The Incomparable Tony Suck

The Buffalo Bisons a year before Tony Suck joined them.

Shakespeare once wrote:

“What’s in a name? That which we call a roseBy any other name would smell as sweet.”

Conversely, a stinker by any other name would be just as foul. One of the worst baseball players of all time had a name that fit him like a glove.

We’re talking about the incomparable Tony Suck.

To be fair to Mr. Suck, his name didn’t have the negative meaning that it does today. So it is highly unlikely that abusive fans ever taunted him with the refrain of, “Suck, you suck!” He played in the 19th century, when sucking was something that only infants and vampires did. Whatever his name’s connotation, Suck truly…well, sucked.

He was born Anthony Charles Zuck in Chicago on November 11, 1858, less than two weeks after Macy’s department store first opened in New York City, and only a few days before the town of Denver, Colorado was founded. Why Zuck’s name later became Suck remains a mystery.

He was primarily a catcher, shortstop and center fielder, and stood 5 feet 9 inches tall, while tipping the scales at 164 pounds. He began his pro career in 1883 with the Brooklyn Greys of the Interstate Association, followed by a stint with the Fort Wayne Hoosiers in the Northwestern League. Suck’s first National League appearance was with the Buffalo Bisons in September of that season. It was a club that featured no less than four future Hall of Famers in first baseman Dan Brouthers, third sacker Deacon White, pitcher Pud Galvin, and outfielder-manager Jim O’Rourke. But the Bisons finished fifth in the eight-team league, at 52-45. Suck got into only eight games that season, going hitless in seven official at-bats.

In September of ’83, the Union Association was formed, to begin play in 1884. Suck jumped to the new rival circuit, which billed itself as a second major league. Historian Bill James makes a case that the Union Association wasn’t really big league caliber at all, which may partly explain why Suck was able to find employment in it.

Suck suited up for the Chicago club, which by the end of August had moved to Pittsburgh. In 53 games, he hit an awful .149 (28-188) with only one extra-base hit (a double). Burning through three managers, the team won 41 games against 50 losses, good for 6th in the 12-team league. He finished out the summer playing for the UA’s Baltimore Monumentals, where he went 3-10 (all singles) in three games.

Baseballreference.com considers the Union Association to be a major league, and thus his UA numbers are included in Suck’s final big-league numbers: a .151 batting average in 58 games, a .205 on-base percentage, and a .161 slugging percentage. Totals for RBIs are unavailable, but we can reasonably assume Suck didn’t have very many of them (although he did score 21 runs). Suck’s lifetime minor league stats are even worse, as he batted a nifty .120 (12-100) with no home runs in 30 games.

Suck later played for the Augusta (later Memphis) Browns and Charleston Quakers of the Southern League, before finally hanging up his spikes following the 1887 season.

Within a few years, Suck had died, succumbing to pneumonia in Chicago on January 28, 1895 at the young age of 36. According to his obituary in The Logansport Reporter, Suck was “a well-known baseball player and umpire.” He had died, “at his home at the corner of 38th Street and Armour Avenue. He was well-known in this city and elsewhere…The last few years he has been one of the regular umpires of the City league.”