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Kevin Baker's book is here!
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Monday, August 20, 2012

Introducing the NAME-YOUR-MINOR-LEAGUE-TEAM Generator

The Vermont Lake Monsters? The Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs? Charleston Riverdogs? The (proposed) Scranton Wilkes Barre Trolley Frogs? WTF in the name of the Toledo Mud Hens has happened to minor league baseball?

Well, we all know the answer: General managers with MBAs, who don't give a crap about traditions of the game. They just need bizarre merch-marketing schemes. Crazier the better. And they don't fear clunkers, either. They change the name every few years.

Today, the perfect minor league team name is kinky, ridiculous, obliquely rooted in local history (but not necessarilyy) and preferably at least three syllables. But a franchise cities must move quickly. Every day, punk bands steal great names that could save teams in Altoona or Chattanooga. (Close your eyes and think of it:  The Scranton-Wilkes Barre Pussy Riot!) 
Need to name your team? Mix a prefix and suffix, and hey, you're in the ballpark!

Prefixes: (Choose one)
Laughing... Speckled... Barn... Morning... Sewer... Pavement... Sky...

Thunder... Pond... Highway... Sonic... Candy... Stinging... Invisible...
Suffixes: (Choose one)
Beagles... Berries... Flossers... Pigeons... Crannies... Croakers...Worms... Peaches... Poachers... Cakes... Floaters... Yokes... Kernals...

Examples:

The Elmira Laughing Beagles.
The Utica Morning Flossers
The Cortland Thunder Crannies
The Batavia Sewer Peaches
The Oneida Barn Kernals
The Lowville Sonic Worms
The Watertown Stinging Pigeons
The Massina Sky Yokes...

Go ahead: Name your team!

8 comments:

Alphonso said...

Must be a really slow, lazy summer dat in upstate New York.

Alphonso said...

dat or day, is there a difference?

Moneyplays said...

My former hometown.
Chittenango Chickenhawks.

JM said...

Chickenhawks had a very different meaning here in NYC back in the 70s and 80s. What's the mascot, an altar boy?

Alphonso, I had a slow dat years back, but I took it to an electronics repair guy. He made the whole tape deck good as new.

Do they have electronics in upstate New York? When I left there back in the mid-80s, a lot of folks still went with the hand-crank gramophone.

JM said...

Almost forgot. During last night's broadcast, after Ich hit his first dinger, Herr Doktor Sterling said, "He has power, he just doesn't hit home runs."

How then do you know he has power? Because he hits slap shots to left with authority?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Stang said...

The Rochester-Irondiquoit Shitting Bastards.

Anonymous said...

The Manchester NH Fishercats were named, very briefly, the New Hampshire Primaries. Logo was an elephant and a donkey. The name didn't last a week.

Swinging Kei said...

Invisible Floaters actually sounds pretty intimidating. Pavement Cakes, too.

And Hey ! I thought you did a whole post about getting rid of the Mo-damned captha bullshit ?

WTF ? Over.