Bob and Babe Day: Celebrating Fat Boys Who Made Good

As I was enjoying our website's celebration of Babe Ruth Week, I stumbled across an interesting fact: the Bambino shares his birthday with none other than the Tribe's own Bob Wickman. Since the Babe also shares Wickman's (and my own) waist size, I thought it would be fitting to pay tribute to some of the other great fat guys in the history of sports.

Before we start, let me make it clear that I'm not going to talk about the guys who are just scary big (like every current NFL linemen). Instead, I'm just going to throw out a short list of some rolly-polly fat boys that nobody would mistake for great athletes, except for the fact that they were.

Anyway, in the words of another famous fat guy, a-waay we go!

Wilbur "Fats" Henry, pictured above, is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Henry played the offensive and defensive line for the Canton Bulldogs. Like Ruth, his pudgy appearance masked tremendous athletic ability-- Henry once punted a ball 94 yards and drop-kicked a 50 yard field goal.

Tony Gwynn was a career .338 hitter who picked up 3,141 hits in his 20 years with the Padres and is an almost certain first ballot Hall of Famer. In his early days, Gwynn was a fairly prolific base stealer. In 1987, Gwynn stole 56 bases; shortly thereafter, he began a love affair with the buffet line that continues to this day. In his later years, Gwynn was listed at 5'11" and 220 lbs. That's almost as funny as Bob Wickman being listed at 6'1" and 240 lbs. Rival fans were notorious for giving Gwynn a hard time about his weight. At Wrigley Field, Cubs fans would chant "Snack Bar" every time he came to the plate, and frequently threw Snickers bars at him. I'm sure that bruised his self-esteem, but perhaps his eight NL batting titles and five Gold Gloves provided some consolation to him.

Art Donovan is another fat guy made good. Not only did he get himself elected to the Hall of Fame as a defensive tackle, but his book Fatso: Football When Men Were Really Men was so entertaining that he became a staple of the talk show circuit. Even today, it seems unthinkable for ESPN to air a Sports Century episode focusing on an old-time football player without Donovan's ample mug getting some air time.

John Kruk is baseball's answer to Art Donovan. He will be forever famous for his response to a woman who criticized him for being for being too fat to be an athlete: "Lady, I ain't no athlete, I'm a ballplayer." He was a pretty good one too. Kruk was a lifetime .300 hitter and had a career on-base percentage of .397. He was selected to three All-Star Games, and had one of the most hilarious at-bats in history during the 1993 Game. Randy Johnson gave Kruk some 98 mph chin music with his first pitch, and Kruk flailed away at the rest of Johnson's pitches while he tried to move as far away from the plate as he could as quickly as he could. Kruk can now be seen bursting out of his four button suits as an analyst on ESPN's Baseball Tonight.

There you have it, a handful of great fatties in honor of Wickie and the Babe. Now the big question: would Angelina be seen in public with any of us?