Great Baseball Nicknames: ‘Three Finger’- Mordecai Brown. One of the great pitchers at the turn of the 20th century- Three Fingers Brown on 239 games and posted an 2:06 ERA- and won 5 World Series games with the Chicago Cubs- even though as a young boy he had lost his index finger on his right hand below the second joint from a corn shredder. Brown missing that finger developed an unorthodox delivery- and a devastating curve ball. He also had the nickname ‘ Miner’ because for a time he had worked as a coal miner. Mordecai ‘ Three Finger’ Brown was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1949.