Listening to Ron Gardenhire add an “ie” or a “y” at the end of everyone’s name makes me sick! However, his annoying behavior has me wondering about major leaguers today … and their nicknames. Baseball Reference has an amazing list of major league and minor league nicknames from players throughout the history of the game. So does Wikipedia, if  you’d like to peruse.

There are some amazing nicknames, some stupid nicknames, some easy nicknames, and a few that make me just scratch my head. None of them through P are Mauer-zee or Plouffe-zee sounding, making Gardenhire as annoying as another “name caller” that’s over stayed his welcome: Chris Berman. Though Berman is responsible for some quite clever nicknames, he’s become about as clichéd as pyrotechnics at a KISS concert.

Personally, nicknames like Arod, Krod, HoJo, and others like that drive me nuts. Carlos Gonzalez’ nickname “Cargo” is kind of cool to me, but Evan Longoria’s “Longo” just isn’t. Kirby Puckett’s “Union Gap” (from Berman) and generally used “Puck” were never all that exciting to me, but “Bruno” for Brunansky seemed great to me.

My favorites include: Dwight “Dr. K” Gooden, Will “The Thrill” Clark and “The Splendid Splinter” Ted Williams (though he had half a dozen others). Stan “The Man” Musial might seem trite in today’s world, but ask anyone that watched him play … especially a Cardinals fan, and his nickname was as meaningful as George “BABE” Ruth!

Interestingly Mickey Mantle was named after Mickey Cochrane who was his father’s favorite player. However, Cochrane’s real name was Gordon. I guess if we really had to go there we’d have “Flash” Gordon instead of “The Mick”, but then what would Tom Gordon’s nickname have been, and would Stephen King still have used Flash in the title of his book “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon”?

Then there are nicknames that make no sense like Fatty Briody’s nickname: “Alderman.” Even his Wikipedia page doesn’t talk about how he got his nickname or if Fatty (which almost has to be) is a nickname to begin with! Yes, that’s a little obscure, but when you see a guy named Fatty, and his nickname is Alderman … maybe like me you’d be a little perplexed and look it up too!

Out of curiosity, what are your favorite and least favorite nicknames?