Ricky Nolasco

Just to get this in before baseball is completely over...
Ricky Nolasco is a pitcher for the Minnesota Twins currently, but spent a some years playing for the Marlins from 2006-2013 and a brief stint in LA just prior to moving up north.

Here is a link to his career stats, courtesy of MLB.com.

KTWIN does all the work and gives us a "get to know" segment from when Ricky joined the team.

Erick Strickland

Erick Strickland was a professional basketball player.  He was born in Nebraska, played at the University of Nebraska, then spent about a decade in the NBA with a bit of success.  What's he up to now?  Here's your answer

According to this site, he's also one of the state of Nebraska's top 100 greatest athletes (as of 2005).  #14

He also gets his hair cut:

Donovan Ricketts

Donovan Ricketts is a goalkeeper who plays in MLS.  He's originally from Jamaica and now plays in Portland.  The first video is some guy breaking down the play of Mr. Ricketts, and the second is Donovan himself during training camp when he first started playing in Portland in 2012.  

Ricky Davis

Ricky Davis is professional basketball player.   He played high school ball in Davenport, IA, and went on to play for the Iowa Hawkeyes (yay!).  He only played one season, 1997, at Iowa, but only because he decided to take a chance at the NBA draft.  He was selected in the first round of the 1998 by the Charlotte Hornets.  He played in 736 games in the NBA from 1998-2010, with a  44.6 shooting %, 78.1 Ft %, with 3.5 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 13.5 points per game.  

Since 2010, he's been a world traveler, playing in Turkey, China, France, Puerto Rico as well as the NBA Developmental League, where he is currently a member of the Erie BayHawks.

Ricky once made a name for himself by trying to get a triple-double by shooting at his own basket in the closing moments of a game

http://youtu.be/WNrehtOZIlY

Ricky also took part in the 2000 NBA dunk contest.

http://youtu.be/zyFWUmoysWE

Rick Show Villains: Richie Incognito

There's been a lot of news in the last week or so about Miami Dolphins player Richie Incognito.  None if it has been good.

To recap:
  Richie Incognito played college football at the University of Nebraska (which is almost enough by itself to be villainous).   He was a highly regarded recruit, and a good player.
 - In the spring of 2003, he was suspended from the team and later reinstated prior to the 2003 season
 - In Feb. 2004, he was involved in a fight that resulted in multiple assault charges.   He was all set to again play the upcoming football season, but was suspended on Sept 1, and subsequently ended his college career at Nebraska.
 - He transferred to the University of Oregon, hoping to find a new team.  He lasted 1 week before being dismissed
  -Once in the NFL:

  On December 13, during the first half of a 47-7 loss to the Tennessee Titans, Incognito drew two 15-yard penalties for headbutting Titans players. Head coach Steve Spagnuolo benched him for the second half, and the two got into a heated confrontation on the sidelines. It was the second time Incognito had been benched for losing his composure; he'd been pulled from the season opener against Seattle for two personal fouls. However, the Titans incident was the last straw; the Rams waived him two days after the game

 - In 2012, Richie was vote 2nd most dirty player in the NFL, only losing out to fellow Nebraska alum, Ndamukong Suh.  In 2009, he was voted the dirtiest player.
- Multiple NFL players have reported that Incognito said or did unacceptable things to them, including Warren Sapp, saying Richie called him the "n-word"
- Now, in Nov 2013, Incognito has been suspended from his current team, the Miami Dolphins amid reports of harassment and bullying of teammate Jonathan Martin.  They include the following voicemail:

"Hey, wassup, you half n----- piece of s---. I saw you on Twitter, you been training 10 weeks. [I want to] s--- in your f---ing mouth. [I'm going to] slap your f---ing mouth. [I'm going to] slap your real mother across the face [laughter]. F--- you, you're still a rookie. I'll kill you.

