I hate Dice-K.

No, not the baseball player. I actually am quite smitten with Daisuke Matsuzaka, who in his short tenure with the Red Sox has not only shown the ability to be a dominant major league pitcher, but also to bring some good manners and joy back to Boston baseball (case in point: after making a nice play on a bunt in the fifth inning of today's game, the camera caught him saying something to the umpire, then walking off the field with a huge grin on his face. I have a personal policy to like any player who appears to realize how lucky he is to have that job).

No, I just hate the nickname.

I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: modern nicknames could use some work. Sure, there are still some great ones floating around out there - El Guapo is one of my top ten ever - but all too often we ignore the opportunity to bestow a truly great nickname upon someone in favor of something easier. (I'm looking at you, whoever was responsible for A-Rod, T-Mac and Man-Ram.)

When Matsuzaka signed with the Sox, I took the opportunity to toss out a few potential nicknames that might roll off the tongue easier than the six syllables of "Daisuke Matsuzaka". NESN and Boston.com were making bland suggestions such as Dice-K and D-Mat, both of which are easy to say, but I thought he deserved something better. So I threw out five names that seemed relevant and interesting: Esu (I think that's the Japanese word for ace, but still can't guarantee that it's true), Andrew (Andrew "Dice-K" - get it?), Daisy (but only if he sucks), The Oxygen Destroyer (my personal favorite) and Kaibutsu (his nickname in Japan, it means "The Monster").

Needless to say, none of these has caught on, although there is still hope: Boston.com today featured a column by Gaku Tashiro of Sankei Sports, a Japanese writer who is very familiar with Matsuzaka and his past exploits. In the article, there is no mention of Dice-K or D-Mat (or even The Oxygen Destroyer. Pity), but Tashiro very clearly explains the origins of the Kaibutsu (kah-ee-boo-tsoo) nickname.

What it comes down to is this: in America, a player is most likely to be called "Monster" due to an overwhelming physical presence. (See Dick Radatz.) In Japan, however, such a name refers more to the spirit of the player:

"But in Japan, when an athlete is called Kaibutsu, it has a connotation of special respect and admiration. Such a name is given only to those who are considered superhuman, and whose talents surpass the normal limits of what a player can do."

If Tashiro is to be believed, Kaibutsu is more than a nickname for Matsuzaka: it is a word that exemplifies his way of life. It is the reason he throws over a hundred pitches in a single bullpen session, or always heads to the mound with the intention of finishing what he started, or single-handedly wins the Koshien tournament for his high school team (the Kaibutsu name dates to the 1998 Koshien).

It's obvious that in Japan, Matsuzaka IS Kaibutsu; none of this Dice-K crap. I'd like to see him receive that same respect in America, especially if he continues to achieve the same results as his major league debut yielded: seven innings, six hits, one earned run, one walk, and ten strikeouts.

So what do we say, Red Sox fans? For once, let's not be mindless purveyors of the "Red Sox Nation", "Manny Being Manny", "Dice-K" drivel with which we are assailed on a daily basis. Let's turn back the clock, dare to be original (well, sort of) and give this player the respect he has already earned.

(Note: on the NESN post-game show, Jason Varitek just said, "Sometimes in the heat of the moment, my Japanese isn't so good." Thought it sounded funny - like his day-to-day Japanese is great, but if he gets flustered, forget about it.)

There are reasons I don't listen to WEEI anymore (Fire Joe Morgan)

Hey, you with the blog: what are you doing? (The Big Lead)

Just reading the words "Manny Being Merlot" makes me want to throw up (Ladies...)

Dana Altman: what a kidder (Rumors and Rants)

Show of hands: who knew Jellybean Bryant was a WNBA coach? (Yahoo! Sports)

Don't even think about buying Ian Johnson a wedding present (The Wizard of Odds)

Getting punished for breaking the rules? What's the world coming to? (ESPN.com)

Point/Counterpoint on the latest Billy Packer controversy (AOL FanHouse)

The Hall of Fame Museum doesn't care if you used steroids (The New York Times)

There may never be another Eddie Robinson (Every Day Should Be Saturday)

Keith Richards snorted his father's ashes...in 2002 (Signal to Noise)

Weird Al wishes he thought of this (Simpleprop)

I might have titled this live-blog, "A Slow Descent Into Madness" (Let's Go Buff-a-lo!)

Where would I be right now without Kevin Romine? (Rumors and Rants)

What the hell just happened? (YAYsports!)

