[Jestre]

Originally Posted by Big Six

It seems to me that a lot of the "Chiefs" and "Heinies" were very rarely called anything else, especially after they became famous. Guys like Heinie Groh, Heinie Zimmermann, Heinie Manush; Chief Meyers, Chief Bender. Those handles become "names," in the sense that nicknames like Jack, Jimmy, Eddie, or Bill aren't really "nicknames."

The "Reds" probably weren't always redheads, even though you would have seen lots of Irish guys with red hair in the early 1900s. Some guys were called "Red" because they had fair skin and sunburned easily. I had a ballplaying relative who was called Red for that reason--a fair-skinned Finnish-American.

Same thing could be said about Lefty Grove, Lefty Gomez, Lefty Leifield, Lefty O'Doul....