We’re sitting here with 16 guys left and I really couldn’t tell you where this is going. Number 1 seed Tiger went down to MegaTron while in the same bracket The Round Mound of Rebound beat Stan the Man Musial. And there’s some colossal matchups on the ledger: Sweetness vs Dr. J, and Mister October going to bat against Pistol Pete. Let’s see how our voters did.
**To get our results we polled 13 of our readers and asked them to fill out our brackets. Additionally Max and Sean gave points to nicknames based off a few categories, including the amount a nickname is used in place of the person’s real name, creativity, and creation story. Max and Sean also made some choices because we could.
Sweet 16
1 Babe Ruth over 4 Pudge
The Bambino is just a really tough guy to beat. Pudge gets his nickname from his 6’2″, 220 lb frame. He retired with the most homers ever by a catcher and is best remembered for waving the ball fair as it went out of Fenway in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. Great, great sports moment…But, so is calling your own shot. The Sultan of Swat moves on easily.
3 Sweetness loses to 2 Dr. J
Sweetness played for the Nickname championship in one bracket, but failed to win this matchup in 11 of the other 12. Dr. J moves on, but I want to take a moment and reflect on Sweetness. Sweetness, Walter Payton was so entirely better at football than everyone he played against that he could only be described as sweet. Watch him run. You’ll get the nickname.
9 Megatron loses to 5 The Great One
I’m not a hockey fan, but I know who the best hockey player of all time is. I am a baseball fan, and I have no idea who the best baseball player of all time is. The Great One advances past the guy named after a Transformer. The Great One advances 70-33.
3 Primetime over 7 Round Mound of Rebound
Both extremely loud personalities. Sir Charles is better known as Sir Charles Barkley, but the Round Mound moniker is more fitting. The 6’6″ power forward currently ranks 17th on the NBA’s all time rebound list and his 252 pound listed weight seems like its benefiting from the Weight Watchers scale (20 pounds lighter). Both really lived their nicknames: Primetime constantly with the gold and over-the-top anything and the Round Mound constantly burger in hand. Primetime wins because… well… because he wins.
2 El Duque over 6 Mean Joe Green
Mean Joe played for the nickname championship in one bracket, but won this matchup just one other time. I hate to see Mean Joe go. Especially because of this commercial.
1 Magic over 4 Sugar Ray
Magic advances easily and reminds everyone that Sugar Ray didn’t deserve to be in the Sweet 16.
3 Mr. October loses to 2 Pistol Pete
Pistol Pete advances easily and I’m not really sure why. Probably because he’s known quite simply as Pistol Pete. The alliteration earns points.
1 Shoeless Joe Jackson over 5 Refridgerator Perry
Shoeless Joe walks past Refrigerator Perry. The one problem I have with Refrigerator Perry is that he wasn’t an actual refrigerator. I’m thinking if William (his real name) was that committed to the nickname he would have passed out drinks before and after games… like an actual fridge. Hey, maybe all this nickname stuff is making me lose my mind.
Elite 8
1 Shoeless over 2 Pistol Pete
Pistol Pete won on two brackets. He’s an extremely difficult name to justify eliminating. His final score of 129 ranked fourth, but because of how the brackets worked out he loses to Shoeless in the Elite 8. Pistol Pete may have been better off being Rifle Ralph… for a bit more firepower.
2 El Duque over 1 Magic
El Duque wins among the northeast biased voters, but it was a close game. Only 5 points separated these two. I’m imagining El Duque wins because of his high leg kick and the way that it’s more his nickname than Magic’s. Magic is so a part of Mr. Johnson that its hard to separate the nickname from the person. Many voters didn’t like nicknames like that (example 1A: Tiger’s early exit).
3 Primetime over 5 The Great One
Take one look at the picture to the right and tell me Primetime isn’t the perfect nickname for Neon Deion. It’s really 
impressive The Great One has advanced this far as he advanced out of the Opening Round in just 6 of the 13 ballots. Those 6 clearly thought highly of the hockey star. Primetime’s ego, selfish attitude, swagger and arrogance is what will go down in history. Who could ever forget the rap album (Please, I’m begging you to click on this link) he put out in 1994? The way he’d “high step” into the end zone, his “do-rags”, the crazy suits he’d wear as an analyst for CBS and now the NFL Network and this mug shot in which he had the absolute biggest smile humanly possible on his face (classic).
2 Dr. J over 1 Babe Ruth
Arguably the best baseball player of all time goes down in the elite 8 in what could have very easily been a championship matchup. The Bambino, The Curse of the Bambino, The Sultan of Swat, The Colossus of Clout, The Wizard of Whack are all done. Dr. J was so unbelievably talented and smooth that he somehow earned his PhD in basketball. Phenominal game played by these two.
Our Final Four:
Dr. J vs Primetime
El Duque vs Shoeless
Stat of the Day: The Marlins finished 72-90 last year. Good for the 23rd best record in baseball.
–Sean Morash and Max Frankel
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