Charlie Morton went from Houston to Tampa, and the nickname followed. The man christened Charles Alfred had picked up a sobriquet—Ground Chuck, a reference to his groundball-inducing tendencies—years ago with the Pirates. But after his decisive outings with Houston in the 2017 ALCS and World Series, that moniker gave way in the clubhouse and on social media to a shorter, punchier alias: CFM. To his teammates and fans, he’s Charlie F---ing Morton, even if the man behind the epithet is as mild-mannered as they come.
“It comes from a really good place,” Morton says before a mid-June game against the Yankees in New York.