Bob Ferguson

Robert Vavasour Ferguson (January 31, 1845 – May 3, 1894), spuriously nicknamed "Death to Flying Things", was an American infielder, league official, manager and umpire in the early days of baseball, playing both before and after baseball became a professional sport. In addition to playing and managing, he served as president of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players from 1872 through 1875, the sport's first entirely professional league. His character and unquestioned honesty were highly regarded during a period in baseball history where the game's reputation was badly damaged by gamblers and rowdy behavior by players and fans. However, his bad temper and stubbornness were traits that created trouble for him at times during his career, and caused him to be disliked by many. stems from an error in the 1969 edition of The Baseball Encyclopedia.

Early career A native of Brooklyn, Ferguson played for two of New York's earliest semi-professional clubs in the late 1860s and early 1870s, the Atlantics and Mutuals. Among the explanations for this, it is claimed that, due to his personality, players did not want to emulate him.

On September 1, 1872, Ferguson arranged a benefit game for Al Thake, a 22-year-old left fielder for the Atlantics, who drowned during a fishing trip off Fort Hamilton, in New York Harbor. The old Brooklyn Atlantics and Members of the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings played against each other in the benefit game. Team discipline did improve in his first season, but his overbearing ways proved divisive, causing the team to bicker amongst themselves. Ferguson's temper would flare up often, even when the team was winning.

Ferguson again moved on, this time accepting the player-manager role with the new Troy Trojans team who began their time in the National League in 1879, and would stay in that role until the team folded after the 1882 season.

Umpiring career Ferguson had, on numerous occasions during his playing and managerial career, served as a substitute umpire, but did not start doing it full-time until after his departure from Philadelphia. In 1888, he became a full-time professional umpire, working in the American Association, and later in the Players' League in 1890.

Nickname Ferguson's commonly reported nickname, "Death to Flying Things", often appears on lists of the greatest baseball nicknames. However, it was never his nickname during his playing career or even during his lifetime. The sobriquet was first given to him in the 1969 edition of The Baseball Encyclopedia, which mistakenly assigned Jack Chapman's nickname of "Death to Flying Things" to Ferguson. This, in turn, was not Chapman's nickname during his career either, as it was invented by sportswriter Alfred Spink in his 1910 history of baseball The National Game, nearly 35 years after Chapman's last professional game.

Post-career Ferguson died in Brooklyn of apoplexy at the age of 49. Initially buried in the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn, he was later reinterred in Cypress Hills Cemetery, also in the borough of Brooklyn.