Bubba Morton

Wycliffe Nathaniel "Bubba" Morton (December 13, 1931 – January 14, 2006) was an American right fielder in Major League Baseball who played for the Detroit Tigers (1961–1963), Milwaukee Braves (1963) and California Angels (1966–1969). He batted and threw right-handed.

A native of Washington, D.C., Morton graduated from Armstrong High School in 1950 and, after a stint in the Coast Guard, attended Howard University from 1954 to 1957, earning two varsity letters each in baseball and football.

In 1955 Morton became the third black player signed by the Detroit Tigers (though others beat him to the major leagues), one of the first black men to play for the post-war Terre Haute Huts of the Three-I League in 1956, and one of the first black men to play for the Durham Bulls. With the Bulls in 1957, he batted .310 with 18 home runs and 82 runs batted in to lead the club to their first championship.

A light-hitting, strong-armed outfielder, Morton played with the Tigers as a reserve in parts of three seasons. He was purchased by the Milwaukee Braves from Detroit in the 1963 mid-season. During his brief tenure with the Braves, he was the roommate of Hank Aaron. The next two years Morton played at Triple-A for the Milwaukee Braves and Cleveland Indians organizations, until he was acquired by the California Angels at the end of the 1965 season.

Bubba

In American usage, bubba is a relationship nickname formed from brother and given to boys, especially eldest male siblings, to indicate their role in a family. For some boys and men, bubba is used so pervasively that it replaces the given name...The nickname may also be used outside the family by friends as a term of endearment.

The linguist Ian Hancock has described similarities between the African language Krio and Gullah, the creole language of African-Americans in the isolated Sea Islands of South Carolina and points out that the Krio expression bohboh (boy) appears in Gullah as buhbuh, which may account for the "bubba" of the American South. (http://www.yale.edu/glc/gullah/06.htm)

Robert Ferguson notes in his “English Surnames”’; Bubba corresponds with the German bube, a boy. This matches Saxon and Hibernian tradition.

Because of its association with the southern part of the United States, bubba is also often used outside the South as a pejorative to mean a person of low economic status and limited education. Bubba may also be taken to mean one who is a "good ol' boy." In the US Army and Marines, bubba can mean a lay soldier, similar to grunt but with connotations of endearment instead of derision (e.g., "Can you make that device easier to work with, 'cus every bubba is gonna have to use it.").

Bubba (fish)

Bubba (c. 1982 – August 22, 2006) was a Queensland grouper who resided at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Illinois. Bubba is believed to be the first fish to undergo chemotherapy. He was often nicknamed "The Super Grouper."

History

The 69.3 kilogram Bubba was donated to the aquarium in 1987 by an anonymous donor; at the time he was a female about ten inches long. Bubba switched gender to male (being a protogynous hermaphrodite) in the mid-1990s and eventually grew to 154 pounds while living in the aquarium's "Wild Reef" shark exhibit. In 2001, Bubba developed an unusual growth on his forehead, which was eventually diagnosed to be malignant; the aquarium called in veterinarians to remove the growth surgically and treat Bubba with chemotherapy that year, and again in 2003 when it regrew.

Shedd officials stated that Bubba was popular with cancer survivors, especially children, and was a favorite of visitors. The oncology department of Hope Children's Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, recognized Bubba with a tile in the ward.