A stellar fielding infielder from an era where players wore the most primitive equipment and played on fields that were only a shade better than cow-pastures, Ferguson's nickname is the 19th Century equivalent of Brooks Robinson's "Hoover"

He was a player-manager, piling up a 299-373 won-lost record, and was for a while the president of the National Association, the precursor of the modern National League. He was regarded as a man of sterling character and honesty, in an era of dubious ethics and rowdiness in the game.

Despite a ferocious temper he later became an umpire, and once broke a player's arm with a bat to settle an argument.

While he may have had his quirks, I'm very curious to know the source of the information contained in Eschew's review below. I've never seen any information elsewhere to indicate a history of the kind of insanity described there.

A great old 19th century nickname for a guy who later became an umpire. Ferguson is one of those guys from the earliest days of professional baseball, and probably like some others of the time first appeared in amateur contests between teams in which most of the players came from the city they played for, or even the various neighborhoods of big cities like Philadelphia, New York, etc.
Another great- and actually real- name from that time was the moniker of an obscure, ordinary player who appeared in the early to mid 1870's. John Phillips Jenkins Sensenderfer was inexplicably called "Count Sensenderfer," which makes him seem like an evil Prussian baron or something...

Greatest nickname of all time - The Hondo Hurricane is also great.

He played in the late 1800's and his story is pure baseball, entertaining and slightly frightening. UPDATE: To describe Ferguson, hopefully prompting some to look up this history, he was a great slick-fielding 3rd baseman (and outstanding hitter) for a major league club (I forget the name) in Chicago, probably the best in the game. He was certifiably crazy, by present day standards, due to a paranoia about imaginary things flying around him working against him, not just during the baseball game, but throughout his life. After many games, he would go to the dugout, pick up a handgun, and attempt to shoot down from the sky the dreaded flying things screaming his hatred of them. Baseball has always had its characters but Death to Flying Things Ferguson was not just tolerated but revered due to his amazing baseball talent. He was particularly fascinating if his team was playing a doubleheader, and the flying things needed to be subdued between games.