In 1976 Mr. Collins became the first batter in Seattle Mariners history.  He scored the first run in Mariners history, also.

Eric Plunk was traded for Ricky Henderson. Twice. In 1151 innings pitched, he hit 32 batters. Baseball Reference does not track how many of those 32 HBP provoked sports journalists into puns.

Another entrant for the “amazing names” and “no frills” categories. Mr. Nelson pitched for 13 seasons, three of which as an extremely effective set-up man for the pennant-winning A’s teams of 1988-90.

Not to be confused with Bruce Bochy, the manager of the San Francisco Giants. In researching the nerds that I post, I rarely find a player whose career takes more than a few minutes to digest. However, in the case of Mr. Bochte, there is a LOT going on. He made the all-star team in 1979. His career OPS+ is 113, over the course of almost 6000 plate appearances. However, Mr. Bochte off the field seems to be a fascinating character.

He did not play at all in 1983, despite not suffering any injuries, and despite possessing above-league-average hitting abilities. Why didn’t he play? I can’t figure it out. According to Wikipedia, he was personally protesting the rise in player salaries that he felt was ruining the game. According to the U.S.S. Mariner, after years as the Mariners’ player representative, he became disillusioned with what he felt was a cold, impersonal attitude of the team management.

Mr. Bochte has also had an interesting post-baseball career. He studies cosmology. He seems to be an active environmentalist. Dusty Baker is the only person he still speaks to from his MLB days. I promise it will be worth your while to take a few minutes and read this article. Sneak preview quote from Mr. Bochte:

“In traditional religion, the understanding is that God put the human on Earth and that the human is here to glorify God. I don’t think that way anymore. We know that the human came out of the Earth and the universe. We’re the descendants of a long, long journey of life on the planet. We came into the planet out of the planet itself. I don’t think we were imported here…I don’t know if there is life after death. If there is, that’s great. If there isn’t, that’s fine, too. We get so attached to our own self. If you take it back to the elemental world, it’s not so scary.”