All The Young Rubes

(Rube Kisinger, baseball-reference)

My long ago post on favorite baseball nicknames concluded:

With further apologies to Turkey Mike, Dr Strangeglove, Gavvy, Dazzy, Noodles, Chili, Cookie, Big Six, Gettysburg Eddie, The Duke of Traless, all the Rubes - Marquard, Bressler, Waddell, Benton, Schauer, Foster, Parnham, Walker, Oldring - Tomato Face, Bubbles, Piano Legs, Wahoo Sam, Tom Terrific, Arky, Schoolboy, Sliding Billy, The Commerce Comet, and The Freshest Man on Earth.

Now it's time to get serious about ALL the Rubes.

Rube is no longer heard as an American nickname and its heyday and decline can be traced through baseball.

Merriam-Webster defines rube as an awkward unsophisticated person or a naive or inexperienced person and its synonyms include bumpkin, churl, clodhopper, cornball, hayseed, hick, hillbilly, rustic and yokel.  The peak years for the nickname were during the period of America's rapid urbanization in the early 20th century, decades when many baseball nicknames, apart from the star players, often contained a mocking or mean tone.  Rube was a name often given by teammates to mock rural or naive youngsters. 

Twenty nine major leaguers and two Negro League players bore the moniker as their primary name (research done via baseball-reference.com, though it also lists another seven with different first names but with Rube as a nickname; for more on them see end of post) The first, and probably  most famous, was Rube Waddell, who debuted in 1897.  The last to reach the majors was Rube Novotney in 1949 and the last to be active was Rube Walker who retired in 1958.  Of the 31 Rubes, twenty six made their debuts between 1902 and 1924.  Three are enshrined in the Hall of Fame, Waddell, Rube Foster, and Rube Marquard (who many, including Bill James, consider the worst starting pitcher to achieve this recognition).

A surprising 22 of 31 were pitchers.  That says something, but I'm not sure what.

Rubedom peaked in 1910 when eleven players wore the name, followed by 1914 and 1924 with seven each.

The Rubes hail from 14 states with Pennsylvania (8) being the Kingdom of Rubes followed by Ohio, Illinois, and North Dakota with three each, along with two born in foreign lands (Canada and Russia).  Baseball was still predominantly a northern and midwestern game so the lack of Rubes from the deep south (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida) and the Rocky Mountain and Far West states (only Rube Ellis, a leftfielder with the Cardinals from 1909 through 1912 hailed from this area) is not surprising.

Here are the Rubes in chronological order with their active major or negro league player career dates.

Waddell (1897-1910) - The most famous and a Hall of Famer.  Held the season strikeout record for many years.  Known for his erratic behavior and may have been mentally impaired.  Died in 1914.

Ward (1902)

Vickers (1902-3, 1907-9)

Kisinger (1902-3)

Foster (1902-17).  Known as the father of black baseball.  Perhaps the best pitcher in the Negro Leagues during the first decade of the 20th century.  Organized the Negro National League and was a manager and executive.  In the Hall of Fame.
(Foster)

Vinson (1904, 1906)

DeGroff (1905-6)(DeGroff)

Oldring (1905-18) A Rube born in New York City!  Starting outfielder on the great Philadelphia Athletics teams of 1910-14.
(Oldring)

Kroh (1906-12)  Played a pivotal role in the Merkle Boner game in September 1908.  With the Giants apparently winning a crucial contest against the Cubs (for more on that astonishing pennant race read Finishing The Season Strong: The 1908 Pennant Races) it was Kroh who forcibly grabbed the ball from a Giants fan and passed it on to Johnny Evers who tagged second (the base Merkle failed to touch) leading the umpires to call the game a tie, necessitating a replay which the Cubs won.

Manning (1907-10)

Dessau  (1907, 1910)

Marquard (1908-25)  Won 201 games including 19 in a row.  In the Hall of Fame.
(Marquard)

Ellis (1909-12)

Sellers (1910)

Benton (1910-21, 1923-25).  Won 150 games in the big leagues for the Reds and Giants and another 126 in the minors, pitching until he was 43 years old.