 - Oh, and apparently he spends time drunk and in a topless(?!) sports bar

http://youtu.be/SW9C4qi5Y80

To summarize:  Richie Incognito appears to be, by many accounts, a grade-a asshole and douchebag.

[Update:]

Over the weekend, Incognito spoke out, including the following:

"When words are put in a context, I understand why a lot of eyebrows get raised," Incognito told Fox Sports during the interview, which aired Sunday. "But people don't know how Jon and I communicate to one another. For instance, a week before this went down, Jonathan Martin texted me on my phone, 'I will murder your whole f------ family.'
"Now, do I think Jonathan Martin was going to murder my family? Not one bit. He texted me that. I didn't think he was going to kill my family. I knew that was coming from a brother. I knew it was coming from a friend. I knew it was coming from a teammate."

I'm glad that my friends and I don't text each other that we'll kill each other's families.  That seems odd. 

Basketball Hall of Fame

I mentioned in a prior Rick Pitino post that he'd been selected for the basketball Hall of Fame.   Over the weekend the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame held its enshrinement ceremony, where Mr. Pitino and Richard Guerin were both inducted. 

I'd never heard of Mr. Guerin, so here's his bio from the Naismith website:

RICHARD GUERIN [Player] -- Guerin is widely known as one of best all-around players ever in the NBA, scoring over 14,676 points during his 13-year stint. The six-time NBA All-Star was a member of the New York Knicks from 1956-1963 and was the first Knick to score 2,000 points in a single season (1961-62). He averaged 20.1 points per game with the team and recorded 4,278 rebounds and 4,211 assists in his career. He finished as a player/coach for the St. Louis/Atlanta Hawks, compiling an NBA coaching record of 327-291 with the Hawks organization and was named NBA Coach of the Year in 1968. Rewriting the basketball record books as a collegiate player at Iona College, Guerin scored 1,375 points, including a career average of 19.6 points per game and graduated the leading scorer in Iona basketball history. The New York Knicks drafted him in the second round in 1956.

  Likewise, here's Pitino's:

RICK PITINO [Coach] -- Pitino is the only coach in men’s history to lead three different schools to NCAA Final Four appearances as he did with Providence College, University of Kentucky and University of Louisville. He led Kentucky to the 1996 National Championship and then reached the title game again with the Wildcats the following year. He has won over 600 games in his collegiate career, reached the Final Four seven different times (1987, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2005, 2011 and 2013), led his teams to 21 postseason appearances and won nine conference tournament championships. He earned Coach of the Year honors from different sources three different years. Pitino also held two stints as an NBA head coach with the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics, leading the Knicks to two playoff appearances.

The Hall of Fame also posted the speeches on youtube today (after the jump)

Ricky Watters

Since I know many of Rick Shows readers are in the same age bracket as me, I'm sure they are likely to remember Mr. Ricky Watters, NFL running back of the 1990s.

He played college ball at Notre Dame (bleh!) and was drafted by the 49ers (yay!) in the second round of the 1991 draft.  After sitting out that first season due to injury, Ricky was the starting running back for the team for the next three seasons as the 49ers went to the NFC Championship game ('92,'93) or the Super Bowl ('94).  He then joined the Philadelphia Eagles for the following three seasons, followed by four seasons with the Seattle Seahawks.

Ricky ended his professional career with 10,643 rushing yards and 4.1 yards per carry, with 78 TDs.  He also had 4248 yards receiving and 13 TDs.  Ricky Watters didn't go unrewarded, as he was a 5-time Pro Bowl member and a 3 time All-Pro selection.  He has not, however, been inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame.

He is now active in charities and his foundation as well as coaching.  Find out all about Ricky at his website, http://rickywatters.com/

Ricky set an NFL record with 5 touchdowns in a playoff game once.  Here's part 1.  You can also find them all easily on his website or via his official youtube channel

Did I forget to mention that he did a song with Method Man for the NFL Jams album?

http://youtu.be/Qb-zk5hjJVY

Rick Ankiel

Rick Ankiel is a professional baseball player, currently unemployed (a free agent, if you will).   Rick also has a rather unique story among MLB players. 

