'Tom Terrific' Derangement Syndrome Grips New York

Monday I blogged about this report that Tom Brady’s lawyers have requested a trademark on the nickname “Tom Terrific” because his name is Tom and he is, objectively speaking, terrific:

But mostly about how Mets fans are losing whatever part of their minds haven’t already been destroyed by wallowing under .500 for nine of the last 11 years and having to live in New York. Because “Tom Terrific” is what they’ve been calling Tom Seaver. I should hasten to add, calling Seaver “Tom Terrific” unofficially, since he had decades to trademark the name, but never did. And now, tragically, is suffering from dementia and is no longer capable.

Well if there’s one thing that can distract them from their miserable existence, wallowing in an overcrowded urban hellscape piled high with festering garbage and the smell of the piss and shit of the uncared-for homunculi who live on their scaffold-cluttered streets, it’s this nickname issue.

The public is outraged. Guys like Boomer Esiason and Keith Olbermann, who were slipping Seaver’s baseball card into the polyester pockets of their Sears Toughskins back in the moon landing days, are treating a simple copyright application like a hate crime. And finally, New Yorkers have found a cause they can rally around, organize and get behind as one:

WFAN – Mets fans plan to send an angry message to Tom Brady on Tuesday about who the real Tom Terrific is.

In response to the Patriots quarterback applying to trademark the nickname, Mets fans are holding a protest at 5 p.m. at Sojourn restaurant on the Upper East Side. ..

WFAN’s Boomer Esiason, whose childhood hero was Seaver, is among the Mets fans angered by Brady’s play for the “Tom Terrific” name.

“Maybe in New England they call him that, I guess,” Esiason said on Monday’s “Boomer and Gio” show. “But you know what? We’ve been calling Tom Seaver ‘Tom Terrific’ forever, for as long as I can remember, for 50 years.

“I am disgusted, and I’m really surprised, and I’m really — I don’t know, it just feels sleazy to me, you know?” he added.

So this is what does it. This is the unifying common ground that is bringing the city together. Not crime, pollution, the homeless problem or ridiculing Mike Francesa. This has them joining forces to fight under one banner. Boomer is the Jon Snow getting the Freefolk, the Dothraki, the Unsullied and the people of the North to fight together, and Tom Brady is the Night King.

And I could not love it more. Brady owns more real estate in their heads than Trump does in their city. If they’re “disgusted,” give them something to be disgusted about. If this be “sleazy,” then let’s make the most of it. If this nickname is so sacred to them, I hope he takes all the New York nicknames. I hope he sends his lawyers back to the U.S. Patent Office and wins the right to call himself Tom “Tom Terrific, Bambino, Broadway Joe, Iron Horse, Earl the Pearl, Tuna, Yankee Clipper, Clyde, Catfish, Say Hey Kid, Whitey (OK, maybe not that one), LT, El Duque, Doctor K, Linsanity, Mr. October” Brady, just purely out of spite.

Sure, you could argue the whole thing is ridiculous and a perfectly stupid thing for the population of a major city to get their undies in a bunch over. But you’d be wrong. As long as they’re so pissed off they’re actually planning rallies to protest it, then we know that this is a pure good.

Welcome back, Tom Terrific. Let’s fucking go.