I do enjoy randomly calling up baseball-reference.com and going from player to team to player to season just to see where it all leads me. I also had a difficult time getting dates as a young man. These two facts are not unrelated.
Today when I called up baseball-reference, this head shot was one of the dozen that rotates in the top left portion of the home page. Right away, the snazzy outfit sets him apart from the other 11 players. Those stripes just call out that you’re a man who doesn’t care what you think. Then comes the name … Ice Box Chamberlain. And it’s not under the nickname section. “ICE BOX CHAMBERLAIN” is at the top of his page as though his mother (I’m guessing Bar Fridge Chamberlain) and father (Freezer Chamberlain) named him so at birth.
Which leads me to this: I’ve heard of Ice Box Chamberlain many times before. He played for Van Der Ahe’s St. Louis Browns of the 1880s and had a 157-120 career record and a 24.1 career WAR. But it got me to thinking about the coolest nicknames in baseball history. (Spoiler alert: The bit about Ice Box being his given name was a joke. It was Elton, which some people might think is also a joke name if you’re not a 1970s rock star.) I remember Bill James writing in his Abstracts about old-time baseball nicknames being so much better than modern day and how Greg Luzinski (yah, this was a while ago) wouldn’t have been named “Bull” back in the day. He suggested something like “Slaughterhouse”.
I agree with James. The old nicknames were goofy, oddball, creative, unique, funny AF. So let’s get together a list of some of the greatest baseball nicknames ever. And here’s one ground rule: Names like the Sultan of Swat and Joltin’ Joe are excellent nicknames. But I’m looking for freakishly odd names that seem to have no connection to their playing ability or style. So Bucketfoot Al, go find yourself another list. You too Flying Dutchman and Hammering Hank …
- Ice Box Chamberlain
- Piano Legs Hickman
- Bris “The Human Eyeball” Lord
- Pearce “What’s The Use” Chiles
- Cupid Childs
- Arlie “The Freshest Man On Earth” Latham
- Johnny “Ugly” Dickshot
- Moonlight Graham
- Tony “The Apollo Of The Box” Mullane
Ice Box Chamberlain
Elton got his cool nickname from sports writers who noted his calm under pressure. An 1892 Sporting Life article quoted ex-teammate Charles Comiskey saying, “Elton Chamberlain is the coolest pitcher in the profession. The captain is authority for the statement that whenever Chamberlain perspires his shirt freezes to his skin and he has to take a warm bath before he can get it off.”
Rather a mundane start for a nickname, but still the end result is cool. I believe that today, teen-age Elton would be called E-Money by his friends, but that’s a theory fueled by listening to my son’s friends who include at least two J-Moneys. Best two bits from Ice Box’s bio are:
- He was one of three major leaguers to pitch both right- and left-handed. Although he rarely pitched lefty, he didn’t use a glove and would throw to bases with either hand often.
- From the Sporting Life, this quote about a time in Buffalo when Ice Box won a gaudy ring on a prize fight bet, lent the ring to the winning boxer, never saw it again and sued. ” Chamberlain’s escapade at Buffalo has queered him with Columbus, and he may be released to some other club.” I believe we’ve all felt that we’ve been queered with Columbus at one point in life, right?
Piano Legs Hickman
Darn those knickers. I have yet to see a pic of Piano Legs Hickman‘s bare legs. (Never thought I’d type that sentence.) It’s obvious though that the man had piano legs. But he was 5’9 and I’ve seen reports of his weight being as high as 215 pounds and at least 180. That’s not a piano legs frame, but must have been. He also answered to Charlie. No word on what furniture that his arms reminded the baseball world of.
Bris “The Human Eyeball” Lord
No idea. No idea how a man becomes known as the human eyeball and he doesn’t also win a Marty Feldman look-alike contest. But such is the lot of Bris Lord.
The Human Eyeball won two World Series with the Philadelphia Athletics (1910-11). But here’s a career note: To get to Philly, he was traded by Cleveland for Morrie Rath and a player to be named later. That guy named later was Shoeless Joe Jackson, who went from hitting .150 in 10 games with Philly over two seasons to a .408 hitting superstar in his second season in Cleveland.
