Whither Bud?

Something that struck me while writing about Bud Olsen was how that nickname – “Bud” – has almost vanished from the sports landscape.

There are still a few Buds here and there, Bud Norris, for example, will likely spend at least half a dozen more years in MLB, but Bud is a shrinking member (ew, that sounded at lot worse than I anticipated) of the nickname lexicon. If you don’t believe me, check this incontrovertible chart as evidence.

See, you can’t dispute facts! There were between six and nine Buds in pro baseball, football and basketball almost every year between 1960 and 1987. It was a Budaissance, if you will. A Budapalooza. A Budapolis. If there was a city to host them, it would have been Budapest.

So what happened? Why the dearth of Buds? Why are there no Bud Suzukis, no Bud Pujolses? Are you telling me that Mike Blowers wouldn’t have sounded better as Bud Blowers? That Chase Budinger is superior to Bud Budinger? I think not.

Well, if I was Malcolm Gladwell, I’m sure I could curry together some half-assed theory that Uses Capital Letters - maybe I’d call it the Country Nickname Codicil, or the Rural Moniker Conundrum.

But I’m not MG, so you’re left with my own half-assed theories to explain why Bud virtually disappeared around 1987 from the sports world.

Theory Number 1: Negative Connotations of Bud

In the late 80s you had Bud Bundy emerging as a force on Married With Children, and not as a good force. Few would want to be associated with the metrosexual eunuch, so it had to have played a role. Likewise, Pauly Shore’s overuse of the phrase, “Hey, Buuuudy” on MTV (and wherever else he could get himself paid) didn’t help. So that’s two solid blows against Bud right there.

Theory Number 2: The Sophistication of America

Just as Dizzy Dean represented the slowly dying embers of rural America in the 1950s and 1960s on television broadcasts (along with the Beverly Hillbillies, et al), perhaps the Bud nickname was the final flame in a now-extinguished fire. With mass media overtaking the country, pockets of rural areas became exposed to a wide array of choices heretofore unavailable to them. Sure, you could call your kid Bud, but, unlike his dad, he didn’t have to accept it because he knew there were better options out there.

I figure it’s a little from Theory 1 and a little from Theory 2. Feel free to mock in the comments.