St. Paddy's Day Tribute to Baseball's Past

It’s mid-March, which basically means three acts of Awesomeness are about to occur: (1) the NCAA Tournament, (2) St. Patrick’s Day, and (3) Opening Day for Major League Baseball. 

I don’t think I need to elaborate on HOW or WHY these phenomena get filed under “Awesome,” but, for sure, there are those people who may only get super-psyched for one or two of these March goodies.

Fortunately, I’m not one of those guys.

I love all three, but since the NCAA Tourney is about to grab the undivided attention of everyone and their moms, I’m choosing to focus on the latter two: The Irish Day of Debauchery and the best damn day of Spring.

Specifically, in light of what Americans call the “Holiest of Irish holidays,” I thought it would be a great opportunity to pay homage to our professional baseball ancestors of Irish origin.

Now, as far as parallels between baseball and the Irish go, look no further than the category: Drink - Most Associated With.

Who’s kidding who here? For baseball fans, what’s a better way to spend a day at the ballpark than with a tall, cold beer, right? For Irish folk, what better way to spend...any moment of any day or night?  You get the point.

I focused my research using two main criteria: (1) the player must have been born in Ireland, and (2) the player must have a kick-ass Irish name.

So without further ado, here is a list of some of the few Irish-born former professional baseball players with the most kick-ass Irish names.

1)      Irish McIlveen

Too obvious?  Well, “Irish” was Henry Cooke McIlveen’s nickname given because he was born in Belfast, Ireland. Real creative, guys.  Good ‘ol Irish played from 1906-1909 for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Highlanders and had a lifetime average of .215 with eight RBI over his 53 game career.  I guess Irish lacked the “Luck of the” commonly associated with his native people.  Hmm… maybe his nickname negated the whole thing.  Poor guy.

2)      Jack Doyle

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