WHAT THE HELL IS A "PRONK" ANYWAY?

I was chatting with one of my friends yesterday.  He looks at me and says "Pronk was great last night!" He referring to the April 17th game when Travis Hafner homer off the bench and the Yanks won 4-3, read HERE.  Sure, it was a big moment... but then I got to thinking... What the hell is a "Pronk"?

"Look, if some dude made it up, I'm cool with that," I thought to myself.  But I was on mission. There had to be a reason why Hafner was nicknamed "Pronk". Was it just a made up nickname? Was it an actual thing? I mean, do you know?? I started digging.

I simply typed in "Why is Travis Hafner named Pronk?" into Google. Damn, I was amazed. The Internet has everything.  For all of you who don't know, "Pronk" was created by his former teammate Bill Selby. Apparently the name happened during spring training of 2003. His teammates were referring to him as "The Project" or "The Donkey" for how Hafner ran the bases.

Donkey? Really? Who the hell wants to be named after a donkey? I dug further.  I then looked for the definition of the word "Pronk." Maybe that could help.  It turns out, according to the dictionary that it's a Verb. Interesting, but I think I was getting off track. To  "...jump straight up; 'kangaroos pronk.'"  No. That's not it. It can't be.  So, I went back to the original idea.  And that seems to be closest one and probably the correct one.

It turns out that when Travis Hafner was acquired by the Cleveland Indians from the Texas Rangers, he was considered a "Project player" or a "Prospect player", and yes, they also referred to him as a donkey, but it morphed... and it is absolutely true that Bill Selby was responsible... from what I can tell at least.

So there you have it, "Pronk" was born... and now he's in pinstripes and I'm damn happy to have Pronk on our team!

Go Yanks! Go Pronk!

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