Thursday

August 14, 2008 By Fred Clark 28 Comments

When I was a kid I had a Carl Yastrzemski model bat. Always felt sorry for the guy at Louisville Slugger who had to burn that name into the barrel.

I’m always reminded of that bat when I see the heavy rotation ads for this product. That’s a positive connotation — who doesn’t like Carl Yastrzemski? Guy had 3,419 hits, with 452 homers back when 400 home runs still meant something. He won baseball’s triple crown in ’67, something nobody’s managed to do since.

But still, it’s kind of an odd association for an oral contraceptive. Which led, of course, to this:

Top 10 Boston Red Sox Nicknames That Would Have Made an Even Worse Name for an Oral Contraceptive

10. The Grey Eagle
9. Pudge
8. Pumpsie
7. Dewey
6. The Rocket
5. Boomer
4. Oil Can
3. The Kid
2. The Splendid Splinter
1. Big Papi

NOTE: At first glance, this may seem like an oddly noncontroversial bit of silliness to toss out as Thursday Flamebait, but it touches on several potentially anger-inducing subjects: pharmaceutical advertising; contraception; the designated hitter rule; steroid use; the 11 years it took Boston to finally integrate; Game 6 …

Filed Under: Uncategorized 28 Comments
  • Tonio

    Fred, those would be better names for erectile dysfunction drugs. I enjoy the ads for such drugs purely as studies in how advertisers can allude to the products’ purpose in a G-rated format without illustrating it explicitly. Not even a train going into a tunnel like the old Tiparillo ads that George Carlin lampooned.

  • http://akma.disseminary.org AKMA

    I’ve had the same reaction whenever I hear the ad, especially with the perky young women who appear in it — none of whom could have been alive when Yaz retired.
    Going further back in time, what about “The Beast,” otherwise known as “Double X” — Jimmie Foxx? That’s a twofer.

  • cjmr’s husband

    Contraceptives? Designated hitter?
    I thought “designated hitter” was a euphemism for what you used to do to get around impotence…

  • Elmo

    Contraceptives? Wouldn’t want to have one named Bill Buckner — it would let too much slip through…

  • http://gnomicutterance.livejournal.com/ deborah

    I’d really like to rename an erectile dysfunction drug “The Pesky Pole”.

  • Cowboy Diva

    Does knowing the contraceptive Yaz is actually a derivative of another contraceptive called Yasmin change the issue at all?
    And here I was thinking Bayer was just trying to make us think of this.
    heh.

  • Nobody_Special

    Thank goodness they haven’t gotten an erectile disfunction drug named after Randy Johnson. You wouldn’t even need his nickname (The Big Unit) to imagine the double entendres in that advertising.

  • Glenda

    I think “Big Papi” would be a good name for a condom, but “The Splendid Splinter?” No, just too painful.

  • Karen

    Since we’re talking about The Pill.
    FWIW, my response to that article was to wonder when any of the parade of horribles Paul VI listed as consequences of birth control didn’t exist? Did men as a group treat all women with perfect courtesy before Griswold v. Connecticut?

  • Karen

    Ugh. I meant to type :”when did any of the parade of horribles Paul VI listed as a consequence of birth control didn’t exist before 1968?”

  • Dorothy

    Way back, I lived in D.C. for a few years. The Post ran some sort of word-play contest and one week the challenge was to come up with an inappropriate celebrity spokesman for a commercial product. The winning entry: “John Wayne Bobbitt for Microsoft” submitted by the notorious “Chuck Smith, Woodbridge”. Does it indicate something is warped in my brain that that is the first thing I thought of for this thread?

  • the opoponax

    I enjoy the ads for such drugs purely as studies in how advertisers can allude to the products’ purpose in a G-rated format without illustrating it explicitly.
    Which is funny, because I enjoy the ads for the incontinence drugs/treatments and adult diapers to see how advertisers can pitch something that so few people will actually admit there’s a need for. I also find it funny that it’s ok to pretty blatantly talk about erectile disfunction on network TV, but these same people really don’t want to dwell on incontinence.

  • Ygor

    More Red Sox oral contraceptives we wouldn’t want to buy:
    Eck
    Scrappy Doo

  • Mike Toreno

    You’re old.

  • Jeff

    From the post linked by Karen:
    [Hannity] objected that the issue of contraception was “superfluous” compared to others; he asked what right the priest had to tell him what to do (“judge not lest you be judged,” Hannity instructed); and he expressed shock at the thought that anyone might deprive him of taking Communion just because he was deciding for himself what it means to be Catholic.
    I love these rationales. I’ll be catholic as long as it doesn’t inconvenience me, then I’ll come up with the dumbest excuses (a priest telling you something is a sin — gasp! Who’d have thunk?) not to.
    He’s even a hypocritical asshole in his chosen religion.

  • victoria

    By mentioning contraception, Fred has also (unwittingly?) brought up the dreaded ‘A’ word, at least according to Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt…

  • Anonymous

    Going by the Wikipedia entry for Mike Leavitt, I assume the “dreaded A-word” is avian flu?
    I support promotion of condom use, but surely distributing condoms to birds throughout Asia is going too far.

  • http://profile.typekey.com/Hellsau/ Hellsau

    Ahem.

  • Donalbain

    Baseball sucks. The field placings are static, there is no place for “defensive” play (you are ALWAYS just trying to get more runs than the other team), the variety of ways the ball gets to the batter is limited and the fielding team get to wear massive buckets on their hands to catch the ball in.

  • Cowboy Diva

    Does Donalbain have a soft spot for cricket, perhaps?

  • Donalbain

    Why yes sir, he does have a soft spot for God’s Own Game. That is why he rejects baseball and all his followers!

  • Comrade Rutherford

    Insurance companies will pay for ‘erectile dysfunction’, but not for contraception.
    So insurance will buy pecker pills for a man, but the girl he screws is screwed?

  • cjmr

    Insurance companies will pay for ‘erectile dysfunction’, but not for contraception.
    Apparently this is, ummm, ‘conventional wisdom’. They do tend to cover ED pills with a lower co-pay for the patient, though. And not all insurances will cover all FORMS of contraception.

  • Mike Molloy
  • Cowboy Diva

    I have been told that life, the universe and everything would very difficult to understand without at least some knowledge of cricket.
    One of my favorite baseball team pictures. These guys would not know from “buckets on their hands.”

  • Anonymous

    “The Eck”

    “El Guapo”

  • http://profiles.google.com/fader2011 Alex Harman

    Bad for an oral contraceptive, but I can see “The Splendid Splinter” being used — maybe not as a trade name, but easily as a nickname — for a subcutaneous implant.

  • Cat

    For the first time, Fred, I find myself completely disagreeing with you.  Those are awesome; it’s always bothered me that contraceptives are marketed with girlie names.