Opinion

Hoffman: Pursuing perfect phony name in Little League Pursuing the perfect phony name

It's getting harder to find a good, funny, phony-baloney company.

Part of the job of being a Little League manager is lassoing a sponsor for your team.

Player registration fees cover only a portion of the cost of Little League. That's where sponsors step in and make up the difference.

In return, the players wear the sponsor's name on the backs of their jerseys. It's like having 12 pint-size, base-stealing billboards running around the neighborhood. It's good advertising.

Such good advertising that sometimes companies have to flip a coin to see who gets to sponsor a certain team.

Four years ago, I found a very strange sponsor.

The company agreed to subsidize my team — on one condition.

We don't wear the company's name on our jerseys.

I don't ask. I don't question. I'm good with this arrangement. As Hyman Roth says to Michael Corleone in Godfather II, "This is the business we chose."

The sponsor told me, "Make up a phony company, do whatever you want, just don't use our name."

That's what I did. Three years ago, I put Vandelay Industries — the import-export latex business from Seinfeld — on our uniforms. Everybody in the Seinfeld generation loved that jersey. I could have sold merchandise on the side.

The following year, I submitted the Acme Invisible Paint Co. from Roadrunner cartoons. Another classic, although this one took some explaining to people. If you have to explain 'em, maybe they're not so funny.

Kids and grown-ups don't laugh at the same stuff. Last year, my team was sponsored by the Krusty Krab, the undersea snack bar from SpongeBob SquarePants. The players picked it. Frankly, I wasn't crazy about the Krab. Like Larry Dierker when he managed the Astros, I let the players run the clubhouse.

That was then ... now baseball season is around the corner. Tryouts are this week. I need to pick another fake company fast.

My first thought was the Bada Bing go-go joint from The Sopranos. That's the nightclub where Tony Soprano and his mob buddies plot their little escapades. Bada Bing would be very funny.

Oops, scratch the Bing. While the gang is back planning who gets whacked, there's naughty dancing out front. Little League would not approve.

In the past, I've thought about the Daily Planet, the paper that Superman worked for. It's too close to home.

I could do another Seinfeld reference — Monk's Diner or Top of the Muffin or Kruger Industrial Smoothing. I like Serenity Now, too. I'm going to start screaming that during games.

Or H&H Bagels, Mendy's, the New York Yankees or J. Peterman — except those are real businesses. I'd be sniffing a lawsuit.

Anyway, enough Seinfeld. I need to move on with my life.

Arnold's Drive-In from Happy Days? Nah, old reference lost on young viewers.

I know ... Dewey, Cheatem and Howe, the law firm from The Three Stooges. Nope, wrong message for the kids. Besides, half the teams in my Little League are sponsored by lawyers, and how would anybody tell the difference?

The Korova Milkbar from A Clockwork Orange is too hip for the room. Besides, now it's a real place. That happens a lot to fake companies in movies.

Dunder Mifflin from The Office? It's too soon.

Wally World from National Lampoon's Vacation! Everybody loves that movie. That's the leader in the clubhouse now.

WJM-TV in Minneapolis (The Mary Tyler Moore Show) or WKRP in Cincinnati? The shows haven't held up well. Besides, half the people who work for real television and radio stations in Houston are loopier than those characters.

A few people have suggested Moe's Tavern from The Simpsons. Can't do anything alcohol-related. The Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, also from The Simpsons, might start a political debate.

Not the time or place.

ken.hoffman@chron.com

Listen to the Ken Hoffman Show on AM radio station 1560 "The Game" from noon to 2 p.m. weekdays.