Helen Zaltzman (2:27)

But if you can prepay your membership this year, we really think you'll enjoy this double autographed card again. This card will only be available by this one method, prepaying for a membership at whatever level makes you comfortable@maximumfun.org join Do It Now.

Jake Heath (2:46)

All right, Episode I have a little treat that tickled my heart and I hope it does for you too. Ooh, but Helen, I will say it does involve going down a rabbit hole about baseball. So no worries if you want to duck out of here and I can handle the rest. Byeeeeee. Oh, Helen. All right, well, here we go. Okay, so this is a tale that does involve baseball, but it really is more about needing to know answers and about how wonderful it is to connect with like minded people, some of whom have podcasts, who have a passion for researching things that ultimately probably don't matter, but also kind of do. So as you all probably know, we started doing our podcast for the radio, and when we did so, we added an online quiz for our listeners with trivia questions that you get to play in each of our guest topics. If you don't know, it's@laist.com gofactyourself you'll find a quiz for every new episode that we release with bonus trivia questions that you get to play with. Anyhow, back in October we had one to write about Kirk Gibson's 1988 World Series series game winning home run, which was a topic of Josh McDermott from the Walking Dead when he was a guest on our show. I thought I would start out and write an easy one, asking what was Kirk Gibson's nickname, which of course was Gibby. Well, so for each question we write, we also had a little fun fact or frill as they call it in the game show biz. And I thought, well, who else had the nickname Gibby? Because I had heard it used other times. So I looked through baseballreference.com, wonderful website, and I found seven players. All had been nicknamed Gibby, and I noticed that all of them had the last name of Gibson except for John Gibbons. And then there was another player named Earl Pruis P R U E S S and his nickname was also Gibby. And I wondered why did someone named Earl Pruis have the nickname Gibby? But all I found online were more references to the fact that Gibby was his actual nickname, including an actual autograph with his using that nickname, but no explanation as to why. So I thought this would be the perfect question for my very favorite podcast called Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild doesn't just cover the usual baseball stories, but it loves taking these odd left turns and detours into anything related to baseball culture and history. And since they also make episodes in the off season, which we were approaching at the time when there is very little actual baseball content to cover, the topics get really beautifully weird. And it's one of my favorite things about the show. Now, we've had co host Meg Rowley on as a guest on Go Fact Yourself before, and over the years I had developed a correspondence with her co host Ben Lindbergh us when we're in a panic trying to find a baseball expert, and he's been very helpful with that and we've been able to help them with some stuff as well. Anyhow, so on October 31st I wrote this to Ben okay, Ben, it's time to fill the podcast with questions for the off season. According to Baseball Reference, seven players have been nicknamed Gibby, all of whom had the last name Gibson, except for John Gibbons and Earl Pruis. Why was Earl Pruis nicknamed Gibby? I even saw an autograph where he put his nickname in quotes.

Ben Lindbergh (5:46)

Thank you.

Jake Heath (5:46)

Thanks J. Keith Stratty Van Stratton so I sent that off. The topic left my mind completely and then nearly a month later, I think it was the day after Thanksgiving no less, I was blessed with hearing what you were about to hear. So buckle up and enjoy. It's about 10 minutes and then I'll come back and comment on it.

Ben Lindbergh (6:04)

