Of all the professional sports, no sport seems to have as many and as many colorful nicknames as Major League Baseball. This was especially true in the early years of the sports. Some nicknames were so attached to the player that when they were inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame, their nicknames were included on their plaque.
Most nicknames have a known beginning, “Dizzy” Dean’s resulted from an incident in his military career when a sergeant found Dean throwing potatoes against a garbage can and yelled at him, “you dizzy son-of-a-bitch!”. Satchel Paige received his nickname when he had a job of carrying passengers’ bags (satchels) at the train station in Mobile. Lawrence Berra received the nickname “Yogi” from his friend who, after seeing a newsreel about India, said that he resembled a yogi from India whenever he sat around with arms and legs crossed waiting to bat or while looking sad after losing a game.
Here are a few Hall of Famer nicknames: James “Cool Papa” Bell, George Herman “Babe” Ruth, Grover Cleveland “Old Pete” Alexander, Adrian “Cap” Anson, Luke “Old Aches and Pain” Appling, Frank “Home Run” Baker, Albert “Happy” Chandler, Ty “The Georgia Peach” Cobb, “Wahoo” Sam Crawford, Joe “The Yankee Clipper” Di Maggio, and Bob “Rapid Robert” Feller.
I have nicknames of other Hall of Famers listed below: If you are interested in trying to see how accurate your guesses are leave your answers in the comment section:
1) The Human Rain Delay, 2) Sandman, 3) The Wizard, 4) The Man of Steal, 5) Captain Hook, 6) Double X, 7) Hoot, 8) Big Six, 9) Ducky, and 10) Old Hoss. Try without using the internet.
In addition to researching nicknames on plaques I discovered a few facts that I was completely unaware of. These are the real first names of some of the inductees: George “Ken” “The Kid” “Junior” Griffey, Harry “Doc” “Roy” Halladay, Umpire Harold “Doug” Harvey, Dorrel “Whitey” Herzog, Monford “Monte” Irvin, Larry “Chipper” Jones, Santurino Orestes “Minnie” Minoso, John “Buck” O’Neil, Alan “Bud” Selig, and Lynn “Nolan” Ryan.
Some nicknames had relevance to physical descriptions of the player, such as: Don "Ears" Mossi, Walt “No Neck” Williams, and Ernie “The Schnozz” Lombardi. Do a search on each of these player's images to quickly see how they "earned" their nicknames.
You can add to that list Robert “Lefty” Grove and Vernon “Lefty” Gomez who were left-handed pitchers and Mordecai “Three Fingers” Brown who lost most of his index finger in a farm accident when he was a kid.
Baseball also has nicknames that are interesting or unique:
Ron Cey – The Penguin
Marc Rzepczynski – Scrabble
Ted Williams – The Splendid Splinter, The Kid, Teddy Ballgame, The Thumper
Frank Thomas – The Big Hurt
Randy Johnson – The Big Unit
Jimmy Wynn – Toy Cannon
Pete Rose – Charlie Hustle
Bill Lee – Spaceman
Mark Fydrich – The Bird
Will Clark – Will the Thrill
Don Mattingly – Donny Baseball
Rusty Staub – Le Grand Orange
Steve Balboni – Bye Bye
Shane Victorino – The Flyin’ Hawaiian
Kenny Rogers – The Gambler
Vince Coleman – Vince Van Go
Hideki Matsui – Godzilla
Phil Rizzuto – Scooter
Carlton Fisk / Ivan Rodriguez - Pudge
Don Zimmer – The Gerbil (given to him by Bill “Spaceman” Lee)
During the discovery part of this article, I started questioning how some nicknames came into existence. Some of these are very interesting.
Willie Mays – Say Hey Kid – He used to greet everyone with “Hey” when he saw them
Jim Hunter – Catfish – Given to him by Charlie Finley because he thought he needed a flashy nickname
Leo Durocher – Leo the Lip – Based on his constant baiting of umpire from his position in the dugout
Harold Traynor – Pie – As a child he would often frequent the grocery store and ask for pie. The store owner would eventually call him Pie Face which was shortened to Pie.
