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From the 2011 MLB Fancave Phenomenon: Ode To Ryan Wagner – ‘Thickish’ Players from 1986 – 2011
Ryan Wagner was called ‘Thickish’ by Baseball Tonight’s Mitch Williams and the nickname stuck. Wagner is currently the PA announcer for the Baltimore Orioles.
In 2011, Ryan Wagner and Mike O ‘Hara were part of the 1st season of the MLB Fancave. As part of their introduction to ESPN, Mitch Williams interviewed Ryan Wagner – and called him ‘Thickish’.
he nickname stuck with the cave dweller for the whole season. I went as far to help the cause by taking up the cause at Safeco Field. It was a funny part of the year.
The Social Media frenzy that the MLB Fancave came up with was a fantastic concept. Through the interaction with Mike and Ryan, I actually met Jonathan Hacohen (Founder of the MLB Reports) – and we started talking baseball.
A year and a half later, I ended up agreeing to purchase the website.
The Jose Altuve Phenomenon
Friday June.15/2012
Jose Altuve is listed as 5 foot five although he may be even shorter than that. His lethal swings have created a new metric measurement based on his height called an ‘Altuve.’ Everyone is picking up the new measurement including social media platforms dedicated to the cause: @howmanyaltuves on twitter and the official website http://www.howmanyaltuves.com –Photo courtesy of the Washington Post.
Chuck Booth (Lead Baseball Writer and @chuckbooth3024 on twitter)- Baseball lends itself to traditions and nicknames like no other sport in the world. During last year, there were two phenomenons in the form of social media and radio. I was lucky enough to be part of them both. The MLB ‘Fancave’ sidekick Ryan Wagner was dubbed ‘thickish’ by Mitch Williams of the MLB Network. The social media took off on his nickname and blogs, websites and a lot of the Fancave skits had Mike O’ Hara calling Wagner ‘thickish.’ I love things like this. I took it upon myself to be the West Coast distributor of the movement. I was even fortunate enough to have Ryan Wagner write a blog about my buddy Justin and I. It was cool to be part of the fun of this social media driven nickname.
Then the summer of 2011 hit. I was listening to MLB Roundtrip like I do every night while at work. Mike Ferrin and Morgan Ensberg were talking about Jose Altuve of the Houston Astros. There were saying the man was swinging out of his cleats like he was Paul Bunyan. They also mentioned that Altuve was the leader of the Texas League (before his call up) for average. The next thing I knew Ensberg suggested that they should come up with a new unit of measurement called an “Altuve.” The idea would be that you can divide the total amount of feet hit for a home run divided Jose Altuve’s height. I couldn’t stop laughing at the concept. To me, Ensberg was entirely right, Altuve does sound like a unit measurement! For the next few weeks, the guys kept on speaking of long homers hit and how many Altuve’s they would go. Read the rest of this entry
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