Great nicknames
Taking Names and Keeping Score
Charlie Anderson
Ever since the beginning of the human race, as we know it, parents have routinely chosen a name for their offspring at or shortly after their birth. Sometimes the names have come about after hours of thought and deliberation where many options were considered before the final choice was made. Many times the name has some tie to the names of the parents themselves, another family member or an ancestor.

As evidenced by the number of children from different families in one generation with the same name, there are also trends when parents just pick out a name they like whether it has any tie to family or not. On other occasions it is obvious, based on the name chosen by the parents, that there was no thought given in the selection of the name and/or what affect being saddled with the particular name might have on the child in later years. Then of course there are those situations where children who are abandoned or given up for adoption shortly after birth receive their name from their adoptive parents or even an agency charged with their care. The bottom line is all children eventually are tagged with a name they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

But, as we all know in the course of life the name that a person is given at birth isn't always what best suits them. That's when someone will come up with a nickname that in their eyes better describes the person in question. Sometimes the nickname has to do with human features i.e. a red haired individual being called 'Red' or a person with rich blue eyes getting the tag 'Old Blue Eyes'. Of course there are many others such as 'Slim', 'Shorty', Biggun', etc. that leave no doubt what the basis for the nickname is.

If you had to pick one area in our society which gravitates to nicknames more quickly than others it probably would be the world of sports. And in that vein the one sport which seems to be the most conducive to its participants getting a nickname has to be baseball. Going back to its earliest beginnings through its golden years in the 1950's and 1960's and up through the present, professional baseball in particular is full of players with nicknames. Some of them are self explanatory while others would require some research or having actually been there when the name was first given to understand why it was selected.

As a way to make this column somewhat interactive this week, I thought it might be fun to take a look at some of the most unusual nicknames in baseball and see if you the reader might be able to match them up with the actual name given the player at birth. In an attempt to narrow the field a little bit, I have chosen only players who were considered to be among the elite pitchers in Major League Baseball. Of course the span of time covered dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century up through the more modern era of baseball.

The fifteen nicknames I've chosen for this little experiment include; 'Big Six', 'Little Potato', 'Superchief', 'Lefty', 'Dizzy', 'Hoot', 'Catfish', 'Goose', 'The Big Train', 'Knucksie', 'Iron Man', 'Louisiana Lightening', 'Schoolboy', 'The Meal Ticket', and 'The Arkansas Hummingbird'. The corresponding names you need to try and match them with are: Stephen Norman Carlton, Jay Hanna Dean, Robert Gibson, Richard Michael Gossage, Ron Guidrey, Waite Hoyt, Carl Hubbell, James Augustus Hunter, Walter Perry Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Joseph Jerome McGinnity, Philip Henry Niekro, Camilo Alberto Pascual, Allie Pierce Reynolds and Lonnie Warneke.

All of these players are included in a book written by Brent P. Kelley entitled 100 Greatest Pitchers. As he so clearly pointed out in his preface to the book which was copyrighted in 1988, the basis for selection was based on opinion and not necessarily on comparative statistics. And of course since the book was written there have been a number of pitchers in Major League Baseball who have emerged over the last twenty years who might well have earned a spot on the list.

All that aside I hope you have fun trying to match the nicknames with the players. If you are somewhat knowledgeable about baseball some of them will be easy but others might take some thought. We will print the matches next week so you can see how you've done.

Until next time…….be safe!

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