Night Train, Cool Papa and Sweetness: My Favorite Sports Nicknames

This week, I was teasing my favorite center in the sport of women's full-contact football and have conferred upon Sarah Young of the Pittsburgh Passion the nickname "Egregious.” She will henceforth be known as Egregious Young. But it made me think of my favorite sports nicknames of all time. I only included guys (and yes, it's all men) who were big time athletes, not random guys who were mediocre players, but had cool nicknames, like Manny Legace ("Legs" or, even better, "The Ferret'"). These are the guys who simply are their nicknames, the ones that everybody knows, the kind that need no explanation.

THE NICKNAMES THAT BECAME NAMES:

These guys had nicknames that were so perfect that the nickname actually replaced their given names altogether.

Who even knows Cool Papa Bell's given name? Anybody? Anybody? Cool Papa is so descriptive and it says to me, 'I'm so fast that I make it look effortless to turn a double into a triple, I cruise the basepaths with such confidence and ease that I'm a cool papa.' (Oh, and it's James Thomas, by the way.)


Toe Blake. Raise your hand if you knew Toe Blake's first name was Hector. Hector Blake? Really? I honestly had to look that up, and, according to my reading, he earned the nickname Toe, because his little sister called him 'Hec-Toe' when she was really young. Bonus points because he played on the Montreal Canadiens line that was dubbed 'the Punch Line', so you get two fantastic nicknames in one man.

Magic Johnson. I'll bet that lots of people don't even remember his given name is Earvin. He's just Magic. And not even Magic Johnson, but simply, Magic. You know you're in rarified air when you are a one-name celebrity like Tarzan, Cher and Pele.

Crazy Legs Hirsch, but his mama called him Elroy. He got his nickname courtesy of Francis Powers, a Chicago Daily News sportswriter who wrote, "His crazy legs were gyrating in six different directions, all at the same time; he looked like a demented duck." If that were the only thing that Powers had ever written, that would be a whole career right there.

Rube Foster. The father of Negro League baseball was always just known as Rube, but his given name was Andrew. Nobody's sure where he got the nickname (although some think it came after he played in a game against a pitcher named Rube Waddell.) I just like the sound of 'rube,' and that it's an old-timey word for an unsophisticated country bumpkin; I like the idea of of some country boy re-appropriating that derisive term as a badge of honor:  'Yeah, I'm a rube. You wanna make something of it?' It's very 'Mr. Deeds Goes to Town' to me and I just like that.

'Shoeless' Joe Jackson. Nobody ever says, "you remember that ballplayer, Joe Jackson? He was with the Chicago Blacksox in 1919?" No. It's always, 'Shoeless Joe Jackson,' or sometimes just 'Shoeless Joe.' He's been the inspiration for two really good sports movies ('Eight Men Out' and 'Field of Dreams' - yeah, I know 'Eight Men Out' is a book, too), his glove was, "the place where triples went to die," and he even nicknamed his bat (he had several nicknames, but Black Betsy was the bat I have heard the most about.) The guy is a treasure trove of anecdotes and nostalgia.

Night Train Lane (Dick Lane). Another one that you just need to say -- 'Night Train.' That's all. You don't even need the last name -- just 'Night Train' could strike abject fear into the hearts of quarterbacks and wide outs, alike. He was one of the most colorful guys in an era when NFL players were organically colorful. No twitter feeds, no PR agencies, no ESPN. Just pure, balls to the walls personality. If you ever get the chance, do read 'Paper Lion' by George Plimpton (on my greatest Sports Books compedium -- Part I and Part II). He has some wonderful Night Train anecdotes. Also, Night Train conferred the nickname, 'Dicky Bird,' on Dick LeBeau.

Per my friend Ernie, Tiger (Eldrick) Woods. Betcha forgot his name was Eldrick. I know I did.


THE DESCRIBERS:

Sweetness (Walter Payton). Everything about Payton's game was Sweet and I don't care who holds the rushing records, Sweetness is the greatest running back I've ever seen. There was something about the guy that was special, beyond his ability to run, to extend runs, to run through and over and around tacklers. Sweetness.

Is there a nickname more descriptive than Mr. October (Reggie Jackson)? Seriously. It's like a koan -- you may not be afraid of me in June, but if you run into me in October? Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

Joe 'Mean Joe' Greene. Sure, he's a beloved athlete in Pittsburgh now that time has given us distance from his absolute ferocity on the field and no doubt his image as one of the baddest men in the NFL was forever altered with his transcendent Coke commercial. But make no mistake, when Chuck Noll drafted Mean Joe Greene to be the foundation of the Steel Curtain defense, he knew what he was doing. Joe was, indeed, mean.

Ed 'Too Tall' Jones. What I love about this nickname is that it's not like 'Too Tall' replaced Ed. It's totally incorporated and it's always, always Ed-Too-Tall-Jones, like it's all one word. I love that. We all say it every time. When was the last time you referred to 'Ed Too Tall Jones' as simply, 'Ed Jones?' Yeah, that'd be never. Thought so.

Sugar Ray. I'm going Sugar Ray Robinson here, but you can fit Sugar Ray Leonard in here, too. Like Sweetness, this nickname says it all about Robinson's abilities in the ring. His science was so sweet, it was like sugar.

Teddy Ballgame (Ted Williams.) One man as the whole game. Some called him the Splendid Splinter, but that always seemed too tortured and forced to me. But Teddy Ballgame? That's a nickname that just sings.