Geyer (1910-13)

Marshall (1912-15)

Peters (1912, 1914)

Schauer (1913-17)  Born Dimitri Ivanovich Dimitrihoff in Russia, Rube Schauer was the most famous minor leaguer and subject of an intense bidding war in 1913, a war won by John McGraw of the Giants by paying a record amount of money for a Class C player.  Unfortunately, Schauer was a bust compiling a 10-29 record during his brief major league career.

Foster (1913-17)  The "other" Rube Foster had a brief, but successful stint with the Boston Red Sox, assembling a 58-33 record and winning two games in the 1915 World Series before succumbing to arm trouble.
(Foster)

Bressler (1914-32)  An intriguing career.  Bressler started as a pitcher with the Athletics, winning 26 games but hurting his arm.  With the Reds in 1921 he converted to an outfielder and ended up with a .301 career average including consecutive seasons of .347, .348, and .357.

Parnham (1916-17) Rube Parnham went only 2-2 for Connie Mack's pathetic teams of 1916 and 1917 but went on to great success with Jack Dunn's famous Baltimore Orioles team in the International League, winning 28 games in 1919 and 33 in 1923 (pitching alongside future star Lefty Grove).  Known as a "character" it was also said he was the "dumbest man off the field – and the smartest on" demonstrating why he was known as Rube.

Currie (1920-32)  Negro Leagues pitcher for several team, including the Kansas City Monarchs.  Played in all 4 Negro League World Series and later became a manager.

Yarrison (1922, 1924)

Walberg (1923-37)  Babe Ruth's favorite pitcher.  The Bambino swatted 17 homers off Rube.  Won 155 games and was a regular starter on the great Athletics teams of 1927-32.

Lutzke (1923-27)

Ehrhardt (1924-29) Whiffed only 128 batters in 587 innings.

Melton (1941-44, 1946-7)  Twenty game loser for the 1942 Philadelphia Phillies, a genuinely awful team, while also leading the league in walks and wild pitches.
(Melton)

Fischer (1941, 1943-46)

Walker (1948-58) Catcher and pinch hitter for the Cubs and Dodgers.  Not good in either capacity with career WAR of -0.9.  Had a twenty five year career after retiring as a player, primarily as coach with Mets (he was pitching coach for the 1969 and 1973 pennant winners) and Braves.

Novotney (1949)  The last of the breed, appearing in 22 games as catcher for the Chicago Cubs.



The secondary Rubes, all seven of whom were pitchers:

Ed Taylor (1903)
Ed Kinsella (1905, 1910) - From Illinois, not Iowa.
Harry Suter (1909)
Hank Robinson (1911-18) - Won only 26 in his major league career but added 227 in the low minors, pitching until 1929.
Dan Marion (1914-15)
Dan Adams (1914-15)
Ed Albosta (1941-46)

My Final Baseball Nickname Post

. . . at least for now.

This is hard for me as a Red Sox fan, but two of my final three are - yes - New York Yankees.

"Yogi" Berra
    We are used to it now after almost 70 years, but how unusual it must have been at the time for Lawrence Peter Berra, growing up in The Hill, an Italian neighborhood in St Louis during the 1930s, to be called Yogi.  He got the name from his childhood friend Bobby Hofman who had seen a movie about an Indian snake charmer and thought his buddy resembled "the yogi".

    Today, Yogi is 87 and often best remembered for looking rather funny, his Aflac commercials and his various Yogiisms ("it ain't over till it's over", "when you come to a fork in the road, take it" etc), some of which he said and some of which he didn't, including "I really didn't say everything I said" which apparently he did say.  Most of what he did say sounds odd at first but usually makes sense when you think about it.  As Nolan Ryan said "if Yogi had gone to college, they would have made him talk clearer, but not better".

   What sometimes gets lost is that Yogi Berra was one of the three best catchers in major league history (I'll leave it to you to argue among yourselves about where within those three he ranks).   Bill James wrote that it was not a coincidence that the Yankees achieved their greatest success, five consecutive world championships, when Yogi was in his prime.

