best name ever for a pro athlete
Johnny Dickshot played six seasons in the major leagues, and the last was his best as he posted a .302 batting average with 10 triples and 18 stolen bases. When he was a player he attracted attention by calling himself "the ugliest man in baseball", and he continues to get attention due to his unusual last name.
Early career
He appeared in 9 games with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1936 hitting .222. Most of the season, he was with the Buffalo Bisons of the International League, hitting .359 with 33 steals to lead the league in stolen bases.
The Pirates of the time had an outfield that consisted of Paul Waner, Lloyd Waner, and Woody Jensen. Getting into a game meant displacing one of them.
In 1937, Dickshot became the fourth outfielder. In 1938, he appeared in only 29 games as another Johnny, Johnny Rizzo, became the third outfielder when Jensen slumped to .200. Dickshot hit only .229 but had a .372 on-base percentage.
He was sold to the Boston Bees in the off-season after 1938, but before he could appear in a game with them, he was traded to the New York Giants organization.
In 1939, he led the International League with the Jersey City Skeeters, hitting .355. He was up for 10 games with the Giants, hitting .235 but with a .333 on-base percentage.
He moved to the Hollywood Stars in 1941. In 1943, he hit .352 and had a 33-game hitting streak.
With the Chicago White Sox
In 1944, five years after he had last been in the majors, Dickshot came up again with the Chicago White Sox, getting 162 at-bats. He was now 34 years old. He hit .253 on a team that hit .247.
1945 was his big year, at age 35. He was third in the American League in batting, ninth in runs scored, fourth in triples, and fifth in stolen bases. The three White Sox outfielders in 1945 were Dickshot, Wally Moses and Oris Hockett. They all hit at least .290, with Dickshot having the highest average in a league that hit .255
The next year, 1946 with the war over, the White Sox had three entirely new outfielders. None of them hit as high as .290.
Neither Dickshot nor Hockett, who was also 35 in 1945, ever played again in the majors. Moses, one year younger and the only one in the 1945 outfield who had been a regular prior to the war, was sold by the White Sox in July 1946 to the Boston Red Sox and played through 1951.
Outside of baseball
Dickshot worked in a steel mill during the offseason. After retirement, he ran a tavern called "The Dugout" for many years. He often called home to his wife, asking that she consult his baseball encyclopedia to settle disputes about baseball trivia.
Miscellany
Dickshot proclaimed himself the "ugliest man in baseball", earning him the nickname "Ugly", as in "Ugly Johnny Dickshot".
Related sites
In Loving Memory of John Oscar Dickshot