From the "David and Goliath" version of NCAA Football 2006 (Journalism Is For Rockstars)

Ugueth Urbina isn't in the Venezuelan Baseball Hall of Fame? (The Baseball Card Blog)

Kill me now. Please? (With Leather)

For the record, my father was doing yard work when I was born (Babes Love Baseball)

Finally, I noted on Awful Announcing over the weekend that my favorite writer on the Internet is Dave Lozo, who writes some very funny stuff for Why Don't We Get Drunk And Blog?. On Monday, I clicked on Lozo's latest post, only to see some terrible news: his dad passed away on Sunday night after suffering a heart attack. If you're the praying sort, please save a spot for the family; if not, he might appreciate a simple comment.

As part of an ongoing project, One More Dying Quail will be profiling the 182 current members of the Bizarro Hall of Fame, an organization that currently exists only in my mind. It was created in the wake of Major League Baseball's infamous Steroid Era as a way of honoring those players whose careers were perfectly mediocre: the only requirement is that a candidate be listed on the official Baseball Hall of Fame ballot and receive zero votes.

Class of 1990

Mike Caldwell - For three years after a solid 14-5, 2.95 campaign for San Francisco in 1974, Caldwell's career seemed to be on the decline. He was dealt from Cincinnati to Milwaukee in June 1977, however, and his career revived for one glorious final act, a 22-9 record and second place finish in the Cy Young voting in 1978.

Roy Howell - The fourth overall pick in the 1972 draft, Howell was traded to Toronto a month into the team's inaugural season of 1977 and made the American League All-Star team in 1978. He signed with Milwaukee as a free agent following the 1980 season, appearing in three playoff series over the next two years. After a promising start in the 1981 Division Series (4-for-5), he went hitless in fourteen at-bats in the ALCS and World Series.

Jose Morales - Morales finished his twelve-year major league career with a total of 375 hits, nearly one third of which came as a pinch-hitter. His only appearance on Baseball Reference's "Appearances on Leaderboards and Awards" section comes thanks to his status as the National League's ninth oldest player in 1984.

Amos Otis - A five-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glover, Otis hit .478 with three homeruns for the Kansas City Royals in the team's 1980 World Series loss to Philadelphia. He played fourteen of his seventeen major league seasons in Kansas City, finishing in the top ten in the Most Valuable Player voting four times.

Tony Scott - Not many 71st round draft picks ever make the major leagues, let alone stick around for eleven seasons, but Tony Scott did just that, earning steady playing time with St. Louis and Houston from 1979-1982. The first year was his best, as he used his speed to steal 37 bases and tally ten triples for the Cardinals.

Ken Singleton - A powerful hitter with a good eye, Singleton racked up over 2,000 hits, 1,000 runs batted in and nearly 250 homeruns in 15 major league seasons. His best year was 1979, when his 35 homeruns, 111 RBI and second-place finish in the MVP voting powered Baltimore to the World Series. They lost that Fall Classic to Willie Stargell's Pittsburgh Pirates, but Singleton got his ring four years later when the O's beat Philadelphia.

Paul Splittorff - Splittorff was drafted by the Royals in the 25th round of the 1968 draft and made his major league debut two years later. Three years after that, he was a twenty game winner for Kansas City, helping the team to a second-place finish in the American League West. He ultimately won 166 games in fifteen major league seasons, all of them with the Royals.

John Stearns - The second overall pick in 1973 made four All-Star teams in his eleven year career, but was left off the squad in 1978, which might have been his best season (career-high 15 homeruns, 25 stolen bases, 65 runs scored). His career was technically spent with two teams, the Phillies and Mets, but 809 of 810 games were spent with the Mets; he played one game in Philadelphia before being dealt to New York as part of a trade for Tug McGraw.

Champ Summers - Champ was an undrafted free agent who only had 350 hits in eleven seasons, so I'm gonna turn this one over to the Rumors and Rants, which put together a tremendous listing of the various bloggers' thoughts on their favorite players. In a tremendous coincidence, the all-time favorite of The Wayne Fontes Experience was...Champ Summers. Their thoughts:

"His style of play really struck a chord in a teenaged me. As a left-handed, dead pull hitting, platoon OF/DH, Champ had a swing that was tailor made for Tiger Stadium. Unfortunately, Summers often butted heads with Sparky Anderson, which led to a trade that absolutely devastated me. The best seasons of Summers' career were spent with the Tigers, while making me a fan for life."

Dick Tidrow - Tidrow won forty games in his first three seasons, but only managed sixty in his last ten years. He appeared in three straight World Series for the Yankees from 1976-78, posting a 1.93 ERA in the last year.

(Coming soon: the Bizarro Hall of Fame Class of 1989.)

(All Hall of Fame voting results were obtained from the official web site of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Statistical information included in postings for the Bizarro Hall of Fame was, unless otherwise noted, originally compiled by Baseball-Reference.com.)

