Most sports nicknames have some semblance of reason. It’s pretty obvious why Alex Rodriguez is called A-Rod, why LeBron James is King James, why Daniel Gibson is called Boobie (ok, that not so obvious). But what kind of nickname is Pronk? We’ve heard the tale that Pronk is a combination of Hafner’s two previous nicknames: “Project” and “Donkey.” If you’ve ever seen him play first base, donkey seems to fit. And the project part hails from the days when he was still a minor league project…
This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2008.