Johnny Wockenfuss: The Funniest Name in Baseball
Baseball has a long and distinguished history of names that sound like they were invented by twelve-year-old boys.
Pete LaCock.
Rusty Kuntz.
Dick Pole.
Johnny Dickshot.
Ed Head.
There are objectively strong candidates here. Johnny Dickshot in particular should probably be unbeatable.
And yet, for me, the funniest baseball name of all time remains:
Johnny Wockenfuss.
Johnny Wockenfuss shouldn't be funnier to me than Johnny Dickshot.
But he is.
Maybe it's because Wockenfuss is such an unusually satisfying word to say. It doesn't even require embellishment. Johnny Wockenfuss. Say it three times and eventually you're going to smile.
The wonderful thing is that John Wockenfuss was considerably more interesting than his name.
He spent twelve seasons in the major leagues from 1974 through 1985, ten of them with the Detroit Tigers. He was one of those extremely useful baseball players who never became a superstar but could be put almost anywhere. Wockenfuss caught, played first base and the outfield, served as a designated hitter and pinch hitter, and even appeared at third.
And then there was his batting stance.
Wockenfuss stood at the plate so closed that his back was almost facing the pitcher. He held the bat high, looked back toward the mound over his shoulder and wiggled his fingers on the handle while waiting for the pitch.
It looked ridiculous.
Apparently it also worked.
His best season came in 1980, when he played 126 games for Detroit, hit 16 home runs, drove in 65 runs and posted a .390 on-base percentage.
There is also one painful bit of Detroit Tigers history attached to Wockenfuss. Just before the 1984 season, Detroit traded him and Glenn Wilson to the Philadelphia Phillies for Dave Bergman and Willie Hernández.
Hernández proceeded to win both the American League Cy Young Award and Most Valuable Player Award while helping the Tigers win the 1984 World Series.
Wockenfuss missed the championship.
He played two seasons with Philadelphia before his major-league career ended, and later returned to baseball as a minor-league manager and coach.
John Wockenfuss died in 2022 at the age of 73.
So yes, I originally came here because I thought Johnny Wockenfuss was the funniest name in baseball.
I still do.
But he was also exactly the kind of player who makes baseball history more interesting: strange batting stance, funny name, multiple positions, twelve years in the majors, and one enormous trade connecting him permanently to one of the great Detroit Tigers teams.
Still...
Wockenfuss.
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