Rubes
 

Why were so many players in the early part of the century named, or nicknamed, Rube?

I mean between Foster (black and white), Walker, Marquard, Wadell, Dahlberg, etc. the name seems to appear on almost every major league roster!

I have always been told it was sort of a colloquial term for anyone from the "country."

Same can be said with the nickname of Heinie.

Quite a few ball players with that moniker.


Jantz

thats like asking why so many of their wives were named AGNES

names go in and out of style...

for instance, there are many scotts on this board but NO scotts in my kids elementary school....scott is a dead name:(

I just had a conversation about this the other day, how parents no longer have kids named Bob, Tom, Bill, Mary, Sue, or Linda or any of the other popular names of the past. Everyone wants to name their kids for celebrities or Biblical figures and a lot of the names are spelled (?) phonetically or just plain incorrectly, i.e. Ashlie, Ashlee, Ashllee etc. instead of Ashley, etc.

There were probably 100,000 guys in America nicknamed "Rube" back then, it was a derogatory yet somewhat socially acceptable term for "country boy" at the time. Similar in some ways to "redneck" or something today but society has changed in the way people address each other so informally or impolitely(unless you are a rapper). It had nothing to do with baseball. There could be "rubes" as a group as well (pluralized).

On the other end of the spectrum, "Heinie" was a nickname if your first name was Henry, it has no negative connotations that I know of.

The other really popular nickname not mentioned is "Deacon". That was just for someone who either abstained from drinking/smoking/swearing or all of them for religious reasons which REALLY stood out in the game of baseball back then. There were at least 50 "Deacons" who played Baseball before WW2 including Phillippe, Everett Scott etc.

Rhys

This one has confounded me and sometimes made me re-think my love for pre-war baseball. Heinie and Rube are tame compared to some of the nicknames given to men who played base ball then. How about "Dummy" for a deaf guy, or "Nig" for well, you know... My favorite pre-war player is Ed Summers, they called him "Kickapoo Ed" because of his native ancestry. It was a very non-PC time.

Cheers,

Jim

On the Heine front. How in the hell do you let that name slide when your last name is Berger??? It just sounds gross.

Yes, the name Rube may mean "country bumpkin, outsider, etc.", but it may also be short for Reuben, a biblical name meaning "behold, a son" as in the case of Reuben "Rube" Maxmeyer (Sellwood Dingbats 1915).

Here's a somewhat interesting article on baseball nicknames:

http://tinyurl.com/7n7fnkl

ahh the Age Before Lawyers

It's not so much the lawyers as the type of lawyers

Very true, which makes it uncomfortable and comforting all at the same time...

Cheers,

Jim

All very interesting insight....thanks!

With the nickname “Rube,” most people assume that Richard William “Rube” Marquard was a country boy. But Marquard was born and raised in the city of Cleveland -- his father was the Chief Engineer of the city -- and Marquard carried bats for several Cleveland baseball players as a youth, including Napoleon Lajoie and Elmer Flick. In the year prior to signing with the New York Giants, Marquard worked for an ice cream company in Cleveland and pitched for their company team on Sundays. Marquard earned his nickname while pitching for Indianapolis of the American Association in 1908. In an early acknowledgement of Marquard’s extraordinary pitching ability, an Indianapolis Star article reported that the left-handed Marquard resembled one of the greatest southpaws of all time, Rube Waddell.

<a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Eucujsjdg-6IqEGek2GN3YRT3dysq2WPtX5u9gk-z0Y?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ed_fPcxlzfo/TTo6U3-RYVI/AAAAAAAAI3E/0JsLx3bpPro/s800/MarquardE96.jpg" height="800" width="487" /></a>

The nickname Heinie was actually given to ballplayers of German descent. Short for Heinrich according to a few web searches.

As far as Heinie Berger, I'm friends with his grandson. I knew him for a few years and while attending a card show, I stopped at his table to say hello. He asked me if I had bought anything, so I pulled out my purchases. While thumbing through the stack he said "Hey theres my Grandfather!" He had never mentioned before that his grandfather was a ballplayer.


Jantz

Hi Jantz-

That's a cool story, thanks for sharing that !!! That would have been pretty exciting to meet his grandson- I bet he has some great stories about his grandfather.

Sincerely, Clayton

During the rise of Rome, its citizens involved in lawsuits pleaded their own cases but could call on legal experts called "advocati" to assist. However, "advocati" were forbidden from charging fees. That law changed in the second century B.C. The paid mouthpiece was born and the fate of the Roman Empire was sealed.