Baseball Nicknames

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Last night as I was thumbing thru a ’93 pre-war SCD price guide, I noticed lots of nicknames listed for those players shown in the n173 set. I am not sure that their nicknames are actually shown on the cards, but if not, the author of this list chose to incorporate them into this guide for unidentified reason. In any case, I find this grouping currently interesting, and I thought Id share it – you may too.

The nicknames seem to fall into several types, such as those which indicate a title or job, including:
Cap Anson
Doc Bushong
Monk Cline
Duke Farrell
King Kelly
Deacon McGuire
Orator Jim O’rourke
Farmer Vaughn
Farmer Weaver
Deacon White

Those which indicate an animal –

Fido Baldwin
Oyster Burns
Mouse Glenn
Bug Holliday
Doggie Miller
Old Hoss Radbourne
Toad Ramsey
Chicken Wolf

Others seem to relate to a players age:

Kid Baldwin
Pop Schriver
Dad Clark
Pop Corkhill
Buck Ewing
Kid Gleason
Kid Madden
Kid Nichols
Uncle Robbie Robinson
Cub Stricker
Pop Tate
Buster Tomney

Several indicate hair, and lack thereof.
Bald Billy Barnie
Red Ehret
Silver Flint
Silver King
Blondie Purcell

And other appearance related nicknames:

Handsome Boyle
Jumbo Cartwright
Icebox Chamberlain
Big Ed Delahanty
Long John Ewing
Shorty Fuller
Pebbly Jack Glasscock
Little Mac Macullar
Smiling Al Maul
Little Nick Nichol
Big John Reilly
Long John Reilly
Jumbo Schoeneck
Little Bill Sowders
Adonis Terry
Big Sam Thompson
Stump Weidman

Character traits?

Honest John Boyle
Grin Bradley
Cupid Childs
Hub Collins
Dude Esterbrook
Hardie Henderson
Moxie Hengle
Wild Bill Hutchinson
Cutrate Irwin
Leech Maskrey
Honest John Morrill
Truthful Jim Muthrie
Rowdy Jack O’Connor
George “Dandy” Wood
Patsy Tebeau
Silent Mike Tiernan
Sleepy Townsend
Foghorn Tucker
Rip Van Haltren
Wild Bill Weidman

And those nicknames which appear to be geographically motivated.

California Brown
Hick Carpenter
Parisian Bob Caruthers
Frenchy Genins
Egyptian Healey
Texas Wonder Hoffman
Germany Long
Princeton Charlie Reilly
Yank Robinson
Germany Smith

Of course there are plenty more in this set. And Im sure that I have misinterpreted many of the above. It sure would be interesting to find out about the origin of lots of these nicknames. And it would be an interesting way to collect a part of this set (and maybe others).

Its only cards.

Gil

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Posted By: ramram

If we're including nicknames from the modern era I guess we should include some of ESPN's Chris Berman's best. My personal favorite was Bert "Be Home" Blyleven. I've forgotten many of the others. Anybody have some of his "good" ones?

Rob

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Posted By: jamie

"death to flying things" is now my new favorite nickname with Mike "Super Jew" Epstein a close second

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Posted By: Pcelli60

My all time favorite...Whiskey face..But who was it?

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Posted By: BillyB

a tandem that Natasha and Boris would despise: Moose Skowron and Squirrel Sievers

For an unbelievably long and hilariously ingenious list of Berman's baseball nicknames (like Tom "Dirty" Henke, BUTCH Oil and WYNEGAR, and JOHN Stick it in your URREA), check out http://www.op.net/~lmk/baseball/berman.htm