   Birdie Tebbetts, then the manager of the Cleveland Indians, told about asking Casey Stengel in the early 1960s (Casey was the Mets' manager by then) about how he achieved his incredible success with the Yankees.  Tebbetts wrote that Casey responded:

'Birdie, I never play a game without my man in the lineup' . . .I'm thinking he's talking about DiMaggio, he's talking about Mantle, he's talking about this guy and that guy, and suddenly I realize he's talking about Yogi Berra. 

I had the privilege of meeting Yogi a couple of years ago and while he's slowed down he is still funny and a class act.  You'll also enjoy visiting the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center on the grounds of Montclair State University in New Jersey.  Yogi and his wife, Carmen have lived in the neighborhood since the late 1940s.

And as we found out in 2010, Yogi still insists he tagged Jackie Robinson out at the plate in the 1955 World Series!

 
Don "Stan The Man Unusual" Stanhouse
    I always loved this nickname which was a clever play on Stan "The Man" Musial.  Stanhouse had a ten year career from 1970-80 but got his nickname near its end when he was a star reliever with the Baltimore Orioles (he also had another nickname as you'll see below).  I'll just let Mike Klingaman of The Baltimore Sun tell you about Don in this 2009 article and end with a few pictures capturing his awesomeness.

"Catching Up With . . . former Oriole Don Stanhouse

It has been 30 years since he starred on the mound, a master of comic relief for the Orioles. Was there ever a closer like Don Stanhouse, the big righthander with the Harpo Marx hair, the wacky demeanor and a knack for making every save an adventure?

 The stopper for Baltimore’s 1979 American League champions, Stanhouse won 7 of 10 games, saved 21 more and compiled a 2.85 earned run average. But it was the way he pitched – creating a jam, then escaping it – that drove Orioles manager Earl Weaver nuts.

"He (Weaver) would bring me in, then disappear down the tunnel and start chain-smoking his Raleighs," recalled Stanhouse, who was nicknamed "Fullpack" for that reason.

 In the AL playoffs, with the Orioles enjoying a 9-4 lead over California, Weaver summoned his frizzy-haired All-Star in the ninth. Stanhouse promptly surrendered four runs before ending the game with the bases full.

Later, asked why he hadn’t yanked Stanhouse, Weaver replied, "I still had three cigarettes left."

 Acquired in 1978, Stanhouse perked up the Orioles’ clubhouse with his quirky looks, offbeat antics and a panache right out of Woodstock.

"I’m pretty on the inside," he’d say. "When they took X-rays of my head, they found flowers."

 He dressed in black, drove a black Cadillac and furnished his apartment as if the Addams family lived there. He kept a stuffed gorilla atop his locker and a "Happy Feet" welcome mat beneath it. Teammates knew it was game time because Stanhouse uncorked a primal scream after warm-ups."

"The Iron Horse" - Lou Gehrig
     Has there ever been a more fitting baseball nickname?  Strong, dependable, indestructible.  Pulling the load and never complaining.  For thirteen seasons, from 1926 through 1938, that was Lou Gehrig.  2,130 games in a row, a record considered unbreakable until Cal Ripken came along.  Perhaps the strongest man in baseball at the time. 

      He was so strong that even after his body began to break down with the first onset of ALS (or Lou Gehrig's Disease, the only name we knew it by as kids) in the spring of 1938 he was still able to play a full season of major league baseball that year (see Jonathan Eig's Luckiest Man (2005) for a discussion of when the disease started and its physiological effects) which is astonishing since ALS is a deterioration of the neurological system which in ballplayers has to perform at the highest level.

     By the next year, the disease had taken its toll and on May 2, 1939 Lou pulled himself out of the Yankees lineup.  On July 4, 1939, the Yankees held Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day at which he gave his "luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech.  Two years later he was dead at the age of 37.