While looking at the player bios for the Ohio State basketball team tonight, I couldn't help but notice this interesting little factoid regarding Greg Oden:

"...[Oden] hopes to continue playing basketball after graduation..."

Don't ask me to explain why, but this makes me like Oden the person even more than I did before. To hell with what Bill Simmons and his readers think about the big guy's competitive fire (or lack thereof) - that line speaks volumes about the way he deals with his success.

I don't even care that the thought probably wasn't his to begin with (if it was, he might be the most level-headed athlete we've seen in a long time) - Greg Oden is still cool in my book.

The live draft for Show and Tell With Sean Salisbury took place on Saturday evening, and my plan to draft only players who were born outside of the United States and Latin America went off without a hitch. My team, cleverly named One More Dying Quail, was assigned the twelfth and final position, which quickly proved to be both a positive and a negative. On the plus side, it was nice being able to make two selections back-to-back, then know that I didn't have to do much of anything for the next ten minutes, but several good players slipped out of my grasp in the first few rounds because of the 23 space gap between picks.

Despite the seemingly limited scope of the player pool, diversity was still a valuable and achievable commodity. Nine countries are represented on the team, led by Canada (10) and Japan (9). Guam (John Hattig) and England (Phil Stockman) currently have one representative each, but that could soon change, as both Hattig and Stockman will be starting the 2007 season in the minor leagues. One American-born player did end up being selected in the draft: Cardinals shortstop David Eckstein, who was chosen because there were no other shortstops who fit the criteria and it seemed possible that his ancestors came to the United States from the land of Oz.

The list of picks by round, with commentary, is below:

Round 1, Pick 12: Daisuke Matsuzaka (Japan) - Boston Red Sox, pitcher

Kaibutsu, as I have lovingly taken to calling him, was the great wild card of the draft: he is clearly capable of posting huge numbers for the Red Sox this season, but the chances are almost as good that he won't come close to living up to the hype and huge amount of money it took to bring him to Boston. Just to be safe, I decided early on to make him my first pick, figuring that at his best, he could become the 2007 version of Jonathan Papelbon, who became my only reliable option for saves after I picked him up as a free agent in April.

Round 2, Pick 13: Justin Morneau (Canada) - Minnesota Twins, first base

With the huge gap between picks, this was likely my only chance to add a big bat to the lineup. In retrospect, I might have taken Jason Bay or Andruw Jones, but Morneau had an incredible 2006 and won't be 26 until May.

Round 3, Pick 36: Tadahito Iguchi (Japan) - Chicago White Sox, second base

All but one of my top outfielders came off the board earlier in the round, so I decided to continue around the horn and take the best available second basemen.

Round 4, Pick 37: Hideki Matsui (Japan) - New York Yankees, left field

The last of my outfield prospects. Matsui had a tough year in 2006, breaking his wrist in May, but he returned to hit .412 in September. If the injury didn't rob him of any power, he should be good for at least 25-30 homeruns and 100+ RBI.

Round 5, Pick 60: Kenji Johjima (Japan) - Seattle Mariners, catcher

Only two catchers on the board, and someone had already mentioned Russell Martin earlier in the week. It feels like an early pick now, but at the time I felt the need to choose Johjima or risk losing him and ending up with George Kottaras at the position. And Kottaras will be starting the season in Pawtucket.

Round 6, Pick 61: Erik Bedard (Canada) - Baltimore Orioles, pitcher

A career high in wins last season and the continued tutelage of Leo Mazzone means that Bedard could be a very important part of my pitching staff this season.

Round 7, Pick 84: Dave Roberts (Japan) - San Francisco Giants, left field/center field

The best outfielder remaining after Matsui. Besides - "The Steal"...the man has a lifetime position on any fantasy team I run.

Round 8, Pick 85: Eric Gagne (Canada) - Texas Rangers, pitcher

Hopefully his elbow holds up and he's able to close games this season.

Round 9, Pick 108: Chien-Ming Wang (Taiwan) - New York Yankees - pitcher

Shades of Ahman Green: apparently I drafted a guy who is hurt and won't pitch until late April at the latest. Throw in the low strikeout totals and the prognosis might appear bleak. With any luck, however, the other guys on the roster pick up the slack in that department and Wang returns to win 13-15 games with a decent ERA. That's all I ask.

Round 10, Pick 109: Akinori Iwamura (Japan) - Tampa Bay Devil Rays - third base

There's been some talk that his power numbers will suffer with the move from Japan to the U.S., but it's an acceptable risk at a fairly light position.

Round 11, Pick 132: Ryan Dempster (Canada) - Chicago Cubs - pitcher

He's a freaking ninja. Plus he has 57 saves in the last two seasons (ignore the 1-9, 4.80 last year, please).

