I love sports nicknames. Whether they’re legendary aliases like “The Babe,” “Mr. October,” or “Iron Man;” or they’re fun nicknames such as “The Man of Steal” (Ricky Henderson) or “The Vacuum Cleaner” (Brooks Robinson). If you notice, all of these nicknames are baseball players. That is because baseball has the richest heritage of nicknames out of all of the American sports. And I think that this post-season, an injustice has been done to this great tradition.

I haven’t had the opportunity to watch any Tampa Bay Rays games until the playoffs started so I’m not sure if this nickname has been floating around all season or if its just spreading now. But where did James Shields get the nickname “Big Game”? The guy has never pitched a big game in his life, or at least at the Major League level. He’s pitched well in the playoffs so far, but I don’t think he pitched that great or good for long enough to be dubbed “Big Game” James Shields.

Is anyone else with me on this? I mean, I’m not against him eventually living up to that potential, but I believe he has to earn it first. The thing that pisses me off most about this is that he gets into the playoffs for the first time in his career and is immediately known by this nickname; whereas Josh Beckett is the most clutch pitcher of the last six or seven years and still doesn’t have one. I realize his performance in game 2 hurts his case, but I don’t think anyone can argue against how well he has pitched in past playoff series. (And, for the record, I’m a Mets fan so I have no vested interest in this situation.)

I propose that this injustice be rectified immediately. How about “No Josh-ing Around Beckett” or “The Iceman”? I know these aren’t great (well, “Iceman” is pretty cool … ugh, a pun) but I don’t see anyone else coming up with anything better. I really hope the Sox win Game 5 to set up the Beckett-Shields duel slated for Game 6. That has the potential to be a classic ’student-becomes-the maser’ scenario if Shields throws a gem against Beckett, and earns his “Big Game” nickname.