Old - timey baseball game players had some pretty fun nicknames . Here are the news report behind a few of the secure ones .
1. Hippo Vaughn
Vaughn is best recall for two things : being the losing pitcher in baseball game ’s only " three-fold no - batsman , " a 1917 game in which Vaughn pitched nine hitless innings for the Chicago Cubs only to be matched by Reds twirler Fred Toney and finally lose by giving up a run in the top of the 10th frame . Few historiographer can forget the lumber 6'4 " , 215 - pound sign frame that earned him the sobriquet " Hippo . "
2. Mysterious Walker
Frederick Mitchell Walker was certainly one of the best athlete of the early 20th hundred . He starred in baseball game , basketball game , and football game at the University of Chicago before start to pitch for the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League in 1910 . He get out off his last name when name himself in San Francisco , so fans only roll in the hay him as Frederick Mitchell .
When he hawk extremely well in his 11 appearances with the club that season , devotee became quite interested in the origin of their ace . Reporters started calling him " Mysterious Mitchell , " and even after he revealed his true last name , they simply repurposed the nickname and called him " Mysterious Walker . "
3. Death to Flying Things Ferguson
Bob Ferguson first get baseball fans ' attention in the late 1860s with the Brooklyn Atlantics . Although he only batted .271 for his calling and only had one real standout season ( 1878 with the Chicago Cubs ) , he earned the nickname " Death to Flying Things " for his unprecedented art as a fieldsman .
4. Bald Billy Barnie
apart from being a lovely opus of head rhyme , this one accurately described the bonce of the player of the 1870s and coach of the eighties and ' 90s .
5. Egyptian Healy
John J. Healy pitched from 1885 until 1892 , but his nickname is more memorable than anything he did on the baseball diamond . It came from the unsubdivided fact that he hailed from Cairo , IL .
6. Brewery Jack Taylor
Brewery Jack Taylor pitched for several team throughout the 1890s , most notably six season with the Philadelphia Phillies . He is best remembered for vociferously arguing with umpires and for throwing back lots of soapsuds between games . Hence his nickname .
7. Shoeless Joe Jackson
According to Jackson , he capture his illustrious sobriquet well before he reach the Major Leagues . He was playing in a game as a teenager when a raw pair of cleat began giving him a blister . Rather than suffer through the rest of the plot in ill - fitting shoe , Jackson but went around the bases in his stocking feet . oppose devotee heckled him for being " a shoeless son of a heavy weapon , " and the name followed Jackson .
7. Kiki Cuyler
" Kiki " may not seem like a very rugged cognomen for one of the venerable outfielders of the 1920s and ' XXX , but it ’s emphatically more intimidating than his real name , Hazen Shirley Cuyler . Cuyler supposedly got the nickname early in his career when he stuttered pronouncing his own last name , and the moniker stuck .
8. Lip Pike
Pike became a home sensation when he fall in the Philadelphia Athletics in 1866 ; he had both blazing speed and astounding power . In fact , Pike was so good that he was later revealed to be arguably the first professional baseball player — the Athletics paid him a princely $ 20 a calendar week for his services . " Lip " is n’t a traditional soubriquet , either . It ’s short for his first name , Lipman .
9. Silk O’Loughlin
Francis O’Loughlin was an American League umpire from 1902 to 1918 , but his nickname did n’t come from his tranquil and consistent tap zona . Rather , he pick up the nickname " Silk " as a nestling because he had particularly fine fuzz .
10. Fatty Briody
Here ’s one that ’s well-off to believe : a guy make " Fatty " played catcher . The 5'8 " , 190 - pound Briody earned celebrity as an mavin defensive catcher throughout the 1880s .
11. Chicken Wolf
The proper fieldsman for the Louisville Eclipse and Louisville Colonels of the 1880s allegedly got his sobriquet from teammate Pete Browning when they were playing semi - pro ballock . Even though a handler had told the boys not to feed much before the first pitch , Jimmy Wolf gorged himself on stew poulet before a game , then played terribly in the field of operation . Browning bait him by call him " Chicken , " and the unflattering nickname stuck .
12. Turkey Mike Donlin
Donlin racked up five seasons with a batting norm over .300 and won a World Series with the Giants in 1905 . Apparently he had a violent neck and an curious pass , though , so teammates gave him a moniker he loathed : Turkey Mike .
13. Brickyard Kennedy
Brickyard Kennedy bring home the bacon 187 game in the Majors , but at the bit of the twentieth C , even the good actor needed second jobs in the offseason . William Park Kennedy work at a brickyard , so a sobriquet was n’t too hard to discover .
14. Pickles Dillhoefer
perhaps this one is obvious to you , but it take me a minute to figure it out . The catcher , who spent time with the Cubs , Phillies , and Cardinals between 1917 and 1921 , got his soubriquet as a equipment on the " Dill " in his last name .
15. Piano Legs Hickman
Slugger Charlie Hickman was also know as " Cheerful Charlie " for his deportment , but most historian think of him as Piano Legs Hickman , a name that described the thick legs he needed to move his 215 - pound frame around the bases .
16. Iron Man McGinnity
Joseph Jerome McGinnity pitched his way into the Hall of Fame by winning 246 games between 1899 and 1908 . Many people erroneously believe that McGinnity got his " Iron Man " moniker from his tendency to pitch both games of a doubleheader , but , like Brickyard Kennedy , the nickname came from his offseason job : McGinnity worked in a metalworks .
And some other greats for which we can’t find explanations…
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