Thu 29 Nov 2007

Thursday Thirteen #6 - Team Names I’ve Named My Teams

Posted in Thursday Thirteen at 11:11

Self-indulgence alert: I know the cats are more interesting, but two of my three baseball sim league teams won their divisions this season and that makes me happy, and yes, self-indulgent.

For years, I used games like Strat-O-Matic and Diamond Mind to replay seasons of real-life teams, like the 1984 Detroit Tigers. Now that I’m in draft leagues on the web, it calls for more creativity in naming teams.

1. San Jose Hackers — Since the team was in a league of computer-based baseball, I wanted a name with meaning in both computers and baseball. Hackers are skilled with computers (”crackers” are the bad guys); after I had that, I imagined that Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems should own a ball club. The team would play at Sun Field, of course. Yes, I know that in baseball, it’s not a good thing to be a hacker. All the more reason! I like irony, y’know?
2. South Jersey Hackers — Another league, but it already had a “San Jose” team. But back then my email was sjhax AT hotmail, and I wanted to keep it. The year I rebuilt the team with young players, they were nicknamed the “Script Kiddies.”
3. P’burg Shooters — I’ve lived in or near 3 towns called P’burg: Perrysburg, Ohio; Parkersburg, West Virginia; and Phillipsburg, New Jersey. I acquired and named this team shortly after my brother-in-law Dan died of cancer. We used to play Strat-O-Matic, and sometimes after one of his teams finished a big inning, he’d give me the dice and say sweetly, “You’re up, Shooter.”
4. Arlington Nationals — Arlington was a town near where I lived. Their imaginary ballpark would have been a place where other teams’ dreams went to die.
5. Bloomdale Derricks — Small Ohio town that used to have an oil industry. Sounded authentic.
6. Go Home Yankees — I learned one day that there’s a Go Home Lake in Ontario. You can probably guess the rest.
7. Deep Space Nine — Although I’m not a sci-fi fan, I had heard of that Star Trek show, and thought it’d be a nice complement to the Mudville Nine.
8. Ocean City Red Knots — Baseball is a sport with Cardinals, Blue Jays, and Orioles, so I continued the tradition with this team and several others. The red knot migrates as far as 9,000 miles. It stops to rest and refuel along the U.S. Atlantic Coast near shore towns like Ocean City (both New Jersey and Maryland).
9. Vermilion Flycatchers — Another team named for a bird, and for a nearby city.
10. Shepherd Hills Redtails — Named for the red-tailed hawks that soared over the development where I was living.
11. Blue Ball FenceBusters — The ‘Busters were supposed to be a power-hitting team, but that did not turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophesy.
12. Azusa Lusas — Not a great team. But even the Lusas got lucky sometimes…
13. Lehigh Valley Hex — This is an exception here. Instead, this was my entry in the “Name The Team” contest for the minor league team that starts play in Allentown next season. Named for the hex signs in Pennsylvania Dutch country. Alas, the team chose another name.

I can’t take credit for this last one: one guy called his team the White Clouds, because they started out on a roll, but ended up in the toilet…

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