I Think We Can Do a Little Better with the New Nicknames
By Justin Klugh
I’ve had some nicknames in my day. Most of them are horrible in some way or another, but that’s because of profanity or horribleness, not because they aren’t clever or interesting.
The new Phillies rotation clearly needs a nickname, but what has come up so far is like Santa kicking in your front door and dumping a sack of dead kittens on your holiday feast.
I saw one in a comment section–“Fat Joe and the Terror Squad”–which was the first one to jump out at me, but that only works if Joe Blanton doesn’t go anywhere.
So where does that leave us? According to Stan Hochman, with this trash.
Phantastic Phour
I don’t know if people outside of the Philadelphia media, like me, just don’t know how brazenly played out the whole “ph” thing is, but holy damn. It looks like the label off some third world medication sold to you by a “doctor” who got your attention on the street by whistling at you.
The Fource
Guys, I like Star Wars too, but what are we doing here.
Four Horsemen
When you look at pictures like this, you’re faster to think of four figures of death-eating spectres, cruising the earth, rotting crops, burning villages, and tearing all human hope and decency in half while the world screams in terror than a goofy little robot from the ’70s. And then a much more stupid period in the 2000s.
So this one kind of works, and they resisted the urge to twist the “f” into a “ph.” So why didn’t it get the most votes? I don’t know. Maybe the Apocalypse doesn’t have as much appeal over the holidays.
Four Aces
Yes, that is what they are. But
nickname:
noun
1. a name added to or substituted for the proper name of a person, place, etc., as in affection, ridicule, or familiarity:
He has always loathed his nickname of “Whizzer.”
So… yeah.
This one finished second, too. I mean, I get the music reference. But… we can do better. Right?
R2C2
Nah. We didn’t. This one got the most votes, making it the “winner.”
R2D2 was a droid capable of human screams and spent most of the Star Wars movies creating plot holes and being on screen when everyone really wanted to see Han Solo shoot more aliens in the head or Princess Leia experiment sexually, which reallysucked, because that never happened.
The starting pitchers in question are all human beings, all professionals, and all very talented. They’ve never been a part of a galactic space war, except for Roy Halladay, and they’ve never been eaten by a swamp monster, except for Roy Oswalt, who stabbed his way out.
Yes, the main appeal to this name is that it sounds like another name. So, congratulations everyone.
No, I don’t have any better ones. Yet. But right now I only have time to bitch and wine what’s already happened. This is a blog.