Frankie Frisch – The Fordham Flash – Attended Fordham Prep and Fordham University where he was a track star as well as playing baseball, basketball and football.
Walter Johnson – The Big Train – Given by sportswriter Grantland Rice because of his size and because the express train was the fastest vehicle known at the time.
Denton Young – Cy – Shortened from Cyclone because of the speed of his fastball.
James Gavin – Pud – Writers said he made hitters look like pudding.
Edward Ford – Whitey – named for his light blond hair.
Leo Hartnett – Gabby – named because of his shy, quiet manner.
Richard Marquard – Rube – His sweeping delivery reminded a sportswriter of Rube Waddell.
Walter Maranville – Rabbitt – He said it was because his penchant for bounding and jumping, others said it was because of his protruding ears.
Lewis Wilson – Hack – He was 5’ 6” and weighted 195 lbs. with an 18 inch neck, and feet that fit into a 5 ½ size shoe. A teammate said his build resembled Hack Lewis, an outfielder for the Chicago Cubs.
Enos Slaughter – Country – Grew up in Roxboro, North Carolina
Joe DiMaggio – Yankee play-by-play announcer compared DiMaggio’s speed and agility to that of the new Pan American airliner “The Yankee Clipper’. Another story equates DiMaggio to the beauty and grace of a clipper ship. He also had the nickname, Joltin’ Joe.
Domenic DiMaggio – “The Little Professor” - He looked like a college professor because of his size (5’9”), wire-rimmed glasses.
John Odom – Blue Moon – As “Blue Moon” explained, he had a classmate in the 5th grade who started calling him “Moon Head”. A few days later he changed it to “Blue Moon”. He hated that nickname, but later really liked it.
Pedro Sandoval – Kung Foo Panda – Given to him by Barry Zito after a play at the plate where Sandoval jumped over the tag of the catcher.
Dennis Boyd – Oil Can – According to Boyd, “growing up in Mississippi there was a woman who supplied the town with moonshine. When I was 7 I started drinking it myself. One day someone caught us in a tin shed drinking Big Momma’s whiskey out of oil cans, so my friend Pap started calling me Oil Can.”
Sal Maglie – The Barber – Named because he pitcher inside to batters, giving them close shaves.
The Society for American Baseball Research penned an article “An Analysis of Baseball Nicknames” . From 1871 to 1968 these were the most popular baseball nicknames: 1) Lefty, 2) Red, 3) Doc, 4) Bud/Buddy, 5) Dutch, 6) Big, 7) Mickey, 8) Whitey, 9) Chick and 10) Kid. There is a lot of interesting information contained in their article.
While nicknames are not as common now as in the past and there is no question they are more PC, but here are a few current players who have nicknames:
Pete Alonso – Polar Bear
Noah Syndergaard – Thor
Shohei Otani – Sho Time
Blake Snell – Snellzilla
Todd Frazier – The Toddfather
Brandon Belt – Baby Giraffe
Jeff McNeil – The Squirrel
Carlos Carrasco – Cookie
Sean Manaea – The Throwin’ Samoan
Finally, a number of Minnesota Twins have had nicknames. Here are players that had nicknames given to them:
Rocco Baldelli – The Woonsocket Rocket
Doug Mientkiewicz – Eye Chart
Josh Donaldson – The Bringer of Rain
Harmon Killebrew – Killer
Kirby Puckett – Puck
Jim Grant – Mudcat
Tom Brunansky – Bruno
Rod Carew – Sir Rodney
Gary Gaetti – The Rat
Kent Hrbek – Herbie
Torii Hunter - Spiderman
Frank Viola – Sweet Music
Willians Astudillo – LaTortuga (The Tortoise)
Nelson Cruz – Broomstick
Luis Arraez – La Ragadera (The Sprinkler)
Chris Paddock – Sheriff
Feel free to comment and include some unique nicknames that I failed to mention.