All right, just been here now and I have one more email to share with you. I wanted to read this earlier, even though I had no answer then. I can't claim to have a complete answer now either, but I've come closer to an answer. I have fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole thanks to listene Patreon supporter Jay Keith, who's the host of the Go Fact Yourself podcast. It's a trivia game show and Jay Keith sent me a trivia question which I've been trying hard to answer, and here it According to Baseball Reference, seven players have been nicknamed Gibby, all of whom had the last name Gibson, except for John Gibbons and Earl Proust. Why was Earl Proust nicknamed Gibby? Now your first question might be who the heck is Earl Proust? And that one I can kind of answer. He was essentially the moonlight gram of the St. Louis Browns. He played a single game for the Browns in 1920, his age 25 season, and the Browns had signed him a couple months earlier. I found an article in The Shreveport Journal, July 21, 1920 Earl Proust to have trial with Browns Earl Proust who as a member of the Shreveport team during the spring did not look good enough to remain in Class B company, showed so much improvement as a member of the Oakdale, Louisiana State League team that the St. Louis Browns have signed him for a trial in Fast company. Preuss hit.375 in the Louisiana League and became one of the little circuit's leading ball hawks. Preuss came to Shreveport as a left handed batsman, but on the advice of manager Smith, switched his attack to the other side of the plate in an effort to put more punch in his hitting. After leaving Shreveport, Preuss again attempted to alter his hitting style but was so helpless on a curveball that he switched a second time and was a big success as a right hander. So September 15, 1920 rolls around, the Browns are up big. Some substitutes come in, including Preuss. He enters the game to play right field. He made a couple put outs, some accounts say he had an assist and in the seventh inning he came to the plate with future hall of Famer Wade Hoyt on the mound. He was wearing one that day and Pruce drew a walk and even though the Browns were up by 12 runs, he and the man on first did a double steal. Couple batters later, Preuss scored on an infield single and that was that for his major league career. A perfect 1,000 OBP. Stole a base, scored a run, credited with 0.1 wins above replacement by Baseball Reference, though zero at fan graphs and he never returned to the majors. Now if you go to Earl Proos Baseball Reference bullpen page, it mentions Jay Keith's fun fact. Preuss had the nickname Gibby. The only major leaguer to have that nickname without actually having Gibson or Gibbons as a first, middle or last name. And it's true. You search Gibby on Baseball Reference, you get Bob Gibson, Kirk Gibson, Kyle Gibson, Charlie Gibson, Norwood Gibson, John Gibbons and Gibby Brack. Given name Gilbert. And then you have Earl Preuss. Earl Henry Preuss. P R U E S S. I probably would have said Prewis, but I know better now. Born in 1895 in Chicago, died in 1979 in Missouri. How does Earl Henry Preuss become Gibby? Well, I did my usual searching in the newspaper archives. I found articles Earl Proust. I found some references to Gibby, but no origin story for the nickname. So I pulled out the big guns. I emailed the hall of Fame, I emailed some historians, including John Thorne, official historian of mlb. I bothered these baseball luminaries with the question of why Earl Proust, who played one big League game more than a century ago was nicknamed Gibby, and no one could answer the question. The hall of Fame library had books that contained the nickname, but no explanation of the nickname. John Thorne sent me Gibby's enlistment papers for World War I. I have Earl Proust's Social Security number, but I do not know why he went by Gibby. And he was clearly proud of the nickname because you can search for Earl Proust autographs and he himself wrote Gibby in quotation marks. Now, one of the historians I emailed was Jacob Pomrencki, former effectively Wildcast, and he pointed out that Earl appears to have living descendants. He suggested that one of them might know something. His last living child sadly died in 2018. He was also named Earl Proust, and he went by Dick. You might wonder, are non sequitur nicknames a tradition in this family? Why did that Earl Proust go by Dick? Well, his middle name was Dixon, so that makes more sense. But he was survived by children, Earl, Earl Sr's grandchildren. So I started searching, trying to find a phone number, other contact info for Amy Proust, Earl's granddaughter. Found a bunch of numbers that didn't work. Found one that went through and I got the voicemail, but there was no message. So it was just a shot in the dark message in a bottle. I left my message. I had no idea whether I had the right number. And then I was thrilled sometime later to check my phone and hear this voicemail.

Announcer (10:17)

Hi, Ben, this is Amy Proust returning your phone call. And I know I was given the answer to this when I was a child. I'm going to go through my grandfather's sports memorabilia and see if I can dig it up. And I'll ask my cousins as well, because there was a specific reason for it and I just don't know it off the top of my head. So let me do a little research and get back to you. Thanks, bye.

Ben Lindbergh (10:43)

