My homage to a couple of mediocre Orioles relievers:

Frank "Toys In The Attic" Bertaina

Here are a few nicknames from years gone by:

*Dick "Turkey Neck" Hall

Boom Boom Beck (because of how he got the name)

Losing Pitcher Mulcahy

Rusty Peters

Creepy Crespi

Pickles Dilhoefer

Dummy Hoy

Three Fingered Brown

Ross "Scuzz" Grimsley (never changed his underwear)

and I definitely second James Newburg's choice of Stan The Man Unusual, who sent about fifty O's fans a game to the shock trauma center in 1979

While I have to agree that "Death To Flying Things" Ferguson is a great nickname, the second best nickname ever, there are some other pretty good ones too that come close: particularly a great favourite of mine (both nickname and player), The Wizard of Oz (Ozzie Smith).

Bill James, I think it was, turned that one around especially for sabermetric whipping boy Ozzie Guillen to create The Ozzard of Whizz.

But there is no question in my mind, that 1880s star Arlie Latham had the greatest nickname ever, it just rolls off the tongue...

"The Freshest Man on Earth".

God, they could really hand out nicknames in those days.

"The Wild Horse of the Osage" was John "Pepper" Martin of "Gashouse Gang" fame. I can't imagine that too many players called him "The Wild Horse of the Osage" but the writers often referred to him that way.

Speaking of mean--Kiki Cuyler supposedly got his name from his stuttering attempt at stating his last name. Which explains why it was pronounced KI-KI rather than Kee-Kee.

Dom "The Little Professor" DiMaggio

Jeffrey "Penitentiary Face" Leonard.

Steve "Bye Bye" Balboni

I can't believe I missed this thread the first time around in June. And I can't believe no one has mentioned my favorite, Carl Hubbell, the Meal Ticket.

Dick Bartell wasn't known as Rowdy Richard until years later when the encyclopedias cleaned up his real nickname, "Rowdy Dick."

Sometimes in the middle of group conversations in the locker room another player would turn to ask Graig Nettles something and he'd be gone -- to the field, the showers, home, wherever. So they nicknamed him "Puff."

In regards to # 14, the Caveman, when Rod Beck came up with the Giants, his resemblance to Robinson earned him the nickname "Caveboy" for a select few. Sadly, he's now known as "Shooter," I believe. What a waste.

On the other hand, the Giants in those days had one of my heroes, Rick "Big Daddy" Reuschel.

Thank you,

I'm sure Voros knows this already - hell, maybe everyone does - but Animal Lesley has made quite a career for himself in Japan as the premier analyst among gaijin (well, OK, *had* as of the early 90's, but he seemed pretty entrenched. Maybe CFiJ is around and can bring me up to date). When he pitched over there no one knew what to make of his colorful emotional displays, and "Animal" really stuck. That was what he wore on his uniform, and that's the only name he's known by when he makes appearances on the approximately one billion and three weird TV shows in Japan that use "celebrity" panels to talk about everything from butt floss to foreign policy (mostly the former).

Animal's spoken Japanese was excellent; the guy has the approximate fame of a pre-murderous OJ. That doesn't excuse the incredibly lame homepage, but oh well.

Phenomenal Smith

mel ott had some odd nicknames. one of them was 'master melvin', cuz he was so young when he started playing for the giants -- he came up at 16 and never played in the minors, just sat on the bench for two years taking it all in ... mcgraw basically treated him like a son.

mel ott had some odd nicknames. one of them was 'master melvin', cuz he was so young when he started playing for the giants -- he came up at 16 and never played in the minors, just sat on the bench for two years taking it all in ... mcgraw basically treated him like a son.