Nickname
Kemp's nickname is "The Bison." During the second major league game of Kemp's career, on May 29, 2006, he stole second base in the fourth inning, after which Atlanta Braves television announcer Don Sutton said he looked "like a big buffalo running around the bases." The observation was appropriate due to Kemp's imposing size – the Dodgers' roster lists him at 6' 3" tall and 225 pounds – and surprisingly fast foot-speed. The word "buffalo" was modified to "bison", by the commenter D4P on Jon Weisman's popular Dodgers blog, Dodger Thoughts, as it is a more proper term for the North American mammal to which the moniker refers. It wasn't until the next day when the starting lineup did not include Kemp that baseball writer Eric Enders, also commenting in Dodger Thoughts added the capitalized article in front of the animal, completing the nickname, writing "So much for looking forward to watching The Bison tonight."
The nickname is also a play on Kemp's Oklahoma roots. A bison is the state of Oklahoma's official animal.
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Famous quotes containing the word nickname:
“A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)