On July 20th, 1925, Brooklyn’s Dazzy Vance struck out 17 Cubs’ batters. The Dodgers beat Chicago 4-3 in 10 innings.

What has happened to all the great baseball nicknames players used to have? Names like Dizzy, Dazzy, or Babe?

My childhood team, the Oakland A’s, had an owner who loved nicknames, thought it was good for business apparently. So I grew up rooting for “Catfish” Hunter and “Blue Moon” Odom. Even the non-nicknames were poetic to me, names that captured your imagination and your heart: Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers, Matty Alou, Reggie.

Alas, most nicknames I hear these days on Twins broadcast seem unimaginative at best and lazy at worst: Stelly (Rick Stelmaszek), Buck (Byron Buxton), T.K. (Tom Kelly), Molly (Paul Molitor), Herbie (Kent Hrbek), Puck (Kirby Puckett). I could go on but I would bore even myself.

Reading as many baseball history books as I have, I know that nicknames once went too far. Players who were deaf and mute were often called “Dummy.” And some nicknames were just out-right racist like, “Chief” Bender (Charles Bender, Hall of Fame pitcher who was born in Crow Wing County, Minnesota).

We certainly do not want to return to those kind of nicknames. But give us something interesting.

My favorite nickname of all time is “Oil Can” Boyd. It is such a great nickname that when you go to his Baseball Reference page they do not even have his real name on the page. Not Dennis, just “Oil Can.”

“Oil Can” Boyd played for 10 years in the Majors, from 1982-1991. Most of those years were for the Red Sox but at the end of his career he did pitch for Montreal Expos and the Texas Rangers. In my eyes, his best season was probably his 1986 season, he went 16-10 with a W.H.IP. (Walks and Hits to Innings Pitched) of 1.246. (Again, my years as a Rotisserie league participant still lead me to rate pitchers with low WHIPs as having excellent seasons. And 1.246 WHIP in Fenway has to be considered pretty good.)

I did get to see Oil Can play often. When he was with the Red Sox, Oil Can Boyd starts (as well as Roger “The Rocket” Clemens starts) were must see-in-person games for me.

Oil Can’s life-time record is 78-77, for a .503 winning percentage. His lifetime WHIP is a respectable 1.292. 1.30 is considered an average WHIP but again right-handed Boyd pitched much of his career in Fenway which is a notoriously difficult park to pitch in.

I think the last time I saw Oil Can pitch was in September of 1991 for the Texas Rangers, his final year in the Majors. Oil Can went 5+ innings against the Twins. He did not figure into the decision.