Scholarly Pursuits

IT'S ONE of the most pressing questions in the history of American sports: Why did Dave Kingman (below) strike out so much? We may now have an answer.

Next month two professors—one from UC San Diego, one from Yale—will publish a paper in the journal Psychological Science that proves the existence of what they call "moniker maladies." The idea is that your name defines your destiny. Kids whose names start with A or B were found to be more likely to make good grades than those whose names start with C or D. The researchers also looked at baseball players and their penchant for striking out. Sure enough, they found that hitters whose names began with K fanned 18.8% of the time, compared with 17.2% for everyone else—a difference that is large enough to be statistically significant. The study didn't examine hitters who walk, but surely it's no coincidence that the alltime leader in bases on balls is none other than Barry Bonds.

Meanwhile, the Brits have been looking into an equally important question: Who ate all the pies? For years fans have been chanting this from the terraces in the direction of any portly player, ref or coach in their sights: Who ate all the pies? Who ate all the pies? You fat bastard! You fat bastard! You ate all the pies!

Now historians at Oxford say they have identified the first alleged serial pie hoarder: William (Fatty) Foulke (right), who played in goal at the turn of the 20th century. Foulke weighed 24 stone, or 336 pounds. (He once brought a game to a halt when he decided to hang from the crossbar, snapping it in half.) According to the newly published Penguin Book of Clich�s, in 1894 Foulke became the first victim of the chant, which was delivered—lovingly, one assumes—by fans of his own team, Sheffield United.