Player Nicknames?

Being my favorite player, I like Kanemoto's nickname, "Aniki," which basically translates as "big brother."

I also think Ogasawara's nickname is "Guts," although shaving your trademark sideburns to play for the Giants is pretty gutless!

Come to think of it, I can't think of many other nicknames, so hopefully others will chime in.

I have a ton of nicknames for players (I've actually had a nicknames post in the draft pile on my blog for about a month now), but I'm pretty sure they're just my own little silly pet names (notably that I call Masahiko Morino "Dragonbutt"). But here are a few that are used by other people or that aren't totally out there:

The funniest nickname that I know of is Seibu's Takeya Nakamura -- who weighs 102kg -- getting called "okawari-kun," which basically means "Mr. Second Helping."

Some people call Yakult's Hiroyasu Tanaka "Beavis" because he smiles all the time. I think that one was actually Alex Ramirez's fault.

Lotte's Toshiaki Imae's nickname is "Gori" because he looks like a gorilla.

Yokohama's Daisuke Miura is pretty well-known with the nickname "Bancho" which means gang leader.

Munenori Kawasaki goes by "Munerin."

Masahiro Tanaka is commonly called "Ma-kun."

Lisa started calling Lotte's Yuki Karakawa "Karaage-kun," and now I can't help but call him that as well.

The Giants' Takuya Kimura, who shares a name with a famous SMAP singer, is sometimes also called "Kimutaku"

I tend to call Yokohama's Shuuichi Murata "The Man" in English because in Japanese everyone calls him 男村田.

Oh yeah, and I tend to refer to Satoru Kanemura as "Kanemoron," but that was mostly in his days as a Fighters pitcher. I also refer to Michihiro Ogasawara as "OCD" or "Ogasawara's Clean-shaven Doppleganger" because I'm still in denial.

Chunichi's Masahiro Araki and Hirokazu Ibata, the best double-play combo in Japan, tend to get called "Ara iba" by the Japanese press, but to me they're Arakibata, the Double-Headed Infield Monster.

I'm sure there are plenty more.

Some Tigers ones:-

Vogelsong - Vogi
Fujimoto - Monkey
Imaoka - Mr. Yatta dekiru yan ka (see what you can do if you try)
Hamanaka (ex-Tigers) Hama-chan
Kanemoto - Aniki (elder brother)
Kataoka (ex-Tigers) old cat
Akahoshi - Red Star
Jeff Williams, Kubota, Fujikawa - collectively JFK

Ryan Glynn's nickname is RYNO, like a rhinoceros animal. He even has a tattoo of one on his shoulder.

Alonzo Powell ended up with a funny sounding nickname here. His nickname in the States was already "Zo," making his nickname in Japan translate as "elephant."

Why was Kataoka called "old cat"? What is the term in Japanese?

That is a mystery to me as well - presumably from the sound of Kat and Oka.

A few more: Tyrone "Tiger" Woods, Alex the Ochoa-constrictor (he's also gone by The Cuban Missile and Laser Beam), and Adam "Pizza Man" Riggs who had his best season with the motivation of winning a free pizza.

All-star players from Japanese baseball past are just as cool with nicknames:

• Makata Kozuru - "Japanese DiMaggio"
  Masahiko Mori- "Kill everybody Mori"
• Tadashi Matsumoto - "Blue lightning"
• Masaichi Kaneda - "Emporer"
• Goro Toi - "Buddah"
• Shosei Go - "Human tank"
• Brad "Animal" Lesley
• Eiji Kanamori - "Dead ball"
• Sadahuru Oh - "World famous"
• Shigeru Takada - "Magician"
• Yuko Minamimure - "Black bat"
• Tetsu Kawakami - "The God of hitting"
• Eiji Fujii - "Iron mask"
• Tadashi Wakabayashi- "Bozo"

Didn't Carp's Shima had the nickname "Aka Godzilla"?