Baseball Nicknames
 

I think a great part of early baseball lore are the nicknames bestowed on star players. I mean it is hard to beat, "the Sultan of Swat", "The Georgia Peach", The Iron Horse and the "Splendid Splinter." Since I don't really follow the modern game and its' top players, I hope this great custom is still alive and well.

I'm a Yankees fan and my two favorite current nicknames are The Kraken (Gary Sanchez) and The Cuban Missile (Aroldis Chapman)

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For many years I had assumed Giants pitcher Hooks Wiltse must've had a pretty fair curve to have acquired that nickname.

Then I learned he was called that due to his quick fielding hands - contemporaries said he could pick balls hit back up the middle as if he had hooks for hands.

I used to like Bobby Abreu's nickname. El Comedulce.

Big Papi was just about perfect.
The Big Hurt.
Phat Albert.

I am happy to report the tradition is alive and well. A couple of current good ones:

Yermin Mercedes = The Yerminator
Jeff McNeil - Flying Squirrel

"Hondo" - Frank Howard (My personal favorite and I am biased, he is my childhood baseball hero.).
"Pops" - Willie Stargell

And the second "The Kid" - Gary Carter

Wut? Ted Williams was "The Kid," no? It's the title of one of his biographies.

I stand corrected, the second "The Kid" I just got to hear about Ted, I got to see Gary. (fixed)

I alway knew Ted as The Splendid Splinter. Maybe that is why it did not click.

Cheers,

Goose Gossage
Sudden Sam McDowell
Catfish Hunter
Mudcat Grant
Mr. October
Killer
Mad Dog (Greg Maddux)
The Rocket
The Ryan Express
The Big Unit

The Goose lives here in Colorado Springs, I have run into him a couple of times and went to a roast for him years ago. Got a few of his cards autographed.

It is alway cool to see him away from baseball and "just a regular guy."

One of the great pitcher batter confrontations in recent history was Gossage getting Yaz to pop up with two on and two out in the bottom of the ninth in the Bucky Dent game.

The Human Rain Delay is my favorite one in modern times.

In football, Jim Crowley was one of the Four Horsemen at Notre Dame; he would later coach the Seven Blocks of Granite at Fordham. One of Crowley's students, Steve Sorota, later became the football coach at Phillips Andover, where the center on his undefeated 1970 team was Bill Belichick. Roughly contemporaneous with the Seven Blocks of Granite, the Supreme Court had two factions, the Four Horsemen and the Three Musketeers, with two swing justices who usually decided cases.

I'm a huge Paul O'Neill fan but I always thought The Warrior was cool. And fitting.

Donnie Baseball is by far my favorite. Who could ask for a better nickname as a ballplayer.

Speaking of the Yankees, the Sandman is an awesome nickname.

Big sexy
 

Is there a better nickname than Bartolo Colon's?

BIG SEXY

I like when a player embraces the nickname.
Al Hrabosky often signs "The Mad Hungarian" on cards & photos

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And Mark “The Bird” Fidrych.

As well as Bill “Spaceman” Lee

Two pitchers who lived up to their monikers.

I’ll post a pic of The Bird later.

Dave "King Kong" Kingman

All you Angel fans remember - "Disco Dan" Ford

A few Giants nicknames that come to mind. Big Six, Stretch, Say Hey Kid, Sal "The Barber" Maglie, "Dirty" Al Gallagher, John "The Count" Montefusco, Rod "Shooter" Beck, also "Panda" and "Baby Giraffe". Orlando Cepeda who was called "Baby Bull" because his Dad was a legendary slugger called "The Bull" and was known as the Babe Ruth of Latin America.

One of my personal favorites is Walter "Big Train" Johnson, nobody was stopping him from coming down the tracks.

"Prince Hal"

https://live.staticflickr.com/8536/8...6fcbc040_b.jpg

One of my favorite current ball players "El Mago" - Javy Baez.

The late Jeffrey Leonard has two really good nicknames, and one, IMO, great one:

Early on, he earned the name 'Hack-man'

In his prime with the Giants he was 'One Flap Down'.

Those two, especially the second one were very widely used.


The third one did not have same 'following', but I love it:

Here are three pictures depicting the source of this nickname:

Attachment 465269Attachment 465270

Attachment 465271

'Ole Penitentiary Face'

My favorite of all time was Benny Agbayani "Hawaiian Punch"

Brevity is the essence of wit:

Lefty

How about 'The Cobra' and 'Charlie Hustle'?

I know his nickname is his last name but I still love it when Aaron Judge gets the All Rise.

1897 St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on player nicknames.

https://i.ibb.co/VBgWKdf/1897-St-L-nicknames.jpg

One of my favorite nicknames
 

Dennis OIL CAN Boyd.

According to his SABR bio Leonard tried to get his nickname "upgraded" to Correctional Facility Face but it didn't get much traction. Used to watch him play when I lived in the Bay Area in the 'eighties. He was one sullen hombre.

My great-grandfather who played minor league ball acquired the same nickname for the reason you assumed.

"Death to Flying Things" is probably my favorite baseball nickname. And I love the irony of Mad Dog for Greg Maddux

How about Losing Pitcher Mulcahy? ouch! Also like Slim Love

Ex-pitcher Walt Masterson told me that Joe DiMaggio had the nickname "Fishhooks" among players due to the fact that he never reached into his pockets to pick up a tab, as if he was afraid there were fishhooks in there. True story. I wonder if an element to that has to do with Joe D's work with his family on the docks of San Francisco.

My favorite one of Goose's is when he faced Kirk Gibson in the 1984 World Series, complete with Sparky Anderson audio. I mean, seriously, just look how much Sparky is enjoying the moment BEFORE the final pitch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmukTdo-WuY

Let’s not forget The Hammer or The Commerce Comet.

El Mago! The perfect nickname for Javier Baez.

My personal favorite is The Silent Captain, Bobby Doerr.

Yanks
 

Some more Yankee nicknames :
Yogi Berra - He is so well known as Yogi, I think people forget that it is a nickname.
Bobby Murcer - Lemon (for the shape of his head)
Fred Stanley - Chicken ( for his skinny body)
Stan Bahnsen - Stanley Struggle (he got this name with the White Sox). One year he won 20, the next year he lost 20. There was always someone on base.

Baseball Nicknames
 

Allie Reynolds was 1/4 part Creek Indian. Yankees sportscaster, Mel Allen, was so impressed with Allie's performance (1947 - 1954)
that he named him the ..... "Super Chief".



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TED Z

T206 Reference
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Baseball Nicknames
 

SABR has a great write-up on Charlie Keller...... https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/charlie-keller/


https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...rlieKeller.jpg



TED Z

T206 Reference
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Another Yankee
 

Ron Guidry - Louisiana Lightning

Nicknames
 

Frank Lary - Bulldog, The Yankee Killer

Norm Cash - Stormin' Norman

Willie Horton - Willie the Wonder

Fred Gladding - The Big Bear

Parisian Bob Caruthers

Cannonball Crane

Egyptian Healy

Orator Jim O'Rourke

.....can you guess what I've been spending waaayyy too much money on lately??

Frank "Shanty" Hogan :)

The Wild Horse of the Osage

John Martin, commonly known by another nickname, Pepper.

I am partial to tribe members Mike “SuperJew” Epstein and Ryan “The Hebrew Hammer” Braun

Baseball Nicknames
 

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TED Z

T206 Reference
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