MLB Dirt

In honor of this site, the new guy had to have some fun with the name of this place. As mentioned before, the moniker of MLBDirt is great. Love it. So what follows is a list of the dirtiest players in the history of Major League Baseball. They weren’t really dirty, they just hand names or nicknames that made it seem that way.

Four players had nicknames of either “Dirt” or “Dirty.” They were:

• Dirty Jack Doyle. He was a player from 1889 to 1905 and later managed.
• Dirty Al Gallagher. He played from 1970 to 1973.
• Dirty Dave Murphy. He only played one season in 1905. Perhaps they couldn’t keep a clean uniform on the guy.
• Dick “Dirt” Tidrow. Tidrow was a pretty good pitcher from 1972 to 1984. He was pretty mean looking too.

In addition, there was a guy named Calvin Dirting that played in the minors a long time ago.

If you add water to dirt, you get mud. There were a few muddy players:

• Guy Bush played from 1923 to 1945. That’s a long time and a lot of mud. His nickname was the Mississippi Mudcat.
• Phil Mudrock played only one season in 1963. Mudrock must be some sort of sedimentary rock that started with mud.
• Mudcat Grant‘s nickname was completely fabricated by Charlie Finley, long-time owner of the Athletics.
• Muddy Ruel had a cool name, didn’t he? His real name was Herold. He played from 1915 to 1934. He later managed also.

It’s amazing that nobody with the common name of Mudd has been in the majors. Several minor league players had that name. A wispier kind of dirt is dust. There have been seventeen Dustys that have played in the major leagues. They are: Dusty Allen, Dusty Bergman, Dusty Baker, Dusty Brown, Dusty Cooke, Dusty Hughes, Dusty Kravitz, Dusty Parnell, Dusty Ryan and Dusty Wathan. Also included in that list were two Dusty Millers, a Dusty Rhoads and three Dusty Rhodes. Dusty Wathan was the son of John Wathan. If you put enough dust together, you get dirt.

In addition, if you have dirt, you often have grime. There have been six Grimes that have played in the majors: Burleigh Grimes, Ed Grimes, Oscar Grimes, Ray Grimes and Roy Grimes. I love Burleigh Grimes’ nickname, which was “Old Stubblebeard.” Oscar Grimes was the father of Ray Grimes.

And just one more name for you and this silly post will be over. There was once a guy in the majors named Howard McGraner. His nickname was, “Muck.” You can’t get any dirtier than that.

Filed under: Digging Deep - Analysis Tagged: | Al Gallagher, Burleigh Grimes, Calvin Dirting, Charlie Finley, Dick Tidrow, Dusty Allen, Dusty Baker, Dusty Bergman, Dusty Brown, Dusty Cooke, Dusty Hughes, Dusty Kravitz, Dusty Miller, Dusty Parnell, Dusty Rhoads, Dusty Rhodes, Dusty Ryan, Dusty Wathan, Ed Grimes, Guy Bush, Howard McGraner, Jack Doyle, John Wathan, Mudcat Grant, Muddy Ruel, Oscar Grimes, Phil Mudrock, Ray Grimes, Roy Grimes