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SPORTS NICKNAMES: 20,000 PROFESSIONAL WORLDWIDE
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist Professional sports are, at their core, kid's games played by the best for others to watch and enjoy. Nicknames add color and flare for the fans and the players. This title is a unique resource for those who want to know the "why" behind nicknames that have stuck or failed to stick to individual and groups of professional athletes. Examples include "Air Jordan" (Michael Jordan, basketball), the "Steel Curtain" (the Pittsburgh Steelers defense, football), and "Tiger" Woods (real name Eldrick Woods, golf), along with 19,000-plus more athletes. This work is divided into six sections. The first five cover athletes or teams in baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and "Other Sports," listed alphabetically within each section by last name. Most entries are one or two sentences long, and all cite sources for the nicknames. The last section is an alphabetical index by nickname. Coverage includes historic and modern players, but as indicated in the title, no collegiate and only a few Olympic athletes are included. Although the coverage is stated to be worldwide, football is defined as American-style football and soccer is included in the "Other Sports" section. Also included in "Other Sports" are tennis players, skateboarders, bullfighters, and jockeys. Most of the nicknames are ones given by fellow players or managers, but those given by Chris Berman, an ESPN sports commentator, come only from his fertile imagination and are designed to make his reporting humorous. These nicknames include "You De Manning" (Peyton Manning), "Bert Be Home Blyleven," and "Three Blind Weiss" (Walt Weiss). So just who was "The Round Mound of Rebound"? Charles Barkley, the professional basketball player, of course, who was also known as "Sir Charles." This is a specialized but comprehensive reference source for all libraries that can afford it. RBB Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved (2002) ESPN Magazine: The Best Of EverythingBy Lane Strauss Jun. 21, 2011
BEST NICKNAME Title Holders One way to make sure fans never forget you: Adopt a killer nickname. Take Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval, dubbed Kung Fu Panda because of his size and agility, by teammate Barry Zito. Panda's missed playing time, yet he's still a top All-Star vote-getter. "A great nickname becomes bigger than the player's given name," says Terry Pruyne, author of Sports Nicknames: 20,000 Professionals Worldwide. He calls out some of his recent faces: Athlete: Thunder forward Kevin Durant Alias: The Durantula "His moniker combines his name with a tarantula to play on his deadly shooting. It's a great marketing tool." Athlete: Wakeboarder Dallas Friday Alias: Houston Thursday "Action sport athletes are known for doing things a little differently, and hers puts a twist on the name game." Athlete: Patriots running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis Alias: The Law Firm "Fans began calling him that; it does sound like a firm's name." Athlete: Braves outfielder Jason Heyward Alias: Jay Hey Kid "It's an homage to the Say Hey Kid, Willie Mays, and the good ol' days." |
Los Angeles Times reporter David Wharton interviews Terry Pruyne about nicknames
Name Dropping
With Chick Hearn's passing, another link to the golden era of colorful sports nicknames is gone August 08, 2002|DAVID WHARTON | TIMES STAFF WRITER The early days of Chick Hearn at the microphone were also the days of Wilt "the Stilt" Chamberlain and Jerry West, otherwise known as "Mr. Clutch." Hearn's career as the Laker announcer's career progressed through Magic and Silk. It was no surprise when, after watching forward James Worthy produce one clutch performance after another, Hearn coined the name "Big Game James." Hearn, who died earlier this week, hailed from a more colorful time in our sporting past. It was a time when players had nicknames such as Pee Wee and Crazy Legs, Broadway Joe and the Bronx Bull. Ted Williams was "The Splendid Splinter," Teddy Ballgame and The Kid. That era could be long gone. "Sports nicknames are becoming much fewer and not nearly as interesting," said Edward Callary, former president of the American Name Society. "Instead of the Splendid Splinter, we have Mark McGwire as Big Mac. I mean, how clever is that?" It might seem trivial, this matter of the vanishing moniker, but people who study language suggest it illuminates a shift in how fans watch games, if not a sea change in the culture at large. They believe it says something about who Americans have become. "That was an earlier, heroic, more innocent age," said Geoffrey Nunberg, a Stanford linguistics professor and San Francisco Giants' fan. "We aren't like that anymore." Nicknames have always been an intimate lingo, terms of endearment circulated among a close-knit group. Family. A squadron of fighter pilots. The Mafia. In the world of sports, however, they were often coined and publicized by sportscasters such as Hearn, said Terry Pruyne, who collected 20,000 of them for his book, "Sports Nicknames." The best sobriquets reflected a player's persona. Joe DiMaggio was as majestic as a "Yankee Clipper" and Pete Rose intense enough to be "Charlie Hustle." Jack "The Assassin" Tatum tackled like one on the football field. Hockey goon Dave "Tiger" Williams skated ferociously. Such insights were not always flattering. After a baserunning error in a 1908 game, the otherwise competent Fred Merkle would forever be known as "Bonehead." Chuck Wepner was called the "Bayonne Bleeder," an accurate but unfortunate tag for a boxer. Even worse, Pruyne found that many nicknames were unimaginative--scores of "Leftys" and "Reds"--while others were bigoted, derived from skin color or religion. For good or bad, this language was more closely associated with sports when fans felt chummier about their teams, said Callary, an English professor at Northern Illinois University who busies himself with onomastics, the study of names and naming practices. Years ago, in his native Baltimore, it was common to see legendary quarterback Johnny Unitas--"Johnny U"--on the street. Other Colt players attended prayer meetings at Callary's neighborhood church. "These were guys who lived in our town," he said. Now the best players become free agents and franchises move across country for the promise of a new stadium. Fans are no longer relegated to the local ballpark or radio station--they can choose from half a dozen games on cable each night. Add rising ticket prices and labor disputes to the equation and, as Callary said, "I don't think we feel the same way toward our players. We've just put so much distance between ourselves and them." If anyone has tried to keep nicknames alive, it has been sportscaster Chris Berman, who grew up reading about the likes of Frank "Home Run" Baker, Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown--a pitcher maimed in a childhood accident--and Walter "Big Train" Johnson. As a counselor at summer camp, Berman renamed all the kids in his cabin. In college, he and his pals "hung names" on players they read about in box scores. This quirk became a professional trademark when, as an announcer for the then-fledgling ESPN, he uttered the words: "Frank 'Tanana' Daiquiri." "It wasn't planned but I guess it worked," he said. "We did a few more and everyone seemed to enjoy it." Fred "Crime Dog" McGriff. Eric "Sleeping with" Bienemy. Andre "Bad Moon" Rison. Edgar "Trailer for sale or" Renteria. Berman is quick to acknowledge that his word plays and pop culture puns, delivered tongue in cheek, are not like nicknames of old. He figures the traditional style served a purpose--in its time. "Way back when, most of the people in America never went to a game, so they were doing it off visualization," he said. "The Splendid Splinter was descriptive of how Ted Williams looked. And we had Sliding Billy Hamilton with 912 stolen bases." That might still work for fighter pilots and recent gangsters such as John "The Dapper Don" Gotti and Vincent "The Chin" Gigante because they are not on television daily. But in sports, cameras peer into every dugout and inside every facemask, leaving little to the imagination. "There's less language because we see all of them," Berman said. Perhaps fans see too much. http://articles.latimes.com/2002/aug/08/sports/sp-nicknames8 |