Old Hoss

Writeup from a recent game:

Right fielder King Kelly had 2 base hits and 4 RBI and Old Hoss Radbourn reeled off a total of 12 strikeouts as the Brighton Bulldogs outscored the Aurora Borealis 11 to 6.

Radbourn(7-7) pitched a fine game. He allowed 9 hits and 4 walks in 9 innings. Brighton totaled 12 hits on the afternoon. The loss was charged to Hippo Vaughn(5-6). He allowed a few too many baserunners giving up 6 hits and 2 walks in 2 innings.

Radbourn was asked about his big strikeout performance, 'Well, it's a little odd when you rack up these numbers on the road - instead of cheers and a running tally in the stands, everything gets real still and quiet. Just strange - but it's nice to be able to take the crowd out of the game.'

Struck me as odd that they call him Old Hoss here. I can't find any reference to his nickname on his card. Must be an artifact from the actual game card set?

I have noticed that on some other cards--I feel like it was Fred Norman--in the write-ups he is "Fredie"---whenever they entered the data they must have keyed in nicknames or other sobriquets.

According to Wikipedia:

Radbourn is also known for being the first person photographed gesturing the middle finger. In 1886, an image was captured of him "flipping off" a member of the New York Giants in a team photo.

Looked up that picture, funny! Also his cigar trading picture he's giving the finger as well.

When he pitches against you, in the game replay, he is listed as "O.Radbourn"

In the team schedule/results page, he's listed as "C.Radbourn"

Looked up that picture, funny! Also his cigar trading picture he's giving the finger as well.

That is funny! Here is the pic from 1886: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ol ... finger.jpg