May 15, 2009

"Big Donkey" Mystery Solved!

You may recall that I have been stumped in trying to find out where we got the nickname "The Big Donkey" for Justin Masterson. No one here made it up, so it must have come from one of the Red Sox players last year.

A web search turned up absolutely nothing (except for my question about it during spring training) and my only use of the word "donkey" at this blog was in a political post from May 2004. One reader thought Tim Wakefield had used it during last year's ALDS against the Angels. So I decided to go through comments from last year's playoffs.

During ALDS 3:
redsock, 10:58 PM: "every day masterson. big donkey time."

ish, 11:01 PM: "BIG DONKEY > BIG DUMMY"
Going back to ALDS 2:
redsock, 12:27 AM: "Hunter gonna be hella angry after the Big Donkey takes care of him."
I was clearly on the trail, but then there was nothing in ALCS 1 or in any previews. So I started going back through the regular season (really hoping I would not have to keep going to early August or something).

Then, on September 24, 2008, in the first post to G158 -- the game after we qualified for the playoffs -- I put up that night's lineup with this:
Sayeth Justin "The Big Donkey" Masterson: "Youkilis is a pansy."
I clicked the link -- it's a video and it still works -- and there it is:

Sean Casey, in the clubhouse, with Masterson:
We're here in the clubhouse after clinching the wild card, and we got The Big Donkey here, Justin Masterson, look how big this guy is.
It was the Mayor! Mystery solved!

12 comments:

laura k said...

Good detective work! If only comments were searchable. Or if someone kept a database... [whistling]

allan said...

"Big Donkey" and "Make Tito Apologize" added to the Glossary. I got angry all over again writing the second one.

allan said...

Also added: "Rico Baldy". I wish I had a video clip.

laura k said...

Rico Baldy was an instant keeper. Those are the best kind!

I forgot about "the mayor". Forgot about the player and the nickname!

allan said...

Oops - Had to add "Mayor".

Jere said...

That's funny, because there was another mystery about those shirts players wore that said "Woooooo!!!" Finally I (or somebody) saw they said something about "El Alcalde" on the back, which means "the mayor," so we knew it had something to do with Casey. (I think.)

L: I assume you mean comments aren't searchable on the blog search bar itself--because you can find them on search engines. Just to clarify what you meant by searchable...

laura k said...

Comments show up in search engine searches, but not exhaustively. You won't get every instance of a word, the way you would (eg) with a "find on this page".

I meant searchable through your own blog edit screen, the way you can search through all your own posts.

nixon33 said...

Ha good work.

Jere said...

Your wish is granted.(With bonus Rico Baldy breakdown at the end!)

Can you also wish that it's not taken down? Maybe they'll be some leniency on the whole "not showing any game action" thing. Still, watch it while you can.

allan said...

Thanks, man! ... And thanks to savetube.com, I now have my own copy.

allan said...

That ending is gold!

Jere said...

Cool. Yeah doesn't it sound like a drumbeat at the end? That just kind of worked out that way.