Monday, February 13, 2006

A Little Team Building

I'm a big sports fan in general. I like certain teams more than others. In basketball, I root for the Celtics and the Timberwolves. In hockey, the Red Wings and Bruins. In baseball, the Red Sox and Nationals. In football, the Patriots and Rams. In college basketball, the Tar Heels and whoever is playing Duke.

I also like minor league sports and Christine and I visit the farm team of the Bruins (called...the Bruins) and the farm team of the Red Sox (called..with much aplomb, the Red Sox). But I realize that there are a lot of teams out there and some organizations really strive to have their nicknames be unique. I'm not going into the countless teams that have really bizarre names as it's not their fault that they showed up late to the ball and there are already 500 teams each called the Wildcats, Tigers, and Isotopes.

However, I think a little more discretion needs to be given when coming up with these names. For example, on the radio today, I heard someone mention a local low-level minor league baseball team from the area called the Worcester Tornadoes.

Now, you are probably asking yourself: "Hey, Dim, I'm not all that down with Geography. In fact, I break out in hives when I land on the blue wedge in Trivial Pursuit. Does Worcester get a lot of tornadoes?"

No.

In fact, this team was named pretty much after one tornado. This one. Here's an actual picture of this beast.


This team's mascot is modeled after an F4-F5 windstorm that killed 94, injured over 1,200, and left 10,000 people homeless. Go tornadoes!

Here's their t-shirt. I guess the image of a black funnel spewing debris all over creation wouldn't have sold a lot of souvenirs, so instead they settled on a basebat bat twirling spaghetti. Mangia!

Now, I don't harbor any ill-will toward the team, but come on. Someone gets a big fucking retarded F in Sensitivity 101.

Then there was a team in Birmingham, Alabama called the Birmingham Fire. They played over ten years ago in a league called the World League of American Football, which was also known as "What the fuck is the World League of American Football?"

Now, I don't blame these guys for not seeing into the future that some wacko would be going around setting churches ablaze in this area in 2006, but calling your team the "Fire" is just bad karma. It's like calling your team the Swarm of Locusts or the Death of the Firstborn. Bad things happen when you do shit like that.

So, what's next? A professional chess team from Boston called the Massacre? A minor league kickball squad dubbed the New Foundland Titanics? An amateur beer pong stable knighted the New Orleans Katrinas? A semi-pro badminton conglomerate monikered the Chicago Mrs. O'Leary's Cows? Oh wait...it already happened...

(sigh)

Go Flaming Cows,

- Dim.

6 Comments:

Blogger Mr. A said...

This reminds me of my favorite drink at Jamba Juice....The Strawberry Surf Rider!

Mind you it wasn't always called that...It's original name was "The Strawberry Tsunami"

They had to change it after what happened in Asia...

The worst part was that for like 2 months they didn't have it up on the board at all...It actually took them two months to come up with the new name!

So, I had to look like an asshole walking in and asking for a Tsunami.. But it was too damn tasty not to get at least three times a week!

7:36 PM  
Blogger Rusty said...

"The Swarm of Locusts or Death of the Firstborn"...freakin' hilarious, Dim, as always!

For some reason, we just got a new team in the area called the Barnstormers. There are certainly a lot of barns in Lancaster County, and this is what they chose as their logo (I don't know WHAT the hell the mascot is...a barn?) but I know for a fact that barnstorming has much, much more to do with airplanes than barns. I'm stumped, but nobody's saying southcentral Pennsylvanians are the sharpest knives in the drawer (other than Jenny and me).

9:47 PM  
Blogger Dim said...

A: That's too funny! It took them two months and the best they could do is the Surf Rider?!? That's clutch, man! I was going to do a tsunami joke, but there were a few disasters/tragedies that are off-limits, even for me! Although, I didn't get it when all of those pop stars sang some song to show the victims of the tsunami that they shared their grief. I don't think those guys have TVs to see Bono's sympathy.

Rust, I gotta admit. I don't reckon I know what barnstorming is. Alls I know is that was an Activision game I used to play on my Atari 2600 that involved flying bi-planes in and out of barns. That's probably before your time.

Heh...you live in south central. Representin'!

- D.

10:25 PM  
Blogger Rusty said...

Um, Dim, dear...you picked up a very strange ebonics-like accent for that last comment. Is something up?

Yes, I live in south central, and yes, I do represent.

10:30 PM  
Blogger Mr. A said...

You know what I just realized?

I've been to a bunch of World Football games at Giants Stadium. My father had season tickets for the Knights.

LOL

It was early during my parents divorce and he was trying to impress us with season tickets to a football team...

8:12 AM  
Blogger B. said...

I remember looking at that huge book in high school that lists every single college in the U.S. My friends and I came across our favorite team name there--The Presbyterian Blue Hose. WTF?

9:27 PM  

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