So bless Amy Proulx. She got this call out of the blue from a complete stranger asking about her grandfather's nickname. And she immediately started rummaging through his papers, calling relatives, trying to determine where the nickname came from. And she was texting me as she went through the scrapbooks. He was a gifted athlete. I think the nickname Gibby actually started when he played football. We'll get back to you when I can find more info. And then sometime later. Hi, Ben. After combing through my grandfather's sports memorabilia and articles about him, I couldn't find the origins of his Gibby nickname. If my memory Serves it's possible it started as a childhood nickname. He played football, baseball and basketball as a kid. He dropped out of School at 14 to support the family. I seem to remember some connection to his playing football when the nickname came up, but I can't be sure. If I find something more definitive, I'll let you know. And Amy, New Earl. That's what the family called him. His friends called him Gibby. She says he died when I was around 13. My grandparents retired away from the family, so we only saw them once or twice a year when we visited. I would spend hours going over his World War I and sports scrapbooks. I was young but knew both were important. I. I hoped my grandfather would come in to tell me about his life. He never talked about the war. He saw active combat. I think he had PTSD before they knew what it was. He just wasn't much of a talker. I regret how much information was lost, including potentially where the nickname came from. But I did learn a lot of other information about Earl Proust, for instance. He was an incredible athlete. Well, yeah, he made the majors, of course. He had to be. But not just in baseball. In virtually every sport. Amy sent me a picture of a signed photo that the great boxer Jack Dempsey gave to Earl Proust. Or as he wrote, Gibby Prousthe greatest Chicago all around athlete of all times. That's what Dempsey called him. And I can sort of see why. Amy sent me some old articles about Earl catching up with him later in life. One mentions he played pro football, pro baseball and was a pro boxer. Mr. Prus had 70 fights and was never knocked down. Another source says he fought for the fun of it as a middleweight from 1915 to 1924. That's while he was playing baseball, by the way. Had 60, 64amateur and six professional fights, losing only one decision. Also, this article kind of casually says he fell from a cliff while in France. This was in World War I and broke his back. And this was before he played for the Browns. He entered bicycle races, he played some hockey, he ran track. In his later years he became an accomplished bowler and golfer. And this was all while he worked for the Bell Telephone Company for 38 years as an engineer despite never advancing beyond eighth grade. He was a revered referee. He was an American Legion official. The guy did it all. Forget about two way player. This guy was at least a three way player playing at least three sports professionally, seemingly at the same time. Amy says it seems impossible that he played so many sports simultaneously and so well. Football overlapped baseball boxing overlapped football. Sometimes I wonder if he had some kind of sports ADD and just got tired of it, so moved on to the next thing. Multi sport pro players were more common then, but it's still pretty impressive. Another article Amy sent lists all these accomplishments and more and then says space does not permit further details on Proust's sports career and we are just skimming it. That article tantalizingly also says all during his athletic career Proust went by the nickname of Gibby. How can you write that and not include just a few more words explaining where the nickname came from? Isn't that fascinating? You see one big league game and it seems poignant for one day he reached the pinnacle and never got to breathe that rarefied air again. But it turns out that was the tip of the iceberg. There was so much more to Earl Gibbie Proust than that one big league game and someone who seems obscure now was an absolute legend in his time and place. One more thing about Gibby, amy said. My grandfather didn't talk to me much about his athletic career, but he did tell me about the Black Sox. He played them. He was angry after they threw the World Series because fewer people were showing up to his games. As a result, he wrote a letter to the editor condemning betting on sports. Can't imagine how shocked he'd be with the proliferation of sports betting today. I found that article and I'll let Earl have the last word. This is what he wrote for the Oakdale, Louisiana Journal, July 8, 1920 let's abolish this Evil I take the liberty to appeal to the men whose enthusiasm waxes so high that they wager on ball games. Consider the future of the boys and young men who attend the games. Abolish open gambling at the ballpark. Your broad mind will admit that it is a bad example to set for the young boys, and I know you are interested in their future welfare. Organized baseball is becoming more and more a clean, manly sport. You can help its progress by abolishing open gambling to ensure success and to furnish clean sport for all the Oakdale team desires and requires the moral support of the entire community. I venture to say, and I know that many people who enjoy clean sport do not attend our games because they see evil of open betting. Think it over and accept this earnest appeal from a ballplayer who is interested in elevating baseball to the highest plane, Earl Proust. So thanks for sending me on this nickname. Chase J. Keith I'm disappointed that I still don't know why Earl Proust was called Gibby. But I'm glad that I know so many other things about Earl Proust. Thanks to Amy for her help. If she's able to answer the question definitively, I will report back. And if you somehow have information about Earl Proust's nickname, please get in touch. The Earl Gibbie Proust tip line is open and if you want to know more about Earl, check the show page where I've included some links to these articles and documents.

Jake Heath (15:54)

Okay, so welcome to the Rabbit Hole. I checked in with Ben this week asking if there's been any update and he said afraid not. So if you happen to know why Earl Pruis was nicknamed Gibby and want to solve this multi decade, multi podcast, multiplatform mystery, please do let us know. This is an itch that needs a good scratch. In the meantime, don't forget we do need you to make this show happen. So please do go to maximumfun.org join to join, upgrade or boost your Max Fund members. Make sure you select Go Factor yourself as a podcast that you listen to. We appreciate it so much. Literally we could not be here without you. All right, we're back soon during the drive with even more fun stuff for you. We continue to rally for the Max Fun Drive. Thank you again for your support and Happy Baseball Maximum Fun, a worker owned network of artist owned shows supported directly by you.