Oil Can’s Uncle, Bob “Rope” Boyd

It’s sad that I felt the need to throw Oil Can Boyd’s name into the title, but I think too many folks would have just cruised right on by this edition without reading it if I’d used the title “Baseball Remembers: Bob Boyd.” Though he was a good player, and had a great nickname of his own, Bob Boyd had an eminently forgettable name, and his nephew’s nickname is far more catchy. So if the title brought you here, even just one of you, then I’m glad I used it, because more people should know about Bob Boyd.

And it wasn’t some sort of trick. Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd really is Bob Boyd’s nephew. Dennis has much higher name recognition because of his more recent career and unique nickname, but he’s still no one’s idea of a fixture in current pop culture. For instance, here’s how he compares to Shohei Ohtani in the last five years according to Google Trends: