Know who you’re rooting for…

So tonight’s the All-Star Game.  Anybody who knows me knows I’m a huge baseball fan.  America’s pastime.  Ballparks, beer, and brats.  I’ve travelled countless miles to attend games in numerous stadiums, some of which no longer stand.  I pay through the nose to watch my beloved Yankees on TV, since I don’t live in the home market.  I listen to games on the radio at work, in the car, etc. 

But did you ever realize that a bunch of pansy names the teams have?  Hardly any invoke an image of strength, competitiveness, or machismo.  Then again, many of them were coined in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.  They spoke a different English back then, which probably began the tradition of naming teams after the most ridiculous stuff.

Like garments.  And by garments, I mean stockings…er…socks: the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, and the Cincinnati Reds.  No, the Reds weren’t named after the Communist party, they were the Red Stockings. 

Or birds.  Nothing says fierce like the Baltimore Oriole.  No eagles, raptors or other birds of prey in baseball.  The NFL gets the Falcons.  The NBA gets the Hawks.  Instead we get the O’s or the Toronto Blue Jays or St. Louis Cardinals.  And don’t tell me that blue jays are aggressive towards other birds of their size.  They’re still small.

One of the most non-confrontational names in MLB has to be the San Diego Padres.  And their mascot isn’t that goofy monk but rather the San Diego Chicken.  What do you fear more, poultry or a priest?  (No pedophile punchlines here, please.)  Or what about the Los Angeles Angels?  A cute fluffy Angel with wings and a halo?  Not exactly a warrior.  But really the Angels are named after…

Locations.  The City of Angels.  I’ve never been to LA, nor do I know why they’d name a city after angels.  And the Colorado Rockies.  OK, the mountains are strong, but they don’t move.  The Colorado Avalanche on the other hand is something to fear.  Who wants to get buried alive in moving snow?  The Philadelphia Phillies…are they named after the city or the bad cigar used for smoking pot?  (That one can go either way.)  Or the New York Metropolitans and the New York Yankees?  What the hell is a Met or a Yankee?  Why not just call the Mets the Cosmos (after the girly drink, not the former soccer team)?  And the Yanks are named after the good guys during the Civil War?  Wow, way to be current, especially since they didn’t adopt the name Yankees until almost 50 years after the Civil War!

OK, let’s get the so-called racism out of the way.  Everybody thinks the Indians and the Braves are derogatory names.  But both team names in my opinion invoke a tough, sparring people.  Nobody is saying they can’t handle the firewater.  Or they’re making up for years of racism by opening casinos.  OK, Chief Wahoo straggles the line a little bit.  And I’m getting a little sick of the hillbilly tomahawk chop.  So we have two teams that may qualify for tough status, but they’ll get proverbial asterisks. 

There’s a whole bunch of ambiguous names.  The San Francisco Giants are giant whats?  Kittens?  Cotton Balls?  They’re not the Jolly Green Giant, since it’s the cross-town A’s that are green.  The Oakland A’s have an elephant mascot, but when I hear the name Athletic, the image that comes to mind is early 1900’s circus strongman with the handlebar moustache and knee-high boots, the big trapezoidal hunk of iron with the ring on top that they pick up with one finger, and it says 1000 lbs. on the front of it.  The Washington Nationals kept the wimpy name tradition since they wanted to shed the Senators name.  And the Minnesota Twins…what can I say?

The Los Angeles Dodgers used to be the Brooklyn Trolley-Dodgers.  There aren’t any trolleys in Brooklyn any more, and neither are the Dodgers.  The name just doesn’t make sense for LA, just like the Lakers, named after what, the Hollywood Reservoir?

Until I did the research for this piece, I never knew the Kansas City Royals were named after the annual rodeo held there.  Again, clueless as to why…

There’s a bunch of occupations.  The Seattle Mariners.  We all know the fellows on the Deadliest Catch are the real tough guys.  So who exactly are the Seattle Mariners named after, ferryboat operators?  The Texas Rangers?  I’d only be scared if they were the Walker, Texas Rangers, with a picture of Chuck Norris on the caps.  Now the Houston Colt .45s had a cool name.  It was the gun that won the west.  But it didn’t matter as they were named after the Astrodome, which was named after the importance of the space industry in Houston.  I only think of space and Houston in the same sentence when I hear  “Houston, we have a problem.”  They couldn’t come up with Oil Rigger?  Oh, that rhymes with a bad word, so that’s why the NFL team probably used the name Oilers. 

Then there’s the Milwaukee Brewers.  Bernie Brewer can’t slide into a mug any more.  Ooooo…scary beer.  If he can’t slide into a mug any more just go ahead and change the team name already to the Two-Faces (not to be confused with the Twins), named after Bud Selig. 

The Florida Marlins are named after a fish.  And while the Tampa Bay Rays used to be named after deadly sting rays, they’re now opting for the more tranquil sunshine rays. 

The Arizona Diamondbacks are named after deadly rattlesnakes.  But for those of us who don’t live in the desert, why not just call them Rattlesnakes?

The Cubs are named after bears, but not Da Bears.  They’re cute cuddly cubs, which puts them on the level of teddy bears.  That leaves one team.

The Detroit Tigers.  It’s obvious.  Pretty to look at, but they’re maul you to death.  The command respect.  And you have to respect any team that played that long at the corner of Michigan and Trumball. Good thing they didn’t name the team after the auto industry.

I’m not about advocating for changing names of teams, because they’ve been ingrained into our culture.  I don’t want to root for the New York Toughguys.  And I’ll never root for the Boston Can’t-Pronounce-The-Letter-R’s. 

And it’s just a silly team name, and nothing more.

Imagine what could have been…

Everybody waxes poetic about the Dodgers and Giants leaving New York, but there were two other baseball teams that headed west for greener pastures: the Washington Senators (twice), and the Philadelphia Athletics.  The A’s headed to KC after the 1954 season, and on to Oakland in 1968.  But did Philadelphia get rid of the wrong team?  Sure they just won the World Series, and their popularity here has finally surpassed the Iggles.  But what if the Phils shipped off and the A’s stuck around?  Three World Series titles in a row in the 70’s?  Reggie Jackson playing in Philly?  Does he get traded to Baltimore and eventually sign with the Yanks?  Reggie Pretzels instead of Reggie Bars?  But even more so, the team colors would match the logo with the corporate sponsor of the new ballpark, Citizens Bank.  Hmmm…