“Rube”

[frankbmd]

The list of Major Leaguers named Rube isn’t very long. There are half a dozen or more:

Rube Marquand
Rube Waddell
Rube Kroh
Rube Kisinger
Rube Foster
Rube Bressler
Rube Walker

None of the above had the given name of Ruben, more common in recent decades.

None had a given name that is even remotely related to the rube configuration of those four letters.

I’m not sure, but I don’t think any of the above was named after a sandwich either, the Reuben.

rube is synonymous with hick.

Both are considered insults, connoting both a lack of intelligence and sophistication, in other words “a country bumpkin”.

Rube Walker is the only one on the llst who is not prewar and he played his last game in 1958. So for 61 years there has not been a true “rube” in the major leagues. Are they extinct?

If you have a son who plays baseball reasonably well and you call him Rube, he has a 29% chance of ending up in the Hall of Fame.

Nicknames are not always complimentary (I was once known as “Charcoal” Birckett), but is there another defamatory nickname that has led to a higher rate of success?

I can’t think of one.

Long live “Rube”