Let's find out:
"Altered form of German Schreckengast, a nickname from Middle High German schreck (imperative of schrecken ‘to frighten’) + den gast ‘the guest’, presumably a nickname for an unfriendly innkeeper."
"A nickname for an unfriendly innkeeper" - I like that. And I wonder if Ossee would've fit the part had he taken a non-baseball career as his profession. See, even as a ballplayer, Ossee had issues with others in hotels. He was Rube Waddell's personal catcher and roommate on road trips, and got so fed up with the pitcher's night time eating routine that he insisted on a "No crackers in bed" rule for Waddell's contract. Waddell signed it, and animal crackers were never an issue for the two again.
In terms of career stats, Schreckengost had a lifetime career slash of .271/.297/.345 over 11 seasons. He's known mostly for catching Addie Joss' perfect game in his final professional game, which is quite the way to finish a career for a catcher.
And Ossee Schreckengost is quite the way to finish off Ballot Eight, which is now complete with his addition to the site! So next week I'll post up the poll and we'll see if we can add some names to the Truly Great portion of the Great Sports Name Hall of Fame!
To see the best sports names of all time, visit the Truly Great Names page.
To see some good sports names that were voted out, visit the Good Names page.
To see the current voting ballot, visit the Ballot page.
This also explains why Dreamworks' "Shrek" is named as such. Also, I'd have to side with the unfriendly inn-keeper, crackers in bed is always a bad idea.
ReplyDeleteAh I didn't even think of that with Shrek! Good call.
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