My favourite piece of Internet history

I think Bobson Dugnutt is my favourite.

I was impressed that the Simpsons Death Note parody used some of these names. That's a super obscure reference!

MIKE TRUK

I forgot about Bobson Dognutt!

Bobson Dugnutt. Lmfao

Every time I see this, I always remind people the full set of names is online.

ProZD's reading of these names is amazinglink

Straight out of republican voting ballots.

At least some of these names have to be knockoffs of actual athletes, right? For example, he’s no “Sleve McDichael”, but Steve McMichael was a player for the Greenbay Packers football team when this game came out.

Is that Dwigt from Threat Level Midnight?

I apologise to my future son, Scott Dourque.

Todd Bonzalez is peak comedy.

This looks like what would happen if you had a real set of American names, but then played a long game of telephone with people that have increasingly thick accents.

"Raul", "Rortugal"

The man does not understand the letter P.

It confuses him, it frightens him.

MCRLWAIN hurts my brain to pronounce

Yeah actual baseball players have names way weirder than these.

Sleeve McDichael!

is Scott Dourque just a fancy way of saying Scott Dork lol?

This shit is gold. Thanks, OP.

I've seen this so many times but the name Shown gets me every time.. it's fucking classic

Me and the rest is the Bonzales family would thank you for not making fun

Funny how the nationalities don't go together. Italian/Jewish names mixed in with latino last names.

If you told me this was a minor league hockey squad, I would believe you.

SLEVE MCDICHAEL

It was to avoid paying licensing fees.

Someone figured it out before SirParsifal

This all began a few months ago, when I attempted to answer one simple question: who is John Galt Bobson Dugnutt?

Fighting Baseball is a Japanese port of the MLBPA Baseball ‘94 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It went semi-viral because it used made-up ‘Engrish’ names for all the players (because they didn’t have the MLBPA license in Japan), Bobson Dugnutt being the most famous of these names. I posted the full rosters a few years ago, if you'd like to check those out.

But where exactly do those names come from? Are they random? Are they generated? The story on the tweet was that it was some Japanese developer who had to make a bunch of English-sounding names - how true is that?

And, after many many hours of work, I have the answers for you. Or, rather, I have about 90% of the answers, give or take. There are still mysteries to be solved here. But let me show you how some of this magic works.

 

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Let’s start with MLBPA Baseball ‘94 - the American (and original) version of Fighting Baseball. Here’s the rosters for the New York Mets and the Houston Astros, in the order that they are arranged in-game (technically, the game lists the pitchers after the position players, but this is the “correct” way, for reasons we’ll get into later)

Mets Player	Position	Position	Astros Player
Dwight Gooden	SP	SP	Mark Portugal
Bret Saberhagen	SP	SP	Darryl Kile
Pete Schourek	SP	SP	Pete Harnisch
Sid Fernandez	SP	SP	Doug Drabek
Anthony Young	SP	SP	Greg Swindell
--	--	--	--
John Franco	RP	RP	Doug Jones
Mike Maddux	RP	RP	Xavier Hernandez
Bobby Jones	RP	RP	Tom Edens
Eric Hillman	RP	RP	Todd Jones
Jeff Innis	RP	RP	Brian Williams
--	--	--	--
Vince Coleman	LF	C	Craig Biggio
Ryan Thompson	CF	SS	Steve Finley
Eddie Murray	1B	CF	Jeff Bagwell
Bobby Bonilla	3B	2B	Ken Caminiti
Jeff Kent	2B	3B	Eric Anthony
Todd Hundley	C	1B	Luis Gonzalez
Joe Orsulak	RF	RF	Andujar Cedeno
Tim Bogar	SS	LF	Eddie Taubensee
--	--	--	--
Howard Johnson	3B	2B	Casey Candaele
Chico Walker	3B	3B	Chris Donnels
Jeff McKnight	SS	SS	Jose Uribe
Dave Gallagher	CF	RF	Kevin Bass
Jeromy Burnitz	RF	CF	Rick Parker
Darrin Jackson	RF	C	Scott Servais
Charlie O’Brien	C	C	Scooter Tucker

Now, let’s make some semi-arbitrary substitutions into the starting lineup from the bench.

Mets Player	Position	Position	Astros Player
Dwight Gooden	SP	SP	Mark Portugal
Bret Saberhagen	SP	SP	Darryl Kile
Pete Schourek	SP	SP	Pete Harnisch
Sid Fernandez	SP	SP	Doug Drabek
Anthony Young	SP	SP	Greg Swindell
--	--	--	--
John Franco	RP	RP	Doug Jones
Mike Maddux	RP	RP	Xavier Hernandez
Bobby Jones	RP	RP	Tom Edens
Eric Hillman	RP	RP	Todd Jones
Jeff Innis	RP	RP	Brian Williams
--	--	--	--
Vince Coleman	LF	C	Craig Biggio
Ryan Thompson	CF	SS	Steve Finley
Eddie Murray	1B	CF	Jeff Bagwell
Bobby Bonilla	3B	2B	Ken Caminiti
Jeff Kent	2B	3B	Eric Anthony
Joe Orsulak	RF	RF	Andujar Cedeno
Dave Gallagher	CF	LF	Eddie Taubensee
Howard Johnson	3B	RF	Kevin Bass
--	--	--	--
Tim Bogar	SS	2B	Casey Candaele
Jeff McKnight	SS	3B	Chris Donnels
Jeromy Burnitz	RF	SS	Jose Uribe
Darrin Jackson	RF	CF	Rick Parker
Charlie O’Brien	C	C	Scott Servais
Chico Walker	3B	C	Scooter Tucker
Todd Hundley	C	1B	Luis Gonzalez

I believe there is some sort of logic governing these substitutions (here, the seventh man in the lineup is swapped out, moved to the last spot on the bench, and the fourth man on the bench is swapped in - although the Mets also swap the first man on the bench with the last man in the lineup). I just don’t know what the logic is - it doesn’t seem consistent throughout the various teams.

