Mike Yastrzemski has one of the most famous last names in baseball, but that doesn't make it easy to spell or say.
The Giants outfielder is the grandson of Boston Red Sox legend and Baseball Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski, so his last name has been said and written a lot over the last half-century. Giants relief pitcher infielder Pablo Sandoval wasn't the first (and won't be the last) person to struggle pronouncing Yastrzemski, but the man with one of baseball's best nicknames ("Kung Fu Panda") turned his troubles into another great moniker: "Glass of Whiskey."
"[It] actually came up because he was fumbling his words trying to say my last name, and he kind of stumbled upon 'glass of whiskey,' " Yastrzemski recalled in a "Wine Wednesday" interview with Amy Gutierrez on Instagram Live. "It started with lots of whiskey, then it went to glass of whiskey. I guess the second one doesn't sound as bad."
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SIGN UP HERE Sandoval first revealed the nickname in an interview with ESPN's Marly Rivera last summer. BreakingT and McCovey Chronicles even collaborated on a "Mike Glass of Whiskey" shirt design, yet Yastrzemski simply went with "Yaz" on the back of his jersey during MLB Players' Weekend last year.
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Perhaps MLB didn't want an alcoholic beverage on the back of a jersey they could sell to children, although Rich Hill's "D. Mountain" still made it on to the back of a jersey a year prior. Yastrzemski's tribute to his grandfather surely meant more to him in his first year in the bigs than Sandoval's ad-lib, but one can dream of seeing "Glass of Whiskey" on the back of a jersey whenever the next Players' Weekend is.
If you have a hard-to-pronounce last name and desperately want a nickname, Sandoval sounds like your go-to guy.