Top 5 Underwhelming Indians for Tribe Fest

Credit: Unkown

#5. Bill Selby

For anyone who remembers who Bill Selby was, I commend you. Your knowledge of all things Cleveland Indians is astonishing and deserves some sort of award… or a cookie at the very least. Bill Selby is remembered for two things as a member of the Indians and in all honesty, most people don’t remember either. First, Selby had one of the most memorable regular season home runs in Indians history. On July 14, 2002, Selby hit a game winning, walk-off grand slam against vaunted Yankees closer Mariano Rivera. The second, and more important contribution made by Selby was the nicknaming of Travis Hafner. As Selby once explained:

"“Texas came to town in 2002 and I was with [former Indian] Lee Stevens” href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Stevens”>Lee Stevens on the bench saying, ‘This dude is unbelievable. He’s a real project.’ He was hitting the ball everywhere. We got him the next spring and we called him ‘Project’ all the time. One day I passed him, and said, ‘What’s up, you big donkey?’ He said, ‘Hey, I can’t be the Project and the Donkey.’ “So we started going with ‘Pronkey’. In Spanish, we made it ‘El Pronko.’ Then it got down to ‘The Pronk’ and finally just ‘Pronk.’ It fits him. He doesn’t look like Shrek or anything else. He just looks like a Pronk.”"

And there you have it.