I've long been a fan of good baseball nicknames, and I am deeply saddened that we currently find ourselves in an era in which the best anyone can seem to come up with are diminutives of given names. Simply adding a "y" or an "ie" to someone's name is not a nickname. It's a term of endearment. My momma calls me "Craigy" and it's actually kind of cute, but if I was a ballplayer and a teammate called me that I'd probably sock him one.
It's good to hear that I'm not alone in hating this phenomenon:
The Royals are an improved ballclub, and it's high time the players and coaches put more thought into the names they use for each other (at least in public). Listen to manager Trey Hillman. Bench coach John Gibbons is "Gibby." Catcher John Buck is "Bucky." Pitching coach Bob McClure is "Mac." Pitcher Brian Bannister? Yep, "Banny."
Zzzzz.
Rany Jazayerli went so far last year as to implore his readers to come up with better nicknames for the Royals. That kind of thing may not work. Back in the day the good nicknames came from sportswriters and radio guys who basically had a monopoly on disseminating information about a given team. If the beat writer wanted to start calling the first basemen "Chuckles," there weren't 50 other media outlets undermining that. The guy pretty much became Chuckles. Consensus matters, and between all of the blogs and newspapers and television coverage it would be pretty hard to make anything good stick today. We're pretty much left with whatever the players themselves come up with.
I guess the only way to combat all of the diminutives is for the beat writers to start challenging the guys giving the quotes. when Trey Hillman says "Banny really had good stuff," the writer should say "Who? Who's this Banny?" When Hillman clarifies, he should be met with a dubious stare and the comment "you're seriously calling him 'Banny.'? What, are you two dating or something."
Maybe it won't work, but there's at least a chance such a thing will inspire some creativity that will lead to the next "Oil Can" or "Sudden Sam."
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I am not sure I understand what you are complaining about. I like the baseball Nicknames, Ya know like the "babe", "Yogi" those names are priceless.
Those are great nicknames, BB. The thing is, we hardly get any good ones anymore. If a guy is named Smith, we get "Smithy" if a guy is named Jones we get "Jonesy." There are hardly any original, colorful nicknames like Babe and Yogi anymore, and I wish there were.
Let us not forget the Greatest Home Run hitter ever and that was "the Hammer" aka "Hammerin Hank".
Dave Niehaus, bless his soul, went off the rails a few years ago and truncated everyone's name on the Mariners, culminating with shamefully bad Richie Sexson becoming 'Sexy'.
How about "The Big Train" --- "The Georgia Peach" --- "Suitcase" --- "Vinegar Bend" --- "The Yankee Clipper" --- "Shoeless" --- "Bullett" --- "The Man" ? These nicknames readily identified the players of their era and said much about them. Colorful names. Colorful times.
To me... nothing beats "Oil Can" Boyd.
I think the nicknames have to come from the player's history -- forget giving someone a name once they hit the bigs... if they had a nickname hung on them in high school or earlier, that's the one to use.
Creating a nickname just to have one... that's artificial.
So maybe it means we'll see a league populated with the likes of "Bug-Eyed" Jones... "Hairy-Back" Jackson... or (maybe) an occasional "SnotRag" Dave *wink* ... at least the game will have something other than stats and steroids to talk about.
outside of El Caballo (Carlos Lee) and Pronk (Travis Hafner), I can't even think of any nicknames for current players.
"King" Felix does that even count?
I'd say so. It's one of the better ones. Franklin Gutierrez is 'Death to Flying Things', which is uncomfortably long.
They're really calling Gutierrez that? That's a nickname that an old 19th Century ballplayer named Bob Ferguson was given.
That's when Niehaus started broadcasting.
I particularly loathe the current nicknames of the A-Rod mold -- K-Rod, I-Rod, K-Mart (basketball nickname, but pertinent to this discussion), M-Ram, F-Rod -- BORING! The nicknames just need to stop being a play on the players' actual names. How about the Springfield Rifle? Which goes right bacxk to what SnotRag Dave said -- it needs to come from their background. Perhaps not a taunting nickname from the schoolyard, but something that identifies the player. As much as I hate Hawk Harrelson's announcing, he's about the only one out there trying better nicknames (Big Hurt, El Caballo and I'm sure others but I just can't listen to him call a game any more). The Mexecutioner is one of my favorites going today.
Mr. Calcaterra,
You make a valid point, and the manager of your favorite ballclub is particularly guilty of the adding-a-y-or-an-ie approach. That being said, surely "Chipper" (in lieu of "Larry") ranks up there with the best and most eccentric baseball nicknames of all time. In fact, besides "Babe" Ruth, it would be hard to think of a Hall of Fame caliber player whose nickname has more thoroughly replaced his real first name as has Chipper's.
Jared -- you're right: Bobby Cox is the WORST at that. You can often pick up his voice from the dugout during broadcasts if you know to listen for it. "C'mon Smoltzie! C'mon Matty! C'mon Yuni!" It's enough to make me barf.
