Your Humble Blogger hasn’t given up the Tohu Bohu. I’m still posting; I’m just not actually posting anything. I opened a word processor the other day to write this I’m still here post and didn’t get anything typed at all. Not that I’m horribly busy—I am quite busy, but not to the point of panic. I’m afraid this Tohu Bohu has taken a bit of a lower priority than some of the other stuff, on the assumption that it’ll still be here.
Don’t be fooled, though, into thinking that I’m posting again just because I am actually posting something. I am just popping my head in to comment that the main thing I learned from this list of teams with three good young pitchers is that there aren’t enough major leaguers called Hooks.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
Interesting. Other than Mr. Wiltse and Mr. Dauss, I had not before been aware of any other major leaguers called “Hooks” at all!
Why do you suppose ballplayers gave up on the nickname after the early 1950s?
I mean, it’s easy to see why “Lefty” would have dropped out of fashion around that time (with the late and notable exception of Steve Carlton), but it’s not so clear to see what would do in “Hooks.” The release of Disney’s Peter Pan in 1953?
The only “hook”-based nickname after that was “Captain Hook,” after all.
Well, colorful nicknames as a whole drop off a bit after the 50s. And I have a sense, a vague sense, that the ‘colorful’ nicknames of the twenties and thirties were more than anything inventions of the sportswriters. It’s possible that some ‘Hooks’-happy hacks retired and nobody took it up.
Hmm–it’s not really plausible that there weren’t any players nicknamed ‘Caveman’ in the twenties and thirties, but none show up in Baseball Reference.
Thanks,
-V.