Watch Lou Gehrig in his prime

With further apologies to Turkey Mike, Dr Strangeglove, Gavvy, Dazzy, Noodles, Chili, Cookie, Big Six, Gettysburg Eddie, The Duke of Tralee, all the Rubes - Marquand, Bressler, Waddell, Benton, Schauer, Foster, Parnham, Walker, Oldring - Tomato Face, Bubbles, Piano Legs, Wahoo Sam, Tom Terrific, Arky, Schoolboy, Sliding Billy, The Commerce Comet and The Freshest Man On Earth.

More Baseball Nicknames

These are the next three of my Top 9 favorite baseball nicknames.

  "Death to Flying Things" - Bob Ferguson
     They had some ornate nicknames in the early days of baseball, and Bob Ferguson's was one of them.  It was Ferguson's prowess as an infielder that led to his nickname.  As a member of the New York Mutuals in 1871, he was one of the leading instigators in the organization of the first fully professional baseball league, The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, and became its President from 1872 to 1875 even while remaining a player for the Brooklyn Atlantics.

     When the National Association folded after the 1875 season he joined the new National League as a Director and player-manager for the Hartford (CT) Dark Blues, later taking the same role with the Troy (NY) Trojans (1879-82).

     In an age where baseball was tainted with gambling and drinking, Ferguson was known for his honesty and integrity, becoming an umpire after his playing career ended.  He was also bad-tempered (he was also called tactless) which contributed to his lack of longevity in any of his roles.         

"Shoeless Joe" Jackson
     One of the saddest of baseball stories.  Banned from baseball after the 1920 season for his role in the 1919 "Black Sox" scandal as one of eight players accused of consorting with gamblers to throw the World Series (although he hit .375 in the games), Jackson came back into the general public's consciousness with the 1982 publication of Shoeless Joe, W.P. Kinsella's novel and then the hit movie based on the book, Field Of Dreams (1989).  The truth about his role in the scandal remains murky.  He admitted to agreeing to become part of the conspiracy for a $10,000 payment but whether he actively did anything to affect the outcome of the games remains unclear.

     As a rookie with the Cleveland Indians in 1911 he hit .408 and had a lifetime average of .356 (second only to Ty Cobb) in his shortened career, including .382 in his last season.  With the advent of the "live-ball" era in 1920 who knows what his career would have been like if it had lasted another few years. Babe Ruth called him the greatest hitter he'd ever seen and modeled his swing on Joe.

     Joe Jackson was an illiterate mill hand from Greenville, SC.  He received his nickname when after playing a minor league game in spikes which he was not used to wearing his feet blistered and he played the next game in his stocking feet.  When he got to the majors, the nickname stayed with him because the sportswriters felt it fit his image as a country bumpkin. 

      Of course, this gives me an excuse to insert the final scene from Field Of Dreams which has its unique power - every guy knows what I'm talking about.



Sal "The Barber" Maglie
  

"He scares you to death. He's scowling and gnashing his teeth, and if you try to dig in on him, there goes your Adam's apple. He's gonna win if it kills you and him both." 

- the Cincinnati Reds' Danny Litwhiler  SABR Bio Project

"On the mound, Maglie had a gaunt look, a grim expression, a stubble beard, a great curveball -- and a high, hard one that earned him the nickname Sal the Barber."
- from the New York Times obituary (1992)

Salvatore Maglie didn't need multiple razor blades to give you a close shave if you were facing him.  While he reveled in his on-field reputation, off the field Sal was known to be a genial and easy going guy.(as Giant)

Between WWII and then his banning from major league baseball due to his jumping to the Mexican League in 1946, Maglie didn't make his major league debut until he was 33 (other than a very brief 1945 stint).  He started the 1950 season as a rookie reliever for Leo Durocher's New York Giants.  Mid-season, Leo inserted him into the starting rotation and he went 18-4, at one point throwing four shutouts in a row.  In 1951, he had his greatest season going 23-6 and playing a key role in the Giants miracle comeback from 13 1/2 games behind the Brooklyn Dodgers. 

As his career wound down he had one more time of glory when mid-season in 1956 he signed with the Dodgers, going 13-5, throwing his only no-hitter and leading the team to the pennant.(as Dodger)

After retiring as a player, Sal remained in baseball for several years and was the pitching coach for the 1967 Boston Red Sox "Impossible Dream" team.