Chipper is one of those that I've heard so long that I usually forget it's a nickname. The first time I heard it was the day he was drafted, and Skip Caray mentioned it on TBS. He only referred to him as Chipper. It was at least a year or two later that I knew his name was Larry.
This is how Chipper Jones came about his nickname.....
who cares about chipper...... OR LARRRRRRRY AS WE CALL HIME AT SHEA
He named his son Shea, the idiot..........
I couldn't agree with you more. I am Yankees fan and my friend I were talking about how predictable, and annoying, the club nicknames were. Jorge Posada = Georgie. Farnsworth (last year) = Farnsy (not even Farnsy Bear?). Jeter = Jete. So boring. I think I even heard Girardi call Swisher "Swishy." Not sure he even knows what that means. Someone needs something old school like Pantless Jackson or Three-eyed Luke.
I think JETES got his name from THE BOSS.........
Well said C-Cal.
I read that Bobby Crosby started a campaign to nickname himself "Bones" after he saw it as a nickname for some turn of the century player. Too bad it didn't stick. Of course the fact that Bobby Crosby sucks makes it a little irrelevent.
How do these sound??? -- Barry Needles Bonds, Carlos Don't run into me Beltran, Rafael Hyperdermic Palmeiro, Miguel Pill-Popper Tejada, Gary LipBalm Sheffield, Cal Selfish Ripken, Jason No McDonalds Giambi, David I can't hit Wright and Curt Table for 1 Schilling. OK so the last one is actually a real name but it is so fitting.
Ugh...I love me some Mike Shannon, but he's as lame as they come wrt nicknames. He used to call Isringhausen "The Izzy Man," which I found exceedingly irritating.
Proposed nicknames for some current Cardinals:
Brendan "White Stripes" Ryan
Yadier "The Cobra" Molina
Skip "What" Schumacher (wait for it...)
Kyle "Gusty" McClellan (he's blown more than his share of leads this season)
Chris "Nepo" Duncan (ok, that's harsh)
Was a pre-1900 pitcher named Nolan. He was so good he was called "The Only Nolan"
And of course there was , 'Home Run' Baker, the HR king before Ruth. I think he topped out at 12 four-baggers one season.
KANSAS CITY has a Major League Team ????
The OWNER operates it as a MINOR LEAGUE TEAM .................
Putting the Mets AND Yankees Luxury Tax and Salary Cap Tax MONEY
IN HIS POCKET ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, So Sad...........
Obnoxious NY fan alert.
the TRUTH hurts Nick-y BOY , how u like that nick name Nicky BOY ???
"Craigy" and it's actually kind of cute, but if I was a ballplayer and a teammate called me that I'd probably sock him one.
Ever hear about KRUK-IE ???
Maybe HE WILL SOCK you one for writing a DUM STORY .......
quoting for irony's sake
quoting for irony's sake
HOT ROD, you've now crapped idiotic comments on just about every thread posted today. Done yet? Got more? I think that there may be one or two readers who don't think you're a moron yet, so maybe you want to be sure that you're thorough. We'll wait for you. Just let us know when you're done.
The greatest nickname of all was for Mike Epstein (Superjew). We need to go back to times like that when we were not politically correct.
The Dodger Thoughts blog nicknamed Matt Kemp "Bison," and it's actually begun to see a bit of use - I think Kemp himself has used it. Jonathan Broxton is "Ox," which is better than usual, if not at the level of some of the old time ones.
My favorite nickname from recent times was for Andres Gallaraga "El Gatto Grande", which we were always told translated literally to "the big cat", however, I suspect that there is a greater than 0% chance it reallt meant "The Big Pussy". Hey, you never know........
Lance Berkman goes by "Big Puma" but his old nickname is even better... "Fat Elvis."
Alexei Ramirez of the White Sox has been called the "Cuban Missile" the past few years, mainly by Ozzie Guillen. Maybe we need to get the managers to start taking writing classes.
Well, Boston I guess has had some good nicknames recently.....
Rocket for that Steroids guy
Oil Can.. he was a trip
El Guapo (Rich Garces).... probably one of the best nicknames in a while (it means "The Handsome One") for a guy who was... well.... handsome to his mother
And we have "Big Papi" tho9ugh as of late he has been more like "Big Popup"
Still makes me wonder why guys like Tim Wakefield and Dustin Pedroia don't have names. Maybe Wakefield should be Fireball and Pedroia should be Stretch, instead of Wake and Petey (Petey being a leftover name from Pedro Martinez)
Adam "Big Donkey" Dunn is a fantastic nickname in my opinion.
The Big Unit is one of the better handles today. But hard to compete with Dizzy, No-neck, Three-Fingers, Big Train, Wee Willie, Big Country, Crime Dog, Shoeless Joe, etc.