A Fun Little Name Game

Taking inspiration from Linda Holmes, let's slightly increase your favorite athletes.

I am a sucker for a good prompt. Monday, I popped in on social media and saw this from the most wonderful Linda Holmes:

Slightly increase a band

Men With One Small Hat

Nine words, and I spent the rest of the night trying to come up with ways to slightly increase a band. The best I could come up with was The B-36s, which will speak to all the New Wave Aviation Enthusiasts out there, but probably nobody else. And so I kept thinking and thinking, and mentioned to our younger daughter Katie, who almost immediately said, “Ariana Venti,” which had the double effect of making me proud and also furious that she beat me at this dumb game.

A few others that I saw that I loved:

• Riz: Linkin Memorial

• Snookertst: Red Hot Ghost Peppers

• Robert: The Rolling Boulders

• mfmindc: Frozenplay

• Celeste Ng: 10,001 Maniacs

• Jack: Electric Heavy Orchestra

• Doc: Green Week

• Riley: Paramost

I started thinking then — can’t we do this in sports? Can’t we slightly increase a few sports figures?

Well, we can try — let me try to put together 50 of them in rapid fire. Like 100 floors of fright, these will not all be winners:

1. Johnny Sofa

2. Willie Springs

3. Medium-Sized Reese

4. Joe California

5. Swan Gossage

6. Four Finger Brown

7. Duffel Paige

8. One Neck Williams

9. Aaron Justice

10. Mookie Parlays

11. Patrick Mamansions

12. Steph Vindaloo

13. Jordan Runner

14. Pete Murder-Armstrong

15. Cy Grown

16. Myles Attic

17. James Chef

18. Bo Veto

19. James Cement

20. Tris Amplifier

21. Maya Most

22. Maxi Miñoso

23. Tim Pours

24. Sprout Selig

25. Ken Griffey Sr.

26. Cold Papa Bell

27. Flamey Anderson

28. Prince Snider

29. Senior Seau

30. Generalissimo Faulk

31. Floyd Big (also Larry Big)

32. Warren Planet

33. Howie Longer

34. Whitey Lincoln

35. Michael Oman

36. Grant Butte

37. Bill Oversoul

38. Jo Jo Jo White

39. Trevor Novella

40. Dylan Desist

41. Joe Sawbuck

42. Chris Liquidation

43. Mike Salmon

44. Brandon Swamp

45. Roast Allen

46. Joe Warren

47. Ambush Woods

48. Nellie Skulk

49. Glenn Atrium

50. Mike Imperious

I suspect 47 of these made you groan and perhaps consider canceling your subscription (and some will undoubtedly make you go “Who?”). That’s fair. But hopefully you got a chuckle out of two or three. Of course, the comments are open for your choices.

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