Sports Nicknames: The Bad

In light of the recent post which discussed the more awesome nicknames in sports. Today we shall examine those nicknames which are uninspired, inappropriate, or just plain fucking nonsense. And we shall do so with far more attention to brevity since the author should be doing homework.

Ty Cobb - The Georgia Peach

Peaches are sweet and fuzzy. Ty Cobb was a racist dick who sharpened his cleats for extra opponent-stabby effect and sharpened his will for extra mercilessly-beating-the-handicapped effect.

Ted Kennedy - Teeder

What the crap is he teeding, anyways?

Randy Johnson - The Big Unit

Just.... no....
Ah fuck it, who can resist...
Why not just call him "The Big Johnson"?

Henri Richard - The Pocket Rocket

The Rocket only narrowly missed the good list (lost points due to Habs-playing type behavior). But here's his brother, getting reminded on a regular basis that no matter how many rings he collects, he will always be #2 in the Richard family.

Gale Sayers - The Kansas Comet

It's not that this is a horrible nickname... it has alliteration, it conveys speed. But Sayers only played his college ball in Kansas. He's actually from Nebraska. The idea conjures up Naked Gun-esque ideas of boxers named the Missouri Murderer, who are originally from New Jersey and fight out of Cleveland. Also, the highly convenient given name "Gale" is sitting right there, just itching for a wind-inspired pun. Why this avenue was never explored, the author shall never know. How about Gale Force Wind or Gale Front? They're not much but they're a start.

Many Hockey Players - All or part of the surname, then "-ie" or "-er"

The author has heard the arguments for this one (mostly they're based on brevity), and the author is not convinced. All these nicknames say is that nobody cares enough to give your moniker any though whatsoever, but they'd like to give you a nickname for the sake of a nickname. If the media wants to talk about Mike Richards and the best they can come up with is "Richie", then just fucking call him Mike Richards. Similarly, the Holden argument fails in that a teammate saying "Hey, Richie, pass the Axe deodorant spray" would save even more valuable syllables by saying "Hey, Mike, pass the Axe deodorant spray".

Mike Richards, Axe spokemodel

Joe Louis - The Brown Bomber

A black man goes into a white dominated business, and proceeds to get himself a nickname which first refers to the colour of his skin and then wraps it up with an oft-used cliche in said business. He's the Bizarro Vanilla Ice.