While y’all are waiting to see where Manny Machado and Bryce Harper are going to play baseball in 2019, the most interesting offseason event happened already:
Melvin Upton Jr. has decided he is B.J. Upton again
Welcome back, Bossman Junior.
Photo by Rob Tringali/Getty Images
Upton’s initial explanation for changing his name from B.J. to Melvin was that most of his friends already called him Mel or Melvin. “Nobody really calls me B.J., except at the stadium,” he said in 2015.
Some folks thought that the name change initially was some kind of way to help him break out of a slump, which he denied, because that’s pretty dumb:
“This has nothing to do with starting a new chapter,” he told reporters. “I just wanted to. My father thought enough to give me his name, so why not?”
A guy wanting to go by his birth name? In this economy? Wild.
I do have a few general thoughts about B.J.’s return:
- B.J. is just a cooler thing to be called than Melvin, especially when B.J. is short for “Bossman Junior.”
- “B.J. Upton” sounds like a better baseball player than “Melvin Upton Jr.”
- This is good.
- I don’t think any of us called him Melvin anyway? LOL.
- Finally, and most importantly: he can go by whatever the hell he wants!
Upton hasn’t played a major league game since he was with the Blue Jays in 2016. He signed a minor league contract with the Giants in April 2017, before being released in August of that year. In December, the Indians signed him to a minor league contract before releasing him in March 2018.
Anyway, it’s cool that B.J. Upton is B.J. Upton again.
Welcome back, B.J.
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