Nicknames, nicknames, nicknames . . . most of them tagged by Ray Molphy, who came from Long Island, N.Y., to become “The Voice of Softball.” Ray retired after calling his 30th Smoky Mountain Classic in 1998. He used to call games from 8 a.m. until midnight. His great voice will be missed.
Here are some of those nicknames:
- Rick “The Crusher” Scherr . . . probably the most famous softball nickname of all
- “Dangerous” Dennis Graser
- Darrell Beeler “The Tulsa Terror”
- Mark Hierlmeier “The Tampa Terror”
- Russell “The Rooster” Bradley
- Larry Fredieu “The Bayou Beauty”
- Rick Wheeler “The Pomona Pumper”
- Doug Roberson “The Beast”
- Bruce “The Bruiser” Meade
- “Tricky” Ricky Weiterman
- David “Tater” Allen
- Thom Lord “The Dinosaur”
- “Rocket” Ron Parnell
- “Rocket” Rod Hughes
- “Lovable” Larry Carter
- “Monsterous” Monty Tucker . . . They started calling him “Mile High” Monty after he won a home run derby at Mile High Stadium
- Charles Wright “The Georgia Peach”
- “Daffy” Dave Steffen . . . or “The Daffy One”
- Dan Schuck “The Iowa Idol”
- “Cranking” Craig Elliott . . . or “The Cranker”
- James Boyett “The Rattler”
- “Mighty Joe” Young . . Young’s first name was not even Joe . . it was Andrew
- Mike “The Masher” Macenko . . . also known as “Big Coon,” “Gorilla Boy,” “Mighty Mike,” and “Roy Hobbs-The Natural.” Now he goes by “Big Cat”
- Mark “Downtown” Brown
- Denny “Uptown” Jones . . . When Dave Carroll recruited Jones out of Louisiana, he said, “He’s got long hair and a full beard, and he hits it so far, they call him Jesus Jones”
- Eddie “Jughead” Foust
- Judson “Jughead” Jackson
- Gene “Mountain” Jones
- Mickey “Bimbo” McCarty
- “Shack” McDaniel
- Charlie “Beep Beep” Pierce
- Brian “Snake” Reed
- Tuck “Fleet Feet” Hinton
- Harold “Killer” Kelley
- Elby “Boom Boom” Bushong . . . the West Coast version
- Larry “Boom Boom” Hutcherson . . . the East Coast version
- Scott “Bam Bam” Virkus
- Greg “C-Train” Cannedy
- Ricky “Huggy Bear” Huggins
- Scott “Scooter” Nastally
- Lamar “Spec” Echols
- Kenny “Pickle” Pruitt
- Dirk “The Blaster” Androff
- Clyde “The Glide” Guy
- Herman “Captain Crunch” Rathman . . . or “Hammering Herman”
- Richard Willborn “The Texas Tornado”
- Dick Bartel “The Rocket Man”
- Greg “The Bull” Fuhrman . . . in his early years on the circuit, they called him “The Baby Bull”
- Walter “June Bug” Wright
- William “Billo” Harvey
- Henry McBeth “Buffalo Soldier”
- Kevin “Tiny” Giddens
- Derek “Tweekie” Jones
- David “Ta Ta” Beaird
- Steve “Yank” Jones
- Jim “Bo Bo” Bizzell
- “Leaping” Larry Garrard
- “Doc” Crismond
- “Doc” Thompson
- “Dock” Booker
- “Tex” Collins
- “Chub” Johnson
- “Buck” Buchanan
- “Prince” Williams
- “Jack ’em” John Grissom
- Ray “Country” Cowart
- F.A. “Faraway” Martin
- “Jolly” Charlie Mitchell
- Phil Jobe “Black Magic”
- David “Dirt” Brown
- Jeff “Poncahontas” Ross
- “Cactus” Jack Reagan . . . sometimes he was called “Cadillac Jack”
- Chris Chilton “Chili” or “Chili Dog”
- “Mutzy” Matzdorf
- Brian “Bauser” Ellinghausen
- Jim “Birdie” Burbrink
- “Gar” King
- Mike “Stump” Stanley
- Jeff “Mule” Riner
- “Buck” Hall
- Ray “The Big Bopper” Anderson
- Earl “T-Bird” Funderberg.
Some of my favorite Molphyisms, (and some from David, Ray’s backup announcer at the Smoky):
- “His next hit will be his first.”
- “He’s on the snide . . . he’s off the snide.”
- “That was an insurance catch . . . if you don’t have the insurance, you had better catch it”
- “That was a tweener . . . between his legs.”
- “A Del Monte Job” . . . a high pop fly.
- “The sacks are packed” or “The bases are bulging.”
- “A Slammeroo.”
- “He has two hits, one for the minimum, one for the maximum” . . . a player with a single and a home run.
- “That was Scherr power” . . . after a Rick Scherr home run.
- “A piece of peach pie” . . . a Charles Wright home run.
- Herman Rathman came up with a couple of nicknames: “Left Turn” Don Ardnt . . . for trotting down to first base, taking a left turn, going to second base, taking a left turn, etc. . . . and “Sweet Swinging” Stan Harvey . . . Molphy called them “The Hall of Fame Twins.”
- “Chic” Downing . . . Ray did not give Matthew his nickname; he got that for going to get a bucket of “yardbird” after every game. He spelled it “Chic” . . . not “Chick.”
- And . . . “Another Waller Wallop” for H.T. (Herschel Tucker) Waller.