 He was a pitcher, selected in the second round of the 1997 MLB draft by the St Louis Cardinals. In his first full season, 2000, he came in 2nd in NL Rookie of the Year voting and had 9.98 strikeouts and allowed 7.05 hits per 9 innings.  In the postseason of that year, however, Rick started to have trouble controlling his pitches.  The next season, his troubles continued and he was demoted from the Majors.  After missing 2002 with injury, he played in the minor leagues in 2003 before another injury.  In 2005, he announced that he was going to become an outfielder (local side note:  his wikipedia page has a pic of him in 2005 playing in the Quad Cities).   He tried out with the Cardinals in 2006, hoping to make it back to the major league, but was sidelined by another injury.  After beginning 2007 back in the minors, he got called up to St Louis in Aug of 2007, where he played through the 2009 season, somewhat successfully.

Over the past 4 seasons he has played for 5 different teams (he was in Washington for '11/'12 and on two different teams in each '10 and '13) as his production has diminished, leading to his current status.

His career stats are here, and someone on youtube did us the favor of this career summary:

http://youtu.be/JN_wWvRjoAA

Rick Porcello

Rick Porcello is a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers.  They play a game called "baseball" that is apparently somewhat popular during the non-winter months.   I've heard it referred to as a pastime before.

He's been with the Tigers since he made his professional debut 2009, with a 48-44 record and a 4.67 ERA.

He also recently had a bad day.  Below is his line from Detroit's recent game against the Angels. He was the starter. Ouch.

PITCHERS	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Rick Porcello (L,0-2)	0.2	9	9	9	1	0	1	11.08

If you're too lazy to click on his name above and read the wikipedia article, someone has taken care of the problem.  Here's a computer reading it to you!

Oh...and he might not be the best of friends with Kevin Youkilis

Rik Smits

Rik Smits is a retired NBA player.   He earned his nickname "The Dunkin Dutchman" by being Dutch...and dunking.  The dunking part wasn't much of a challenge since Rik was 7'4".  He spent his whole career (1988-2000) with the Indiana Pacers, earning one NBA All-Star appearance.

Here's a fun little low-def highlight reel with an unexpected soundtrack

http://youtu.be/4LOw1Du8VLY

Ricky Rubio

Ricky Rubio is an NBA player for the Minnesota Timberwolves. You might know him from such films as "gets drafted by Minnesota but refuses to play there for two years, instead choosing to stay in Spain."  It was a good flick; ask any Timberwolves fan.

Ricky started playing in the Euroleague at age 16 and put up some pretty good numbers in his European games.  He also played for the U-16 Spanish national team in '06 and the senior team in the '08 Olympics.  His achievement list has a lot on it for someone who is only 21.  His first NBA season was successful, and I think he lived up the hype surrounding him.  Unfortunately, he also tore his ACL and didn't finish the season.  Let's hope, for the sake of the ricking world that his recovery is speedy and he is better than ever in the upcoming season.

Here's a highlight video from his first NBA season.  Nifty passer, this Ricky.

Rickey Henderson

Rickey Henderson, the "Man of Steal," is one of the greatest Major League Baseball players of all time and my favorite baseball player growing up.  He played for over 20 years and still has the records for stolen bases (1406, current active leader is around 560), runs scored (2295, current active leader around 1846), lead-off home runs (81), single season stolen bases (130), unintentional walks (2129).  He also ranked highly in a number of other categories.  You can check out his full stats here, including some yearly rankings/awards.  They're pretty nice.

I found this highlight video of his career.

What a great ballplayer.

(update:  I just recalled that I have this jewel in my baseball cards.  If a titan of the food industry like Jimmy Dean approves, then we know Rickey's legit)

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?