In the now classic baseball movie “Bull Durham,” Ebby Calvin LaLoosh (played by Tim Robbins) says to his coach, “You think I need a nickname? I think I need a nickname. The great ones all have nicknames like ‘Oil Can’ or ‘Catfish.'”
“Bull Durham” came out in 1988, when such nicknames were fairly common. For the most part, sports nicknames, at least the creative ones, have disappeared, and it’s unfortunate. It didn’t add to the game play, but it added to the allure, giving players something that made them instantly recognizable even to casual fans.
For many players, their nickname became their name on and off the court: Magic Johnson, Sparky Lyle, Goose Gossage, Dizzy Dean, Yogi Berra, Pee Wee Reese, and others. No one talked of Lawrence Berra. Granted, some got the names in their youth, long before going pro. Others’ had nothing to do with their athletic ability. It was George Herman Ruth’s teammates who bestowed the nickname “Babe” on him, probably for his youthful looks.
It’s a bygone era and one that peaked in 1920, according to sociologist James Skipper, author of Baseball Nicknames: A Dictionary of Origins and Meanings. It steadily declined and made a significant drop in the 1950s. It makes sense. The film “Eight Men Out” told the story of the 1919 Chicago White Sox scandal in which the team conspired to throw the World Series. It featured a lineup of players named Buck Weaver, Chick Gandil, Happy Felsch, Swede Risberg, and Lefty Williams. Their manager was Kid Gleason.
Fast forward to today, and some of the most prolific players in sports, such as Albert Pujols, Tom Brady, Stephen Curry, and Alex Ovechkin, don’t have nicknames. Curry and Ovechkin get called “Steph” and “Ovi,” respectively, but those are just abbreviations and just, well, boring. Mariano Rivera, who became the first player in Major League Baseball history to get elected to the Hall of Fame unanimously, didn’t have a nickname and was known more for his entrance song, Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”
Chris “Boomer” Berman of ESPN noticed the dearth of nicknames in the 1980s and began to make some up when calling games, combining player names with other words to form them, such as Joaquín (The Dog) Andújar, Joseph (Live and Let) Addai, Chuck (New Kids on the) Knoblauch, Jake (Daylight Come and You Gotta) Delhomme, Lance (You Sunk My) Blankenship, and Scott (Supercalifragilisticexpiali) Brosius. But those were Berman-specific.
Even when used in the modern era, nicknames have lacked originality. Alex Rodriguez became “A-Rod.” Basketball great Dwyane Wade was “D-Wade.” Former Angels pitcher Francisco Rodríguez had a nickname, “K-Rod,” that was merely a riff on “A-Rod.”
So what changed? Part of it can be explained by people having access to all the players, all of the time. With Twitter, league subscription services, YouTube, and more nationally televised games, the players are available across the country. In the 1940s, for example, fans of Red Sox great Ted “The Splendid Splinter” Williams and the Yankees’ Joe “The Yankee Clipper” DiMaggio, who lived outside of Boston and New York, could only listen to the radio or read the newspaper. Nothing is left to the imagination anymore.
Another possibility is increased diversity in the world of sports. Names are much more varied than they used to be. Leagues with dozens of players named Joe, Ed, or Bill have ceased to exist. The broad spectrum of athletes from outside the United States who play in most major sports has never been higher. That provides a level of individuality that makes nicknames unlikely and often unnecessary.
It also may have to do with the fact that the different sports these days are more significant than the players. People such as Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, and Walter Payton were bigger than the game. They dominated their individual sports in a way fans don’t see much anymore. One didn’t have to be a hockey fan to know who “The Great One” was. Today, if asked, the average person wouldn’t have a clue who leads Major League Baseball in home runs. It’s Christian Yelich of the Milwaukee Brewers with 26.
Perhaps, if he had a perfect nickname, more people would know.
Jay Caruso is a deputy editor of the Washington Examiner magazine.
