Most of Joe Girardi's nicknames follow a simple formula.

The Yankee manager loves to give his players nicknames, and most hew to a fairly standard blueprint: Drop the last few letters, then add an "-ie" or "y" sound. Hence, Brett Gardner becomes "Gardy;" Alfonso Soriano is "Sori." Sometimes, there are slight variations, where the entire name is preserved. For instance, David Phelps is "Phelpsie; last season, Jayson Nix was "Nixie."

But every once in a while, nickname lightning strikes and Girardi finds an unconventional one that is too good to pass up. For those, Girardi will eschew his normal scheme and embrace the new name wholeheartedly.

Such was the case when Tony Pena, the Yankee bench coach, noticed the prominence of rookie Dean Anna's nose. He said it made Anna look like a raccoon. Girardi adopted it, and now Anna must accept that, on the Yankees, he's raccoon. And he gets it.

"Because of the nose," Anna said. "I got a little bigger nose. I love it. It's great."