Baseball Nicknames

It's Hot Stove League time again.  Let's talk baseball nicknames.  Below are my nine favorite nicknames, though I could have easily expanded it to my top 100.  What are yours?

Of course the King of Nicknames, as he still is of everything Baseball, is George Herman Ruth - The Babe, The Bambino, The Sultan of Swat, The Maharajah of Mash, The Colossus of Clout and a hundred more.  Just as Babe personally outhomered every other team in the American League one season, he may have had more nicknames than all of the players on any one team.

With apologies to Ducky-Wucky Medwick, The Yankee Clipper, Hit Em Where They Ain't, The Flying Dutchman, Goose Gossage, Mudcat Grant, Catfish Hunter, Double X, The Mad Hungarian, Spaceman Bill Lee, The Bird, The Big Hurt, The Big Unit, The Say Hey Kid, Oil Can Boyd, The Peerless Leader, Little Eva, The Georgia Peach, The Big Train, The Fordham Flash, The Reading Rifle, The Wild Horse Of The Osage, Poosh 'Em Up, Big Poison, Little Poison, Boom Boom Beck, Dizzy, Daffy, Bobo, Satchel, Stuffy, Gabby, Frenchy, Minnie, Pie, Yaz, Maz, Bucketfoot Al, The Man, The Splendid Splinter, Hondo, Stretch, Daddy Wags, The Toy Cannon, Sudden Sam, Hammerin' Hank, The Wizard of Oz, Pudge, Cool Papa and Pietro Redlight District Distillery Interests (Pete Browning, a star on the 1880s Louisville Colonels team and a certain Hall Of Famer but for his career being considerably shortened by the off-field interests reflected in his nickname), here are my favorites.  We'll start with three today and cover the other six in follow up posts.

Hugh "Losing Pitcher" Mulcahy
     During the radio-era, announcers would give the final score of the game (Dodgers 5, Cardinals 3) and then say "Winning Pitcher A"; "Losing Pitcher B".  Hugh Mulcahy was the ace starting pitcher for four seasons (1937-40) with the hapless Philadelphia Phillies and his record was 8-18, 10-20, 9-16 and 13-22 which is how he got his nickname.  The Phillies finished seventh in 1937 (in an 8-team league) and then eighth the next three seasons with records of 45-105, 45-106 and 50-103.  That's why Hugh was the ace of the staff.  He also had some control problems leading the league in walks in 1937 and in hit batsmen and wild pitches in 1939.  Hugh's streak of futile seasons ended when he became the first major leaguer drafted into the military before WWII on March 8, 1941.
    
     In 1939 and 1940, one of Hugh's fellow Phillie pitchers was the above-mentioned Walter "Boom Boom" Beck who reportedly got his nickname from the sound of the line drives hit off of him smacking into outfield walls for doubles.


"El Guapo" - Rich Garces
      A Red Sox fan favorite during his stint in Boston (1996-2002), Rich Garces was a portly  reliever who got his nickname when one of his teammates thought he resembled the bandit in The Three Amigos (1986) who was called "El Guapo" (the handsome one).  You can judge for yourself but I don't see much resemblance:
El Guapo was quite good for several seasons as a setup reliever but his major league career abruptly ended when the Red Sox demanded he lose weight during an off-season.  Garces complied but lost so much arm strength he was never effective again.
(El Guapo with El Guapo bobblehead)

"The Human Rain Delay" - Mike Hargrove
     For twelve seasons (1974-85), Mike Hargrove exasperated pitchers and fans with his excruciating array of twitches, uniform straightening routines and stepping out of the box plate appearances that went on so long he was named "The Human Rain Delay".  I still remember listening to some of his at bats on the radio and they went on forever.  On top of that, Hargrove was a very patient hitter, drawing a lot of walks so in a typical at bat he saw a lot of pitches and he performed his routine before every single one.  With all that he had a decent career, hitting for average and compiling a high on-base percentage playing primarily for the Texas Rangers and Cleveland Indians.   Here he is in all his glory: