FanShot

R.A. Dickey’s Well-Named Arsenal

8
"In the Mets’ bat rack at Citi Field, almost every bat includes a sticker with the player’s number on the knob. Not Dickey’s. His bats have no stickers. He writes his number, 43, in black ink in the middle, with a name curled around it. One bat is called Orcrist the Goblin Cleaver and the other is Hrunting. Dickey, an avid reader, said that Orcrist came from "The Hobbit"; it is the blade Bilbo Baggins uses in the Misty Mountains. Hrunting — the H is silent, Dickey said — came from the epic poem "Beowulf"; it is the sword Beowulf uses to slay Grendel’s mother." - Tyler Kepner of The New York Times