Felipe “Nightmare” Rivero and his Pirates teammates to wear nickname jerseys

MLB unveiled a line of wacky jerseys and hats to be worn during Players Weekend, August 25-27, and in the game stolen from Pirates fans MLB Little League Classic between the Pirates and Cardinals in Williamsport on August 20.

Most notably, players were encouraged to pick a nickname to put on the back of their jersey. Here’s the Pirates set, which doesn’t disappoint:

So, yeah: Nightmare Rivero.

Do teammates call Rivero that? Did Rivero give himself that nickname? In any case, I think it’s perfect.

Won’t you join me in making sure Felipe “Nightmare” Rivero becomes a thing?

My other favorites are Jose “El Gocho” (The Pig) Osuna, John “Easy J” Jaso, David “Davehuman” Freese and Trevor “Ev” Williams.

Also in the Spanish department, Juan Nicasio is “Arenoso” (sandy or gritty) and Starling Marte is “Tato” (brother).

Jordy Mercer, he of four years MLB service time, is “The Rook.” Andrew McCutchen, naturally, is “Cutch.” Then you have your standard “Stew,” “Huddy” and “Fraz.”

The man traded for Nightmare, Mark Melancon, has a pretty clever name himself — “Stretch” — because of a report that he ended the Giants bullpen’s pregame stretching ritual, causing clubhouse discord. So that’s hilarious.

The jerseys and hats are pretty loud, the jerseys modeled after the traditional pullover Little League jersey. I have my reservations about a lot of MLB’s league-wide uniform initiatives, but this one is pretty good. It’s fun, and baseball is supposed to be fun. Kudos for MLB for actually doing something fun instead of just putting clocks up all over the place.