Bryce Harper Has Officially Replaced Chase Utley As Mac’s Favorite Phillie On ‘It’s Always Sunny’

The gang from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia has a very special relationship with the Philadelphia Phillies. They’re careful, for example, not to say the proper name of the team’s mascot for fear of copyright infringement. That plot point was one of many in one of the show’s best episodes, which revolves around the Phillies winning the World Series.

Another plot point in that episode is co-creator Rob McElhenney’s character Mac and his somewhat unsettling love of then-Phillie Chase Utley. It’s a bit that’s spilled over into real life as well, especially when McElhenney gained and then lost a ton of weight for the role, becoming Jacked Mac. But the latest player McElhenney — and pretty much every Phillies fan — wants to “have a catch” with is Bryce Harper, the biggest free agent signing of the offseason in MLB.

Harper is getting his first plate appearances with his new team in spring training down south, and a photographer caught a perfect image of his head illuminated by the sunshine of an outfield wall add for LaQuinta hotels. The Phillies Twitter account noticed what it looked like and made a perfect It’s Always Sunny reference on Monday.

It’s a joke from The Nightman Cometh, the final episode of Season 4 of Sunny that remains one of its best. Charlie writes a completely unhinged musical as a way to get The Waitress to fall in love with him, starring a warring Dayman and Nightman. It is absolutely as wild as it sounds, in case you forgot.

And McElhenney, himself a huge Phillies fan in real life, certainly got the joke, brining another Sunny reference to the table and anointing Harper as the next object of Mac’s, um, affection.

And right on cue, Harper tweeted back to McElhenney paraphrasing the letter Mac wanted to give Utley during The World Series Defense.

These days it really does seem like nothing can go wrong in Philadelphia. Maybe the show’s title is on to something.