Dick Stuart

Who was Dick Stuart?

Richard Lee Stuart was a Major League Baseball first baseman from 1958 to 1966 and 1969. In 1967 and 1968, he played in Japan for the Taiyo Whales. Throughout his baseball career, Stuart was known as a fine hitter, but a subpar fielder, garnering the unique nickname of "Dr. Strangeglove" for his poor defense. That was a play on words of the movie Dr. Strangelove, which was released in the middle years of Stuart's career. Similarly, the movie Goldfinger inspired another nickname, "Stonefingers". In 1963, he set a record by committing 29 errors, a major league record for first basemen that still stands. Yet another less-than-flattering nickname for Stuart was "The Man With The Iron Glove". It has been noted that had the designated hitter rule existed then, he would have been an excellent candidate for such. Despite his difficulties in the field, he was the first first baseman to record three assists in one inning.

Stuart, in tribute to his poor fielding ability, also earned the nickname "The Ancient Mariner," a reference to an opening line in the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The attributed line being: "It is an ancient mariner, And he stoppeth one of three," suggesting Stuart could only stop one of three balls hit at him the same way the Ancient Mariner in Coleridge's poem stops one of three wedding guests.