How monster got his moniker

He was a "hairy little monster."

That was Steven Milam's first reaction when he saw his son, Steven A. Milam, for the first time. He was right. His son was a hairy child, enough so that his first haircut came when he was only three days old.

"He was the hairy little thing," Marci Milam, Steven A. Milam's mother, said.

The hair eventually was contained but the nickname "Monster" has stuck with Milam's son, who is now a freshman middle infielder for LSU, ever since. His family, friends and the community he grew up in — Las Cruces, New Mexico — always have called him "Monster," despite his 5-foot-8 frame.

"He introduces himself as 'Monster' like if that was his first legal name," Marci said. "... That's just kind of how it's been his whole life."

The nickname also has stuck with his new teammates at LSU. A .367 batting average through his first 10 games with LSU entering Saturday night's game against UL in Houston hasn't hurt, either.

"He came into campus and his nickname was 'Monster,' and then we started calling him 'Monster,' " Tommy White said. "I think when I got a text or something from him (it came in as) 'Maybe from Monster.'

"They say that's his name so we just go with it."

Rarely has anyone not called "Monster" by his nickname.

Middle school and high school teachers upon first meetings would call him by his actual name, but after awhile they would start calling him "Monster." He had great aunts and uncles who initially refused to use his nickname — calling him by his middle name "Aiden" instead — but now call him "Monster," too.

The only time Milam uses his legal name is for more formal occasions such as doctor appointments.

"It's kind of weird when people call him Steven," Marci said. "It was a big transition learning that that was actually his first name."

The nickname "Monster" wasn't just something Milam was born with. It was something he earned.

He was "a ball of energy" growing up, always wanting to play and stay active. Oftentimes that meant playing baseball at the pecan orchard in the backyard of his grandparents' house.

That's where Milam learned to play the sport. He used sprinkler heads as bases and broke windows with the balls that he hit. He woould break the sprinkler heads, too.

"I used to play baseball in the backyard with my grandparents, and I would just hit anything they threw, like rocks or whatever it was, and I would always just hit it," "Monster" Milam said. "That's how I learned to play. I had a big plastic bat, and they'd throw everything at me and I'd hit it."

Anytime his parents, grandparents or great-grandparents would tell him to stop playing for any reason, Milam would throw a temper tantrum and start crying.

These tantrums were why Marci calls her son "a little terror" growing up. It wasn't because he was an unruly or "bad kid."

"I laughed because (Hayden) Travinski was like, 'Oh, he was a bad kid,' " Marci said.

As Milam has ascended the ranks in baseball, "Monster" has become more than just a nickname. It has become a calling card, a point of pride to show he's someone who always plays bigger than his 5-foot-8 size indicates.

"I think he's just so confident in his ability, if you were to ask him, he'd think he's 6-foot-4, 6-foot-5," Marci said. "So that's just kind of a name he's taken in the baseball scene to kind of grow into and be that type of player that is a monster on the field."