Let's Get Flyered Up...Phillies Style (Sports Puns Gone Wild)

PLEASE NOTE: If you are a Philadelphia sports fan or a sports fan in general or familiar at all with the concept of puns, you can probably skip most of this post. Otherwise...here goes.

If you're from Philadelphia and you've either

A) Sat in the bleachers at a Phillies game in the past few years OR
B) Seen the sports headline page of the Daily News on a day they were being clever

You will understand pretty well what is coming next. However, I've tried to over-explain if possible just in case someone outside of my immediate family notices this piece exists.

One thing I love about sports is the occasionally creative fan response they illicit. Like all fans, in Philadelphia, our easily entertained BUT occasionally genius PHILLIES fans in particular will think of clever puns or rhymes for a given player and advertise how cool there idea is along with their support for a particular player with a large banner and/or use costumes and performance art to enhance their message. Some examples of this include...

Ex. For Randy Wolf, there was the "Wolfpack", which included the sign and full head wolf masks.
Ex. #2 A player whose last name was Padilla was honored by the "Padilla Flotilla" (pronounced Pa-dee-uh Flow-tee-uh) which included a large piece of boat-shaped paper that fans stood behind, walking back and forth to simulate the movement of a ship upon the ocean or river.
Ex. #3 Last night, for Greg Dobbs there was "Greg's Girls" (almost entirely composed of female Phans except for one unfortunate and unhappy looking male who sat the whole game). The subtitle for this was "I've Got A Dobbsession", taking the concept to its ultimate end.

Another of my favorite examples of this was the Daily News using headlines to indicate in a quick blast what occurred in the sporting contest and attempt to get a laugh out of the reading public.

Ex. When a hockey player on the Flyers scored 3 goals in one game (known as a Hat Trick) but the team at-large didn't win OR lose the game against the other team (known as a Tie), the headline was "Nice HAT, Ugly TIE".
Ex. 2 Last year when the Phillies were on a very poor string of losing games in a row towards the end of the season, they came back to win a game thanks to a home run by a player named Jayson Werth. The next day's headline: "From Bad to WERTH".
Ex. 3 In a Temple University college basketball game a few years ago, the Temple Owls were losing in the final seconds of the game when one of their players threw up a desperate almost completely impossible shot from way past a reasonable distance. Against all odds, the shot went into the basket and the other team had the game literally stolen away from them. The player: Pepe Sanchez. The headline: "PEPE Larceny".

So naturally being a dork, this is right up my very narrow but long alley... Recently some I can personally claim include "Cole as Ice!" & "Cole Position" after pitcher COLE Hamels' first career complete-game shutout.

These below were conceived in the course of a subway ride earlier tonight back from Front & Girard, in the esteemed company of Nick, O'Rourke and Lauren.

Phillies pitcher KYLE Kendrick:

KYLE High Club
Mis-KYLE
KYLE Under ______ (fill in blank with Awesome, Perfect, etc.)
KYLE of the Century
KYLE of Shit (for a particularly bad performance)
KYLE-Driver
the Perfect KYLE
KYLE Love-It (instead of singer Lyle Lovett)

Outfielder SHANE Victorino

That SHANE Don't Stop Here Anymore
SHANE in the Ass
Make it SHANE on 'Em
Hard SHANE's Gonna Fall
Who'll Stop the SHANE
SHANE's Planes, Trains & Automobiles (fans could dress up in these various different forms of transport)
Express SHANE
Exile on SHANE Street
Have You Ever Seen the SHANE?
SHANE On You Crazy Diamond

Second Baseman (and Resident Major League Home Run Leader) CHASE UTLEY

CHASE Closed
Without a CHASE (after the TV show, in case he gets injured and can't play)
Absol-UTLEY _____ (fill in blank with Fabulous (after British TV Show) or other adjective)
Hi-Speed CHASE
CHASE in the Hole
Your Daughter's a sl-UTLEY (this one is horrible and has no practical use)
the Amazing CHASE (another TV show pun)

First Baseman (and currently rising out of the Phillies' gutter) RYAN HOWARD

A RYAN in Winter (After "A Lion in Winter" - 1968 Movie starring Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn about the succession of the English throne after Henry II in, set in 1183...http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063227/)
A RYAN, a Pitch and a Score Home (this is a real stretch, using the "Lion Witch and Wardrobe" by C.S. Lewis as a basis)
POWERED HOWARD (This one is so Daily News they have probably used it already)
RY-umph Brewing Company (After Triumph Brewing Company, a Philadelphia-area independent brewer in Princeton, New Hope and Philly...http://www.triumphbrewing.com/indexfl6.html)
the RYAN Empire (after the non-Aztecs of pre-Columbian South America...not now referred to as an empire, but a civilization...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization OR http://www.mayaindian.com/)
RYAN High! (like Flyin' High...another pretty likely Daily News pick of the past)
RYAN the Friendly Skies
You Made Your Bed, now RY in it!

I started thinking of some for Pat Burrell, but there are just too damn many possibilities.

Being sufficiently saddened by just realizing it's after 1 AM and confirming that Brad Renfro died earlier this year from a drug overdose, I will now slink out of my geek palace and prepare for my 4-day work week.