Great Sports Name Hall of Fame Nominee - Homer Bush

I have a lot of great names coming up, but went with Homer Bush today in honor of baseball season starting again. Not that his name is a bad one, as putting together a euphemism for sex AND a euphemism for lady bits is...impressive. There's just some equally/more impressive names on the way.

Anyways, so Homer Bush...never had much of a career. But what else is new in the Great Name Game? Originally drafted into the Padres system in 1991, Bush played in the minors there until 1996 when he was traded, before ever seeing major league time, to the New York Yankees. This is arguably Homer Bush's most famous moment, as Ruben Rivera (worst base runner ever) went to the Padres as part of this deal and the infamous Hideki Irabu went to the Yankees as a PTBNL. The Yankees went on to win the World Series in 1998, which Bush was a part of, though mostly as a pinch runner.

After the championship season, the Yankees dealt Bush, Graeme Lloyd, and David Wells to the Blue Jays for Roger Clemens. Playing 128 games in 1999, Bush hit .320 and seemed on his way to a regular starting gig. However, it was an empty .320 thanks to few walks and even less power, and the next year Bush showed his true colors with a .215/.271/.253 line in 325 plate appearances. Bush bounced back a bit in 2001, but not enough that the Blue Jays didn't find him cut worthy midway through the season.

And so began the end of Bush's career. He played 16 games for the Marlins at the end of 2001 and then was given his walking papers. He then had off season stops with the Padres and Yankees before finally playing 9 more games with the Yankees in 2004, batting a solid .000. Bush was done and finished with a career line of .285/.324/.358, decent by average standards but pretty rotten otherwise.

There are a couple of interesting post baseball notes that follow Bush though. For one, the Yankees invited him back to an Old Timers Game in 2007 thanks to his previous pinch running prowess. And so, at 34, Bush attended. Secondly, Bush is featured a lot in Kevin Horrigan's Book "The Right Kind of Heroes." The book is all about growing up at East St. Louis High School in East St. Louis, Illinois, and since Bush grew up there while Horrigan was writing, he's mentioned a lot. Pretty cool stuff for a guy who wasn't much more than a glorified pinch runner during his actual career.

Incidentally, there are 22 people named Homer Bush in the world. Are you one of them?

Also, Homer Bush, you are now nominated to the Great Sports Name Hall of Fame!

To see the best sports names of all time, visit the Truly Great Names page.
To see some good sports names that were voted out, visit the Good Names page.
To see the current voting ballot, visit the Ballot page.