covelli Loyce Crisp, he would have appeared here.  But the nickname is inspired; short, powerful, and fun to say.  It is also one of the great pun-generating names in the game.  If you saw him smoking?  Coco Puffs.  If he goes on a hitting streak?  Hot Coco.  If he takes a fastball on the chin?  Coco bean.  They just keep coming.

2.  Yhency Brazoban, RP (Los Angeles Dodgers) - If there had been an official Pozo award handed out in 2004, Brazoban would have won it hands down.  Th first name, buffered by Y's.  The extraneous h.  The last name - so natural, yet so out of the ordinary.  The cadence of the name itself, when said aloud.  Not a nickname, not a shortened name.  When he was born, someone looked at him and said 'Yhency'.  For that, he should be proud.

It takes a special name to top our number 2 nominee.  Going into this season, I would have guessed that Brazoban would have a stranglehold on this award for years to come.  But then, like a bolt from the blue, came a player no one though would reach the majors this year; a man who plays for an organization so bad that they had to call him up directly from AA, after a mere handful of appearances at that level, to be their closer.  And the fantasy baseball world saw a name, and could not believe it even as they scrambled to add him as a valuable closer commodity.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you this year's Pozo Award winner...

Ambiorix Burgos!

The first name alone gives it power.  Ambiorix.  It sounds mystical, powerful.  It sounds like a name from myth. But a first name alone does not make a Pozo Award winner; what, indeed, would Arquimedez be without the Pozo?  So it is with Ambiorix Burgos.  Wile not flashy, the surname 'Burgos' flows so perfectly that you feel it was almost crafted to come after that brilliant first name.  Indeed, when said aloud, it almost sounds like a single, amazing word: the Ambiorixburgos.  Tempted as I was to allow Yhency Brazoban the respect he is clearly due, I could not deny the power of the Ambiorix.  Congratulations, Mr. Burgos.  Johnny, give the man his award.

In addition to the Pozo, I'd like to announce that Grady Sizemore, one of this year's Pozo award semi-finalists, has been named the 2005 Randy Johnson Award Winner for Best Porn Name in Baseball.  A hearty congratulations also to Mr. Sizemore.