Chipper Jones and the Lost Art of the Baseball Player Nickname

A-Rod.

J-Roll.

Han-Ram.

These are the best nicknames our generation could muster for baseball players.  Taking their actual names and shortening them into a Twitter-friendly phrase.

Long gone are the days of Lefty O'Doul, Baby Doll Jacobson, and Bug Radcliff.

How hard is it for a player to come up through the system and play 15 stellar seasons without ever using his real first name?

Chipper Jones stands a prime example of the lost art.

Though some fans know him better as "Larry" (listen closely to Mets fans when he visits), Chipper has posted a Hall of Fame career without ever using his actual first name.

Dizzy Dean, Stuffy McInnis, and Lefty Grove, meet Pronk, Big Puma, and the Buzzsaw.

Nicknames have changed dramatically, evolving from first-name substitutes into podcast buzzwords rarely seen beyond the random fan's homemade sign.

Now batting fifth, the designated hitter, Pronk Hafner.

Imagine the cheers Travis would get walking to the plate after an announcement like that.  Imagine the legend that would be created over a name like Pronk. 

No one looks at third base during a Braves game and even utters the word Jones; it's Chipper.

High chopper to Chipper, he bare-hands, throws, and gets him by a step!

There's something more serious in the players today.  Players want to become a brand; they want to see their name (their real name) up in lights and in headlines and uttered across the world. 

Derek, Albert, and Alex take this game seriously and work hard at it.  Chipper is just happy to be at the ballpark.

Dustin, Kevin, and Mike are average guys earning a wage.  Papi is a boy playing his favorite sport.

If David Ortiz was announced as "Papi Ortiz" before his at-bats, would his power return? Would his boyish love of the game, possibly lost with the Manny trade, suddenly re-emerge?

Leading off and playing center, Hells Ellsbury. 
Batting and playing second is Dusty Pedroia. 
Batting third, the DH, Papi Ortiz.

Chris Berman made a name for himself on television giving baseball players random and obscure nicknames.  Every boy at home does it from time to time.  It gets boring calling players David and Mark and Roy. 

In fact, why do we even know Roy Halladay's first name to begin with?  You'd think a high school coach would have started calling the meticulous ace "Doc," and it would have stuck. 

Doc Halladay earned his 10th win, well on his way to battling for another Cy Young award.

It's not his nickname.  It's his name. The lineup card says "Doc," and the media guide too.  Ten years into his career, a frustrated Yankee fan starts yelling out "Roy" as a way to insult the right-hander.  "Roooooooyyyyyyy...Roooyyyyyyyy," just after he strikes out A-Rod.

Are baseball players, coaches, and their friends just less creative?  Is the sport less welcoming to the clearly made-up first name?

Do we blame today's fan base, who would see a name like Kid Nichols or Red Ruffing and think it's a joke?  Or maybe Whitey Ford would be blasted for having an apparently racist name?

Maybe I could ask Cool Papa Bell where all the nicknames came from, and why they disappeared at all.

The times have changed. Baseball has changed from a sport full of fun-loving boys to a business of hard-working men.  Men with names like Lance and Carlos, no longer the boys named Dizzy, Sandy and Lefty.