Round 12, Pick 133: Jeff Baker (West Germany) - Colorado Rockies - right field

Born in West Germany, hit .368 in a September call-up last season, also plays third base on occasion. Good enough for me.

Round 13, Pick 156: Takashi Saito (Japan) - Los Angeles Dodgers - pitcher

Another good saves option. Only thing that scares me: he's 37 years old.

Round 14, Pick 157: Russell Martin (Canada) - Los Angeles Dodgers - catcher

Turns out I got both Johjima and Martin. Not bad.

Round 15, Pick 180: Tom Mastny (Indonesia) - Cleveland Indians - pitcher

I refuse to look at Mastny's stats. He is the only player in major league history born in Indonesia, so his spot is guaranteed.

Round 16, Pick 181: Phil Stockman (England) - Atlanta Braves - pitcher

The only current major leaguer born in England isn't actually a major leaguer at this point. For now, however, I might hang onto him - you know, for luck.

Round 17, Pick 204: David Eckstein (United States) - St. Louis Cardinals - shortstop

I was a little disappointed to learn that points are not scored in this league for grit and determination, but Eckstein still felt like the best choice at a position that is not played by anyone born outside the United States or Latin America.

Round 18, Pick 205: Corey Koskie (Canada) - Milwaukee Brewers - third base

It's been all downhill for Koskie since 2004. With a little luck, his primary role will be backing up Iwamura.

Round 19, Pick 228: Adam Stern (Canada) - Baltimore Orioles - center field

I've liked Stern since he first came up with the Red Sox in 2005, when he appeared to be the type of good-fielding, speedy outfielder who could one day replace Johnny Damon. It was very disappointing when he was dealt to Baltimore, especially for a transitory figure such as Javy Lopez.

Round 20, Pick 229: Shin-Soo Choo (South Korea) - Cleveland Indians - left field/right field

I like Choo because he's young (23 years old) and showed signs of breaking out with the Indians late last season. He had better continue to improve - there's a good chance he'll be one of my top three outfielders.

Round 21, Pick 252: Pete Orr (Canada) - Atlanta Braves - second base/third base

He is available at two positions and his playing time could depend on how often Chipper Jones is injured. What's not to like?

Round 22, Pick 253: John Hattig (Guam) - Toronto Blue Jays - third base

Again, just a cool home country, and it doesn't hurt that the dearth of position players in this group makes it easy to keep him on the roster despite the fact that he is currently preparing to play in Syracuse. If Troy Glaus goes down, however...

Round 23, Pick 276: Scott Thorman (Canada) - Atlanta Braves - first base/left field

Versatility is a good thing.

Round 24, Pick 277: Edwin Jackson (West Germany) - Tampa Bay Devil Rays - pitcher

In one of the recent MVP Baseball video games, Jackson was an awesome fourth starter for the Chicago Cubs. He could throw in the high nineties with great control - I think he won 14 games in half a season for me once. In real life? Six career wins. Hopefully the relative quiet of Tampa Bay helps him get it together - he is only 23 years old, so there's time.

Round 25, Pick 300: Kazuo Matsui (Japan) - Colorado Rockies - second base

A second baseman who plays in the thin air of Colorado and allows me to corner the market on guys named "Matsui"? That's enough - especially since all he really has to do is back up Iguchi.

Round 26, Pick 301: Will Ohman (West Germany) - Chicago Cubs - pitcher

Do you know how much I want to see an interview in which he says, "Ich bin ein Frankfurter?" Do you?

Round 27, Pick 324: Chan Ho Park (South Korea) - New York Mets - pitcher

This pick felt a lot better when Park was a member of the starting rotation, but his move to the bullpen might lead to good things. He's been down for a long time (last decent season: 2001), but I've got a nice vibe about Chan Ho this season. He's due for some success.

Round 28, Pick 325: So Taguchi (Japan) - St. Louis Cardinals - left field/center field

Taguchi is another one of those guys that could end up seeing significant time in my outfield this year. That third spot is gonna be a bitch to fill consistently, and his versatility will help.

Round 29, Pick 348: Rheal Cormier (Canada) - Cincinnati Reds - pitcher

Odds that Cormier will actually accumulate any fantasy points for me this season: roughly a million to one. But for some reason, I decided around the twentieth round that he NEEDED to be on this team. Maybe he'll get thrown into the closer's role and save forty games (it could happen), but even if he doesn't, his presence can only be a positive in the karma department.

Round 30, Pick 349: Chin-hui Tsao (Taiwan) - Los Angeles Dodgers - pitcher

Tons of injury problems throughout his career, to the extent that he missed all of 2006. He's probably not long for One More Dying Quail - not if Hideki Okajima is available, anyway (which he isn't at this point).