A look at some of the greatest-ever names in baseball, from Catfish Hunter to Skye Bolt
Thank you for your service, Baseball Reference
Call me crazy, but sifting through the 23,114 names on Baseball Reference’s Baseball Encyclopedia of Players is much more fun than it sounds.
It’s also a telltale sign that we are at the peak of baseball’s hibernation—I’m on winter break, pitchers and catchers don’t report for another 52 days, Shohei Ohtani finally picked a team and it’s pitch black outside at 4:30 p.m.
But if anything is holding me over during this drought, it’s the realization that Baseball Reference is a gold mine for incredible names. I now have a treasure trove of reasons baseball players take the cake for the best monikers in the business. With some help from biographies on the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) website, below are the absolute best ones I came across or revisited to research further. I separated these into two categories: nicknames and birth names.
Nicknames
Catfish Hunter (1965-79)
Born James Augustus Hunter, the Hall of Fame pitcher was named ‘Catfish’ in his rookie season with the Kansas City Athletics by team owner Charles O. Finley, who claimed Hunter needed a flashy nickname. The name stuck, and he won five World Series titles as Catfish.
Chicken Wolf (1882-92)
Wolf was born in 1862 as William Van Winkle Wolf and batted .290 over ten seasons in the American Association of Base Ball Clubs (AA). Legend has it he ate a ton of stewed chicken before a semi-pro game once and then played badly, leading a teammate to give him the nickname.
The Only Nolan (1878-85)
Edward Sylvester Nolan was called ‘The Only’ because it was reportedly a common nickname in his era for those who excelled at something. Nolan, however, lost nearly twice as many games as he won in his professional pitching career and was once suspended for ‘lying about a sick brother to get time off to visit a prostitute.’ He was certainly one of a kind—what a guy!
Old Hoss Radbourn (1881-91)
Charles Gardner Radbourn was a machine: 310 career wins, a 2.68 ERA and a 75.4 WAR. Sixty wins in a single season. Seventy-three complete games in one year. He also pitched in every inning of the 1884 World Series to lead his Providence Grays to glory. Radbourn became Old Hoss due to his ‘hard work and devotion’ to the game, clearly exemplified in his otherworldly stat lines.
Noodles Hahn (1899-1906)
Frank George ‘Noodles’ Hahn was a nifty southpaw who boasted a career 2.55 ERA and a 40.6 WAR in just eight professional seasons. The three-time National League (NL) strikeout leader with the Cincinnati Reds became Noodles in his childhood, but he himself couldn’t remember why. One story—shared by a friend of his—suggested that he would often carry noodle soup to his father for lunch, who worked at a piano factory.
Snake Deal (1906)
Little is known about the man they called Snake. John Wesley Deal played just one season of professional baseball, also for the Reds, and struggled at the plate. Perhaps that’s why Deal’s nickname didn’t come from his baseball skill, but his basketball prowess: his ability to “wiggle through the opposing team when dribbling the ball towards the basket” earned him the name Snake.
Ice Box Chamberlain (1886-96)
Long before Ice Cube and Ice-T, there was Ice Box Chamberlain.
“His name was Elton; his friends called him Ed; and baseball writers dubbed him Ice Box, or Icebox, for the ice water that flowed through his veins,” reads Chamberlain’s SABR biography (I think baseball writers should go back to giving players sick nicknames).
Though Ice Box didn’t have a particularly outstanding career, Baseball Reference says he ‘alternated arms during at least one game,’ which puts him in a very exclusive club of ambidextrous pitchers.
Home Run Baker (1908-22)
I bet you can guess the origin of this one! John Franklin Baker: Perhaps one of the best players you’ve never heard of, the ‘original home run king of the majors,’ was the American League home run leader for four straight seasons. Though playing in the deadball era meant his career home run tally only reached 96, Baker’s resume also included three World Series titles with the Philadelphia Athletics. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1955.
Buttercup Dickerson (1878-85)
I’m going to end this part of the list with the single most intriguing story I came across in my journey.
Lewis Pessano Dickerson led the NL in triples in 1879 at age 20, as yet another Cincinnati Red on this list.
Dickerson was thought to be Italian-American, so much so that he was inducted into the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in 1979 for being “the first Italian American to play in the major leagues.” In an incredible turn of events, Dickerson most likely wasn’t Italian at all—both his parents were from Maryland, and, according to an interview with one of his granddaughters in 2001, they were of English descent.
The reason he was called Buttercup is just as mystifying. A June 1879 Cincinnati Daily News article reported that he was “now called Sweet Little Buttercup.” The only evidence pointing toward the name is the comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore, which debuted that same year and featured a female character with the same name.
Why would a local newspaper give a baseball player that nickname? The world may never truly know. But it stuck, and 144 years later, it has the incredible honor of making this list. Congratulations, Buttercup, for you have reached your peak!
Birth Names
Skye Bolt (2019-22)
At long last, we have a player who lived to see the 21st Century! Skye Bolt is very much still alive and kicking, even if his baseball career isn’t. Bolt, whose father wanted him to have a name that ‘popped,’ played most of his short career in Oakland.
Jay Baller (1982-92)
Hey, look, a Chicago Cub! Unfortunately, a career -0.8 WAR does not exactly cement baller status for Mr. Baller.
Vida Blue (1969-86)
MVP, three-time World Series champion, six-time All-Star, Cy Young, and a name that lives up to it all. R.I.P.
Herb Hash (1940-41)
I hear it’s legal in 24 states!
Fun fact: Hash died on May 20, 2008, at 97 years and 97 days.
Hank Shanks (1927)
This man may just be a myth, as not even SABR has a biography written about him. Baseball Reference lists him as a first baseman who batted .250 for the Birmingham Black Barons in the Negro National League. But that name is just too good.
Art Rebel (1938, 1945)
What else is there to say? Art is the only known player with the surname Rebel in the database. That alone is cool.
Milton Bradley (2000-11)
Not to be confused with the more famous Milton Bradley, who invented the Game of Life. I was once at a Cubs game as a kid where the less famous Milton Bradley caught a fly ball and threw it into the bleachers thinking it was the third out. He was subsequently booed by all of Wrigley Field.
Coco Crisp (2002-16)
Though Coco isn’t Crisp’s birth name, it’s a nickname derived from his real name, Covelli, and thus counts as a real name in my book. Also, I’m noticing just how many former A’s players are on here, and it’s making me wonder if there’s a secret quota the ownership has to fill.
Hugh High (1913-18)
This name is 50% H.
Astyanax Douglass (1921, 1925)
I’m not even sure what to say about a man who was seemingly named after an obscure Greek mythology figure. The name is so rare that the only other known entities that share it are a species of fish, an asteroid and a Japanese arcade game. Oh, and Douglass, too, played for the Cincinnati Reds.
If you made it this far, thank you for indulging in this hyperfixation of mine. When boredom strikes again, I’ll be sure to revisit this list and write a Part Two. Stay tuned!