Philip Hughes Nickname
Pete Abraham suggests that Philip Hughes needs a nickname.
Since I gave the world “Worm Killer” Wang – I’m feeling a little bit of pressure here to come up with something for Hughes too.
I almost wanted to say “The Spruce Goose” (playing off “Hughes”) – but, while it sounds cool, the actual Spruce Goose was not a success.
Philip Hughes is from Santa Ana, CA – the most populous city in the famed “O.C.” (as it’s become known). Playing off that, I want to suggest:
Philip “Orange Crush” Hughes
It’s a shame that the Santa Ana Freeway is not the “Santa Ana Expressway” – because “The Santa Ana Express” would have been a great nickname for Hughes.
I know that the Denver Broncos use “The Orange Crush” too – but, Roger Clemens uses “Rocket” and the NBA team in Houston never whines about it. I’d like to think that Denver could live with “Orange Crush” Hughes too.
Orange Crush? Hmm. It doesn’t roll off the tongue.
From early on, I’ve always called Hughes the same thing — Mr. Hughes. For a few reasons: Howard Hughes’ right-hand man wrote a book called “The Amazing Mr. Hughes,” there’s an old Leadbelly song called “Mr. Tom Hughes’ Town,” and they were going to make a film about the fake Howard Hughes autobiography controversy called “Mr. Hughes.”
The funny thing is that when I finally got to see Phil pitch and hear interviews with him and all that, he kind of WAS Mr. Hughes — the way he carried himself and went about his business.
So people can come up with any nickname they want, but I’ll always think of him as Mr. Hughes.
Orange Crush is too REM for me.
By the way, has any modern Yankee had a good nickname? In the modern era, everyone just gets a “Y/ie” attached to their name — Paulie, Georgie, Farnsy, Robbie, Sturtzy, etc. Or they’ll shorten a name like “Jete.”
Not very creative. I think the best we’ve had is Mo. That’s about it.
What, you didn’t like The Run Fairy?
“El Duque” was cool.
If his fastball works at the major level, just call him Killer.
Then we’ll have Wormkiller and Killer.
. . . of course there’s also the famous Santa Ana Wind, but I don’t think that’ll work.
I always think of Philip J Fry when he’s mentioned (Philip J Hughes). So he’s pretty much Philip J to me thus far (I don’t know why). I really really don’t think “Fry” would stick. Nor would PJ. Ahh, such is life.
I’ve been calling him “Phil the Great” on Baby Bombers/Pending Pinstripes for a while now.
The general rule of thumb in sport is that if your great, your first name is plenty. ie Pedro, Randy, Manny, Barry…
OK, Pedro Reyes, Randy Wolf, Manny Alexander I get, but who’s Barry?
Anything wrong with “the Avaitor?