The Brown Bomber (Joe Louis). I have this really deep, abiding fondness for Joe Louis. Maybe it's what he meant to the black community at the time of his rise. Maybe it's the way that he was able to see past the hype and propaganda and develop a deep and abiding friendship with Max Schmeling. Maybe it was that he always called Jim Braddock 'Champ', even after he beat him to win the heavyweight crown. And I love 'the Brown Bomber' because it reflects the color of his skin, something that you can never, ever forget when thinking about Joe Louis living in an era of shameful racism and Jim Crow laws.

THE ONE THAT JUST CRACKS ME UP:

Chairman Yao. (Yao Ming). C'mon. Admit it. It made you laugh, too.

What are your favorite sports nicknames? Why?


[Photos: Cool Papa Bell -- rhapsodyinbooks.wordpress.com; Crazy Legs Hirsh -- usatoday.com; Joe Jackson -- nndb.com; Walter Payton -- windycitygridiron.com; Joe Greene -- sportsillustrated.cnn.com; Joe Louis -- weeklyhubris.com]

Top 10 Sporting Events to Take Us Beyond the Rapture

Well it appears the Rapture is indeed upon us. Maybe you call it the end of the world? Semantics, my friends. Semantics. But it seems to me, that if God is calling all the chickens home to roost, she might be in the mood to grant some wishes? I don't know, but I think God understands balance -- hellfire and damnation should be balanced out with some thoughtful presents. Dig?

So what I'm saying is, if the supreme being wants to give me a gift, he can permit me to witness, first hand, some of the great sporting moments in history. I'm almost ashamed to say that I've actually thought about this over the years, but if there were ten sports events I could attend in person, if money and the shackles of a little thing I like to call time and space were not objects, which is to say, if I could travel through time, what sports events would I want to see, live and in person? This list turns out to be kinda baseball heavy. Who knew?


1. 1933 Pittsburgh Crawfords. If I could, there's nowhere I'd rather be than at Greenlee Field (RIP), in Pittsburgh's Hill District, watching Satchel Paige pitch to Josh Gibson, with Cool Papa Bell, Jimmy Crutchfield, and Judy Johnson in the field. This team might be the greatest ever to step on a baseball diamond, so this is a no brainer for me to slot in the No. 1 spot. (Also, Scott Stimkus of Outsider Baseball, tells me he'll have a book out in the fall devoted to the Crawfords. As the book gets closer to publication, I'll provide more details.)


2. 1980 Olympics. USA v. USSR. Yeah, I got to watch this on television, and sure, I'd miss the "Do you believe in miracles?!" call, but tell me you wouldn't give your left arm to have been there?


3. 1936 Olympics. Which some people refer to as Hitler's Olympics, but I like to think of as the Jesse Owens games. Not just for the sport, but for the significance of the games. Also, just to see Jesse run.


4. 1957 Wimbledon Tennis Championships. This was the year that Althea Gibson won her first Wimbledon championship. She won again the next year, in a more exciting match, but I'd want to be there for the first -- the first time an African-American won the world's greatest tennis tournament. I am of the firm belief that Gibson is very under-appreciated.


5. Joe Louis Wins Heavyweight Boxing Title. A couple of reasons, one of which is the chance to get to see James Braddock fight. Braddock was such a great, hard-working champ, that to his dying day, Louis always referred to Braddock as "champ." But mostly, to see Joe Louis, whose importance Langston Hughes described like this:

Each time Joe Louis won a fight in those depression years, even before he became champion, thousands of colored Americans on relief or W.P.A., and poor, would throng out into the streets all across the land to march and cheer and yell and cry because of Joe's one-man triumphs. No one else in the United States has ever had such an effect on Negro emotions – or on mine. I marched and cheered and yelled and cried, too.

6. 1958 NFL Championship Game. Heck, had I been alive and in New York, this would have been possible -- the NFL Championship game between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts held at Yankee Stadium wasn't even sold out. You believe that? To bear witness to John Unitas carrying his team, taking the game to the next level, becoming the great, Johnny U., while hitting Raymond Berry with clutch passes, then waving off the field goal unit to call a blast to the Horse to win the game? There's a reason they call it the Greatest Game Ever Played (tm).


7. 1956 World Series. Game 5. Don Larsen's Perfect Game. I'm far from a Yankees fan, but a perfect game? In the Series? Against the Brooklyn Dodgers? I'm in. So, you know, if you talk to your god, just put in a good word for me.



8. 1972 AFC Division Game. The Immaculate Reception. If you are young and you don't understand the source of the animus between the Oakland Raiders and the Pittsburgh Steelers, look no further than this game. This game, ironically, was another one that was not sold out. You believe that crap? Just about every Pittsburgher over the age of 55 or so will tell you that he was at the game, but if that were true, Three Rivers would have been sold out five times over. But to be one of the lucky few actually in attendance at a true turning point, an historic moment, perhaps, the most important moment in NFL history? Of course, I might feel differently were I born a Raiders fan.


9. Mario Scores Five Different Ways -- December 31, 1988. Pittsburgh Penguins 8, New Jersey Devils 6. The film quality of the goals in this clip is terrible, but my god, what would it have been like to actually be there, instead of at some lame-o New Year's Party. Hindsight is a bitch. A royal one.


10. 1960 World Series. Game 7. First off, I never had the chance to go to Forbes Field, a fact that has greatly aggrieved me over the years. Second, c'mon -- Greatest Home Run in the history of Major League Baseball? Stuff it, New Yorkers. Bobby Thompson's home run merely clinched the pennant. Maz's dinger was a walk off home run in Game 7 of the Series. It just doesn't get any better than that, people.