The astute among you may have noticed that the positions don’t line up anymore. They don’t matter. They’ll be gone from here on out.

Now, let’s take the first name from the Mets, and add it to the last name from the Astros.

• Dwight Portugal
• Bret Kile
• Pete Harnisch
• Sid Drabek
• Anthony Swindell
• -÷
• John Jones
• Mike Hernandez
• Bobby Edens
• Eric Jones
• Jeff Williams
• -÷
• Vince Biggio
• Ryan Finley
• Eddie Bagwell
• Bobby Caminiti
• Jeff Anthony
• Joe Cedeno
• Dave Taubensee
• Howard Bass
• -÷
• Tim Candaele
• Jeff Donnels
• Jeromy Uribe
• Darrin Parker
• Charlie Servais
• Chico Tucker
• Todd Gonzalez

But that’s not quite obfuscated enough, is it? Let’s change the first letter of the last name, semi-randomly. Again, there are definite trends here, but I’m not 100% sure what they are. A is often changed to E, C is often changed to S, G to B, R to L, and vice-versa for all of these. But there is no letter that gets changed 100% of the time to a different letter. Anyways:

• Dwight Rortugal
• Bret Dile
• Pete Karnisch
• Sid Srabek
• Anthony Gwindell
• -÷
• John Rones
• Mike Sernandez
• Bobby Adens
• Eric Rones
• Jeff Lilliams
• -÷
• Vince Liggio
• Ryan Ginley
• Eddie Lagwell
• Bobby Raminiti
• Jeff Enthony
• Joe Sedeno
• Dave Laubensee
• Howard Dass
• -÷
• Tim Sandaele
• Jeff Jonnels
• Jeromy Gribe
• Darrin Marker
• Charlie Nervais
• Chico Lucker
• Todd Bonzalez

One last thing - I did this by hand - there should probably be some typos.

• Dwight Rortugal -> Dwigt Rortugal
• Jeromy Gribe - > Jeromy Gride
• Charlie Nervais -> Carlie Nervais

And that is the full roster for the Fighting Baseball 1994 Cleveland Queens. If you started over, did some slightly different roster moves, took the Mets last names plus the Astros first, and redid the first letter replacement + typos, you’d end up with the roster to Fighting Baseball’s Anaheim club.

 

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Fourteen of the first fifteen teams in Fighting Baseball’s roster are made up out of pairs of NL teams. I’ve broken it into chunks to more clearly show the pattern:

First Names	Fighting Baseball Team	Last Names
Chicago Cubs	Atlanta	Atlanta Braves, Hartford Whalers (we’ll get back to this)
Florida Marlins	Baltimore	Cincinnati Reds
Montreal Expos	Boston	Colorado Rockies
--	--	--
Houston Astros	Anaheim	New York Mets
Los Angeles Dodgers	Chicago B	Philadelphia Phillies
San Diego Padres	Chicago H	Pittsburgh Pirates
San Francisco Giants	Cincinnati	Saint Louis Cardinals
--	--	--
New York Mets	Cleveland Queens	Houston Astros
Philadelphia Phillies	Denver	Los Angeles Dodgers
Pittsburgh Pirates	Detroit	San Diego Padres
Saint Louis Cardinals	Miami	San Francisco Giants
--	--	--
Atlanta Braves	Houston	Chicago Cubs
Cincinnati Reds	Kansas City	Florida Marlins
Colorado Rockies	Los Angeles	Montreal Expos

All of Fighting Baseball’s teams are referred to only by the city, except for Cleveland, who is the Cleveland Queens for some reason. Every single first name-last name combination is a combination of an NL West team and an NL East team - and they’re paired in alphabetical order. The Atlanta Braves are the first team alphabetically in the NL West, and the Cubs are the first team alphabetically in the NL East, so they’re paired together, and so on. It’s broken into chunks to obfuscate it, but it’s still there. This is then applied to an alphabetical list of the Fighting Baseball teams (but Anaheim! You say. We’ll get to that in a moment) - and that’s fourteen of the first fifteen teams in Fighting Baseball.

But what about that fifteenth? Arlington does not use any of the NL teams for its roster, even though it logically should - it’s right there alphabetically between Anaheim and Baltimore. But while Arlington is in the game as Arlington and it’s listen in Fighting Baseball between Anaheim and Baltimore, it fits into the pattern as Texas: a.k.a, the Texas Rangers. Similarly, Anaheim is placed where a team named the California Angels would go, alphabetically.

Presumably, the game refers to the “Arlington” team as Texas in the code - or whoever made these names called the team Texas. (MLBPA ‘94 had the MLBPA license, but not the MLB license - hence the generic city names).

There are three other teams in the MLB that go by state instead of by city - Minnesota, Miami, and Colorado. But switching Minnesota to Minneapolis doesn’t change its place in an alphabetical list, and luckily neither does changing Colorado to Denver or Florida to Miami. Anaheim and Arlington are the only two teams that are moved - and we’ll get back to Arlington later.

 

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Now, I picked the Astros/Mets combination because it’s the only one out of the seven NL team combinations I can explain. Every other one has a first or last name that can’t possibly come from either lineup. I attribute this either to typos, or simply boredom by the person putting this list together nearly thirty years ago. You can look through the spreadsheet at the end of this post if you want to try to figure out where all those minor discrepancies stem from.

Cont'd

Willie Mabohlz

Permanently Deleted