Pearce “What’s The Use” Chiles
Here’s how you get a nickname … you shout “What’s the use” when batters hit a pop up to you while waiting for it to land in your mitt. Apparently What’s The Use Chiles was a real pip 24/7. He was arrested several times. As far as criminal activity in a baseball sense, Chiles was caught with a creative way to steal signs. During the 1900 season with the Philadelphia Phillies, part-time player Chiles rigged an electric buzzer under the third-base coaching box. He had a teammate behind the outfield wall with a spyglass steal signs from the catcher and relay it to Chiles coaching third with a buzz under his foot. The sign was then hand signaled to the batter. When the opposition Reds saw Chiles’ leg twitching, they dug up the buzzer. To show the kind of person Chiles is, the next day he coached first base and his leg started twitching again. This time, the Reds dug up the box for nothing as What’s The Use was pulling their leg with his twitching leg. That was his last year in the majors after an off-season prison sentence. No team in baseball would touch him after that. What would be the use.
Cupid Childs
There’s no record of how Clarence Childs received the nickname Cupid, but Cupid was the only name he went by as a ballplayer. Most sources guess that a round face and pudgy build led to the moniker. Here’s a cool bit of writing about Childs‘ professional debut, “Childs is the most curiously built man in the baseball business: he is about as wide as he is long and weighs about as much as Jeffries, yet there are few men in the league who can get over the ground faster than the ‘dumpling.'” Childs might be the first two-time entry on the nickname list for Cupid and Dumpling.
As a fan of 1890s baseball, I have to note that Childs was a Baltimore native who was a star with the Orioles’ rival, the Cleveland Spiders. Hopefully he stayed in Cleveland during the off-season.
Arlie “The Freshest Man On Earth” Latham
Latham had a sense of humor. He had energy, smiled all the time and played practical jokes. The term “clown prince of baseball” came along after Latham’s playing days, but it would have applied to The Freshest Man On Earth. Latham was noted for doing things like putting on a clown’s nose and walking/mocking behind St. Louis Browns owner Chris Van Der Ahe. He had the kind of personality that led Cap Anson to give him his nickname. That, in turn, led to stage performances by Latham (not uncommon for famous players and something that continued into the early 1900s) and a popular song called The Freshest Man On Earth. “I’m a daisy on the diamond; I’m a dandy on the stage … Say I’m a holy show; The umpire thinks I’m funny; While others think it mirth; Bet your life I know my biz; I’m the freshest man on earth.”
Latham was an early ground-breaker in on-field chatter. He had plenty of baseball stories to tell during his 92 years, having been a member of the famous 1880s world-champion St. Louis Browns and the game’s first non-player base coach with John McGraw’s New York Giants. His comical antics as a coach led to the introduction of the coaching box to contain him.
Johnny “Ugly” Dickshot
Do not let your inner middle-schooler out right now. Do not. Dickshot. Ugly Dickshot. Lol. Dammit. Now I’m doing it. Dickshot is the most modern player on this list, wrapping a six-season major-league career around World War II. He’s also the only self-named player on the list, calling himself the ugliest man in baseball. Apparently, there might have been men enough in hockey or football that Dickshot wasn’t confident enough to call himself the ugliest man in sports. Judge for yourself, but I’d say that Dickshot was quick to judge himself the ugliest. Of course, it all could have been a ploy to draw attention away from his surname.
Moonlight Graham
That movie. How does a movie like Field of Dreams show us a Shoeless Joe who hits right-handed and throws left turn someone like me who loves historic accuracy in his baseball tales into a puddle of tears by the end of the film? Actually, Moonlight Graham walking across the line from young man to old, knowing that he’ll never be able to relive his youth … well I’m welling up now, so let’s move on to the real Archie Graham.
Moonlight likely got his nickname because he was usually the fastest man on the diamond. Why people 100 years ago equated moonlight with speed is beyond me. But I’d be disappointed if Archie had been named Sunlight Graham. Moonbeam Graham would have been an utter failure as well. His story is well-known. One inning playing for the McGraw Giants before being sent back down to the minors and then a career in medicine was the perfect fodder for the novel/movie character who asked if he was good enough as a player.
Tony “The Apollo Of The Box” Mullane
Imagine that you’re so good looking that your team makes sure to start you as pitcher on ladies day. OK, you didn’t have to tell me to do that; I’ve imagined that already. Tony Mullane‘s nickname is a two-parter. Apollo for good looks. The box part refers to him being a pitcher and pitchers working out of a box in the 1800s.
And Mullane could pitch. His lifetime numbers include 284 wins and a 66.5 WAR, which makes him the best player on this list. Mullane was also the first major-leaguer to pitch left- and right-handed during a game.
As for the Apollo looks, you be the judge …
The Old Ball Game 