Many baseball fans are reacquainting themselves with Jerome Williams, an Angels pitcher who returned to the big leagues this year for the first time since 2007. Williams has gone 2-0 with a 4.58 ERA in 17.2 innings for the Halos. Once upon a time, he was a promising pitcher for the Giants who went 17-12 his first two seasons in the bigs. You would think that type of success would command some respect in the clubhouse, but apparently that wasn’t the case in San Francisco where the Giants called Williams by the wrong name for two years.
“When I was in (minor league) camp, I went over (to big league camp) to play in a game, and I think it was Felix Rodriguez called me Jeremy. And that was it,” Williams told The Orange County Register. “I was a rookie and I didn’t want to tell anybody cause I was scared.”
Williams says it wasn’t until two years later when he finally informed pitching coach Dave Righetti that the team was calling him by the wrong name. And guess what? Righetti ended up slapping him for not correcting people sooner!
We’ve actually seen this happen before with Kendrys Morales who was called “Kendry” until he corrected people this spring. Morales had somewhat of an excuse because his name got lost in translation. I can’t even begin to understand how everyone screwed up Jerome Williams’ name when it’s so simple. Apparently they got him confused with the late Jeriome Robertson, a former pitcher with Houston whose name was pronounced “Jeremy.” Even that’s a poor reason to screw up Williams’ name.
