7 Of The Most Embarrassing Names In Sports History

We've been having a little fun on the threads tonight with some very ridiculous baseball names so I think it's time for an article about this. Hopefully you've never heard about most of these athletes.

Note:  the accompanying stories about each player are all based on true facts about their careers.

1. Pete LaCock. LaCock played in the 1970s for the Cubs and Royals. Petey La Cock is the son of Peter Marshall, the former host of Hollywood Squares. I find it very interesting that the two used different last names. I guess his father felt like letting his son carry on the LaCock legacy. Circle gets the square? Not this time. LaCock had a better career in the minors than he did in the majors. He was MVP of the American Association in 1974. That year as the first baseman for the Wichita Aeros LaCock hit .327 with 23 homers and 91 RBI. Some would say that LaCock got too big too early and "unloaded" his abilities prematurely. As a result LaCock had a soft career in the majors as his production was consistently dry

2. Dick Pole. Tempting bait for Yankee fans as this guy was a Red Sock. Exactly what RootZoo needs. Pole's career was almost ended by an injury during a game against the Orioles in 1975 when a line drive by Tony Muser struck him in the...no, not there. In the face. After spending many memorable nights for two years in Seattle, The Pole was released in 1979. The Dick Pole came back for seconds as he's currently pitching coach of the Reds. Unfortunately he's been unable to penetrate the pitching staff. The Reds are last in the NL in ERA at 5.00 and Dick Pole has come under much pressure to get harder on his staff. Dick Pole and Pete LaCock met once on the field. Here is a story about the Battle of Pole and LaCock.

The single reason these two are yoked in the minds of many baseball fans is because they were exactly the same height (6'3") and weight (210 pounds). Though they each played in the American League throughout the 1977 and 1978 seasons, the sole instance in which they enacted the pitcher-batter swordfight was in the first inning of a game on May 28, 1978, between Dick Pole's Seattle Mariners and Peter LaCock's Kansas City Royals. The Seattle manager, whose name happened to be Johnson, yanked his Pole after Dick was abused for 4 hits and 5 runs in only 1 inning of work. The game was essentially decided by the time LaCock finally got his chance to further beat the spent Dick, but, for the record, the shriveled Pole teased LaCock into lining flaccidly to left. I can't take credit for that story but all good stories must be retold.

3. Woody Held. Dick Pole and Pete LaCock both had their share of hard times in the majors but a more successful man is this Indian I'm about to speak of. This Woody Held. The Woody lasted for 14 years in the majors as one of the more successful shortstops of his day. He specialized in hard hit balls and jumped on them any time they came his way. For this Woody to have lasted 14 years is something very special. Many older female fans in Cleveland appreciate his hard work. They say that nothing in Cleveland comes close to the Woody of yesterday, not even Sizemore.

4. Stubby Clapp. STD? Nope, minor league baseball prospect who fell short of expectations. The funny thing about Stubby Clapp is that his real first name is Richard. I guess his parents thought a nickname of Stubby might be better than a nickname of Dick. I'm not so sure what they were thinking. Stubby's great parenting led to a promising career in the minor leagues with the Johnson City Cardinals of all teams. In 2001 Stubby made it to the bigs but only batted 25 times with 5 hits. The Clapp's diseased major league career was the end of him. A very strong dose of antibiotics helped him cope with this as he is now happily coaching in the minor leagues.

5. Rusty Kuntz. They say he took all the ladies he could get. Because of this Kuntz has a ring on his finger and he's proud of it. Not that kind of ring. A World Series ring. Kuntz was a member of the 1984 Tigers. He had a very disappointing career with a .236 career batting average, but the Rusty Kuntz loosened up once in his career and drove in the game winning RBI of game 5 of the 1984 World Series. This game clinched the World Series for the Tigers.

Moral of the story: Even the Rusty Kuntz of this world can sometimes have their moments.


6. Chubby Cox. Need I say more? This man rocked the city of Philadelphia in high school and then at Villanova. He only played 7 games of pro ball for the Bullets in 1982-1983 and his career didn't last. Many say he simply didn't have the stamina. But, something good must come from all Chubby Cox. In this case it was his family genes. Chubby has a sister named Pam, who married a man by the name of Joe Bryant: the father of a basketball player named Kobe Bryant.

Lesson learned: the chubbier the Cox, the better the player.


7. Johnny Dickshot. This will be my last one. Mr. Dickshot went all out in 1945 with his best season when he had a .302 batting average (3rd best in the American League). Not surprisingly it was the last year of his career. When asked if he could "go at it again" for one more season, Dickshot said he suddenly couldn't get himself excited anymore. Dickshot's nickname was "Ugly" because of his self-proclaimed status as the "ugliest man in baseball". It would take a pretty ugly woman to be willing to marry into the last name of Dickshot so I'm not surprised.

Moral of the story: if you have a kid you'd like to raise as an athlete try to go with a safer name. These Dicks, Cox, Kuntz, and Poles all got less action than your typical athlete.

Thank you Rhodez for starting this conversation and thank you pennywise for the article idea!