A recent Major League Baseball trade caught my eye, not for how significant the deal was, but instead for one of the nicknames belonging to a player who was sent from the Cleveland Guardians to San Francisco (along with the 29th pick in the 2026 MLB Draft) for catcher Patrick Bailey. I also felt that the nickname fits our little town “to a T” as well, what with all the barges that traverse the mighty Ohio past Maysville every day.
No, the nickname isn’t barge; that would be ridiculous. Instead, it is the moniker assigned to a minor league left-handed pitcher, Matt Wilkinson, also known as
“Tugboat.” The trade came as a surprise to some observers who closely follow the Giants, since Bailey is a highly regarded defender behind the plate, and Wilkinson is still an unproven prospect.
But apparently the president of baseball operations for the San Francisco Giants was less than enamored with Bailey and pulled the trigger to acquire “Tugboat.” That executive, Buster Posey, retired from the game in 2021 at the age of 34, and is considered a future Hall of Famer. Posey played his entire career in the Bay area, helping the Giants to three World Series titles, including one in 2012 that Reds fans would like to forget. In the NLDS, Posey hit a grand slam to clinch the series in Game 5 after Cincinnati won the first two games of the series.
But I digress.
Let’s get back to “Tugboat” for a moment. The 23-year-old, now a member of the Double-A Richmond Squirrels of the Eastern League, lowered his season ERA to 1.35 with an excellent start in his debut for Richmond. He also pitched well for Canada in the recent World Baseball Classic.
Wilkinson is also described as a “husky lefty” at 6-foot-1 and at least 250 pounds. He earned the moniker while playing Little League baseball in Canada when a family friend described him when he saw him chugging and lumbering around the bases like a steamboat.
Here’s hoping he enjoys a fruitful career in the future, and this is one guy who will be rooting for Matt “Tugboat” Wilkinson to make it to the big leagues and thrive.
Colorful nicknames mostly a thing of the past
Immediately, when I saw the news of the trade involving a pitcher known as “Tugboat” I thought back 20 years ago to the nicknames column that was reprinted this past Wednesday. That was indeed a fun one to write, and it also made me think that you don’t see nicknames attached to baseball players like we did years ago.
Just for a few examples, consider the following:
The “Sultan of Swat” was given to a player who already went by the nickname of “Babe,” the one and only George Herman Ruth. Babe, also known as “the Bambino” is arguably the most recognizable nickname in the history of the game, especially since it was given to one of the greatest players to ever play. His teammate, Lou Gehrig, was given the nickname “the Iron Horse” for his durability after playing in 2,130 consecutive games, a record that stood for 56 years and was considered unbreakable until Cal Ripken Jr. surpassed it in 1995.
Those two nicknames are just the tip of a very large iceberg, and there simply isn’t room here to list them all, but here’s a few more, followed by their given name, that I personally like:
“The Penguin” (Ron Cey)
“Oil Can” (Dennis Boyd)
“The Big Unit” (Randy Johnson)
“The Big Hurt” (Frank Thomas)
“The Ryan Express” (Nolan Ryan)
“The Bird” (Mark Fydrich)
“Spaceman” (Bill Lee)
“Mr. Cub” (Ernie Banks)
“The Say Hey Kid” (Willie Mays)
“Toy Cannon” (Jimmy Wynn)
“Charlie Hustle” (Pete Rose)
“Yogi” (Lawrence Berra)
“Shoeless” Joe Jackson
“Cool Papa” (James Bell)
“Hammerin’ Hank” (Henry Aaron)
“Dizzy” (Jay Dean)
“Daffy” (Paul Dean)
“Catfish” (James Hunter)
“The Kid” (Ken Griffey Jr.)
“Satchel” (Leroy Paige)
“Stan the Man” (Stan Musial)
“Pops” (Willie Stargell)
“The Ol’ Perfessor” – Charles “Casey” Stengel
“Teddy Ballgame” (Ted Williams)
“Donnie Baseball” (Don Mattingly)
And the list goes on and on and on. Many players of bygone eras are immediately recognized when you hear their nicknames, but it just seems that we take everything so seriously these days, we don’t see nearly as many colorful and imaginative nicknames as we did in days gone by.
MLB teams with catchy nicknames also a rarity
We also don’t see too many nicknames attached to teams anymore, but one favorite in this particular corner of the universe will always be “The Big Red Machine.” Not only was it one of the greatest team nicknames of all time, but it referred to one of the greatest teams of all time as well. Those Cincinnati Reds teams for most of the decade of the 1970s produced endless memories and thrills for Reds fans that will likely never come close to being achieved again.
More team nicknames that caught on with baseball fans:
“Murderers Row” (1927 Yankees)
“The Bronx Bombers” (many Yankees teams)
“The Amazin’ Mets” (1969 New York Mets, also known as the “Miracle Mets”)
“Harvey’s Wallbangers” (1982 Brewers)
“The Gashouse Gang” (1934 Cardinals)
“The Go-Go Sox” (1959 White Sox)
“The Black Sox” (1919 White Sox)
“The Bronx Zoo” (1978 Yankees)
“The Boys of Summer” (1950s Brooklyn Dodgers)
One more cool nickname that didn’t describe an entire team but formed a unique bond, and one that Reds fans will never forget was “The Nasty Boys,” – Norm Charlton, Rob Dibble, Randy Myers – the leaders of the relief corps for the 1990 World Champion Cincinnati Reds.
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“When a teacher calls a boy by his entire name it means trouble.” – Mark Twain
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