What's in a name?

I happened to see an entertaining article in the paper today: Hall of Names, featuring some memorable nicknames of Hall of Fame baseball players. (The occasion for the article, of course, is the recent election of pitching great "Goose" Gossage to the Hall of Fame. Congratulations Goose!)

Here are a few of my favorites from the list:

• James "Cool Papa" Bell - also famous for claiming that he was so fast "he could turn out the lights and be in bed before the room got dark".
• Joe "Ducky Wucky" Medwick - Ducky Wucky? Seriously? You'll never convince me that Medwick actually wanted that on his official plaque in Cooperstown. He must have lost a bet with Tommy "Itsy Bitsy Spider" Conrad or something.
• Charlie "Old Hoss" Radbourne
• George "Highpockets" Kelly
• Frankie "The Fordham Flyer" Frisch
  
• Mordecai "Three Fingers" Brown - Besides the fact that "Three Fingers" sounds more Mafia than Major League, how can you even try to improve on a name like Mordecai Brown?
  

And of course, my new personal favorite baseball name:

• AMOS "THE HOOSIER THUNDERBOLT" RUSIE

The article only lists those players who actually had their nickname included on their Hall of Fame plaque. Thus it leaves out nicknames of legendary players like Ty "The Georgia Peach" Cobb, "Hammerin' Hank" Aaron, or Lou "The Iron Horse" Gehrig, who didn't put their names on the plaques. Nor does it include great non-Cooperstown nicknames like:

• Al "The Mad Hungarian" Hrabosky
• Roger "The Rocket" Clemens
  
• Whitey "The White Rat" Herzog
• Fred "Crime Dog" McGriff
• Randy "Big Unit" Johnson
• Frank "Big Hurt" Thomas
• David "Big Papi" Ortiz
• Barry "Big Cheater" Bonds.

(OK, so I made that last one up, but you get the idea.)

ABOVE: Barry Bonds, before and after discovering
new and innovative uses for "linseed oil".

"Shoeless Joe" Jackson and Pete "Charlie Hustle" Rose were, of course, excluded because they are permanently banned from the Hall of Fame. Legendary commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis was also excluded because, believe it or not, that's his actual name. But how, for the love of God, could the makers of this list forget the great "Catfish" Hunter?