If you’re a twenty-year old kid that wants a dog, do NOT name it after a young sports athlete. Especially if they’re only in their second year and had a great rookie year. Because three years later, after the sophomore slump and after two World Baseball Classics, you’re going to wish Dice the German Shepherd was named because of your craps gambling addiction instead of the $50 million pitcher that can’t go more than 5 innings without 10 walks.
Over Labor Day weekend, I went back down to my parents’ house to pick up my dog that they were holding on to for a year because of roommate and small-living space issues. Now that I live alone, I find myself bored late in the evenings during the week and am too worried I’d become crazy if I talk to myself (so I’d rather talk to a dog. Better?). As I haven’t lived with him for a year, I look back at him and remember our time together and of the day I went to pick him up at the shelter. With two friends, we looked at all the animals that needed to be adopted. I did two loops; I don’t know how I missed him the first time. He was perfect. Just sat there in the cage and looked at me instead of acting like…well, a dog in an animal shelter. Probably more importantly, there wasn’t a stream of his marked territory running out of the cage and into the hallway’s drainage hole (honestly, why put it there so people have two choices: step in it and let it trace your footprints every time you step, or cautiously step over it so you can get the look that says, “I hope you’re ready to step in it ’cause you’re going to have to if you take one of these home”?). Another tip for adoption: they make you give the animal a name. That’s an understatement. They don’t let you out the door until you pick a name.
We sat at the counter for about 15 minutes while the workers were getting ready to close for the day. You just think of words and say whatever comes to your mind, like: Yawkey. Fen. Or…Way, Papi? Eh, I’d rather it be a pitcher. So, Pedro? Knuckles, Knuckl–er, Knuckleball, knuckleball. Gyro? What’s a Gyro? Dice-K throws it. Dice! Dice? Yeah, Dice…that’s it. How do you spell it? Hmm….Daisuke or Dice-K? Well 5 minutes later, I brought Dice home and he became my little mascot. Fast forward two years and your awesome, cool pet that has attached so close to you (and vice versa) has the name of a three-year washout that will probably be a fireballer in the National League a la John Smoltz and Brad Penny. Yes, Brad Penny (after he asked and was granted release from the Red Sox and signed with the San Francisco Giants, then pitched 8 shutout innings in Philly led me the most used but most passionate text message from Sox fan to Sox fan, “Brad Penny! WTF! Really?!”).
The lesson is, if you have to name your pet after an athlete, don’t name it after one that is virtually untested. Now give me some credit, Daisuke has pitched in his relative big-leagues before. And constantly threw 150 pitches per game in Japan, so why would I have thought that he would have had a tired arm after last year’s WBC? Probably because I didn’t know the WBC would still exist by now. Be smart and name your pet after a Hall of Famer, or a washed-out retiree (purely for comedy, not patheticness. No Bledsoes, please). You could go with Yaz, or Pudge. Madden, or Csanka and Butkus. Me? I’ll stick it out to the bitter end. And it will be a bitter end. However, if Real Life Daisuke ends up on the Yankees…I’ll have to reevaluate the origin of the name. Like how it’s ironic that his name is Dice and he has no dice? (Thanks to Bob Barker for controlling the pet population). Or maybe I should just call him Buddy.
