Ricks in the Pros

SBnation  had an article not too long ago detailing the decline of Bobs in American professional sports, entitled "The Bob Famine" (Thanks to reader EtR for finding this).  Essentially, it found that nearly no professional athletes are named Bob anymore.  Sure, there are some Bobby and Roberts, but Bob is almost extinct.  Thanks to Iowa alum Bob Sanders for holding down the fort.

It got me thinking about where Ricks are at in that regard.  I'm not really sure where the writer got his data, and I'm not going to take the time to do too detailed of an analysis.  However, CBSsports.com makes it easy to get a basic look at where things stand.  They're not so good, my friends.  I have no idea if they were ever very good, but they're not right now.  Luckily, here at Rick Show we appreciate all manner of Ricks, so things are made slightly better.

First things first. You'll notice in the linkage that I was jumping back and forth between sites, because some made it easier to search for variations than others.  Some places seem to be obsessed with people's last names, and some don't (or do) pick up variations of a name when you're not looking for them.

Searching for the NFL turns up no current Ricks.  NFL.com's search brings up a handful of Rickys (but except Ricky Williams, none really have much in the way of stats).  There are also a number of  Richards, and a decent amount of Patricks, Derricks, etc.  NFL.com also has a historical search function, and a simple search for "rick" picks up Rick along with Rick variations, but you can see that there used to be Ricks.  Used to.

I find zero active Ricks in the NBA as well, although per usual, Derricks are showing up well.  Of course Ricky Rubio is there, too.  (Here is the historical search on NBA.com)

A CBSsports.com search on MLB finds two Ricks.  If you're not discouraged by the fact that the MLB.com search says "enter last name,"  you'll find it shows three Ricks.  It also has a historical search function, where you'll find a decent number of Ricks.

The NHL search comes up with two also (or three, depending on who you ask).

Now that I've done all of that, I'm not really sure what the point is if there even is one.  All I know is that there are not a lot of people using the name Rick in the major US pro sports.  Derricks, Patricks and Richards are going to have to get us through this.  Thoughts?