Wednesday, October 31, 2007

The Only "Ghost" in MLB History?

One of the cool things about Baseball-Reference's search function is you can look for nicknames as well as given names. Apropos of Halloween, I decided to look up "ghost" and see what happened. It turns out that only one player in major league history had a nickname with "Ghost" in it, and he's already been mentioned on this site.

Jo-Jo Moore, a New York Giants outfielder from 1930-1941, was nicknamed "The Gause Ghost." He came from Gause, Texas, so the origin of part of the nickname is obvious. I don't know where the ghost part comes from, but his BR Bullpen (Baseball-Reference's wiki) page states:

Moore was known to be a first-ball hitter, and some opposing managers would fine their pitchers if they threw Moore a strike on the first pitch.

He is listed by Bill James as the # 77 left-fielder of all time.


Pretty interesting stuff. Happy Halloween and hopefully everyone stays safe trick-or-treating.

UPDATE: jsackmann points out Oliver "Ghost" Marcelle was a famous Negro Leaguer.

1 comment:

Jeff Sackmann said...

There's also Oliver "Ghost" Marcelle, a famous negro leaguer:

http://www.baseballlibrary.com/ballplayers/player.php?name=Ghost_Marcelle_1897

I also love that b-r function. I was looking for Dmitri Young the other day and got there in one click by searching for "meat hook." Nice.