Team Names — Baseball Bench Coach

This past week I proudly watched my grandson and his t-ball team play their first game. He loved wearing his newly issued uniform, baseball cap, shirt with sponsored name on front and number on back, long socks, and the “funny pants”. I reminisced about my early days of playing baseball and those of my daughters playing softball. After the game, I found a photo of me in an old album wearing a “V.F.W. Post 9248” jersey, my first uniform. I found other fun baseball photos of me in uniform with my favorite team script “Haubner Builders” across the front. I also came upon pictures of my daughters’ teams, the Grand Slammers (I let the girls vote on their team name), the Reds (seems like the coaches selected that one), and the Diamond Cats (perfect for softball and animal lovers). There’s a lot of history and great memories in team names.

The National League was founded in 1876 and had eight charter members: Chicago White Stockings; Philadelphia Athletics; Boston Red Stockings; Hartford Dark Blues; New York Mutuals; St. Louis Brown Stockings; Cincinnati Red Stockings; and Louisville Grays. The only team name that completely survived the last 145 years was the Athletics, our current day American League team in Oakland. The names, mostly about the color of the teams’ baseball socks, were not the most creative ones. Interestingly, the Boston Red Stockings are not the ancestors of today’s Boston Red Sox, but rather the Boston Braves. And the Red Sox fans have had to be a little color blind because some of the team’s road uniforms have featured navy socks. The color theme is sometimes a subtle one for MLB teams – Baltimore Orioles (orange and black of the Oriole bird); St. Louis Cardinals (named that because their uniforms were a “lovely shade of red”, or cardinal); and Detroit Tigers (since there were black stripes on their uniforms, they looked like tigers).

Oddly enough, the “White Stockings” name in Chicago was the original name of today’s Cubs. Chicago’s National League team in the late 1800s were also known for a while as the Orphans, and then the Colts. Not until 1902, when the team’s players were so young and scruffy looking, resembling young bears, or Cubs, did a team name stick. About the same time, Charles Comiskey was awarded an American League team that he located on the south side of Chicago. Comiskey promptly stole his rival team’s original name, the White Stockings, and later shortened the name to White Sox. Another of the charter members, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, have also seen their team name shortened through the years, first the Redlegs (my Dad always called them that) and now today’s Reds. There is one little blip in the Reds team name history that deserves mention. For part of the 1953 season the team played without “Reds” on the uniform. An Associated Press report at the time noted: “The political significance of the word Reds these days and its effect on the change was not discussed by management.” Ahem, no other explanation was given.

Teams in sports today are taking another look at names deemed offensive to Native Americans. The Atlanta Braves have struggled with the issue in recent years. The nickname Braves originated in Boston in 1912. The Braves first team president was actually a New Yorker, James Gaffney, who was a member of Tammany Hall, the Democratic party machine that controlled New York politics. Tammany Hall, named after the Delaware Valley Indian Chief Tammarend, adopted a headdress as its emblem. Its members were called braves. The NL Braves moved to Milwaukee in 1953, and then to Atlanta in 1966. The long time rallying cry for Braves fans has been to chant while motioning a tomahawk chop. In the NL playoff series last year between Atlanta and St. Louis, Cardinals pitcher Ryan Helsley, a member of the Cherokee Nation, indicated that he found the chant to be offensive. For the next game Atlanta did not distribute the trademark foam tomahawks to its fans. Yet, when addressing recently whether the team plans to change its name, the Braves seemed to steer clear of the issue, releasing a statement that read in part they “have much work to do on and off the field.”

There do appear to be plans afoot in Cleveland to change its team name, the Indians. The AL team was originally named the “Blues” upon its founding in 1901 as a league charter member. Cleveland then became the “Naps” after their star player-manager, Napoleon Laoie. When Laoie left the team after the 1914 season, Cleveland adopted the Indians as its new team name. Last season, the Indians removed the Chief Wahoo logo from its uniforms in response to mounting pressure. This past week, Cleveland manager Terry Francona addressed the team name head on: “I know in the past, when I’ve been asked about our name or Chief Wahoo, I would usually answer that I know we’re never trying to be disrespectful. I still feel that way, but I don’t think that’s a good enough answer today.” Francona acknowledged that team management is openly discussing and promoting the idea to change the name of the team.

How should Cleveland proceed? Many MLB teams, especially when newly formed, have surveyed the hometown fans in the team name selection process. Arizona asked its fans to vote in 1995, and luckily the fans selected Diamondbacks, a type of snake. One name on the ballot that received great support but lost was the Phoenix; that Arizona Phoenix team would have led to a little confusion! When New York was awarded an NL team in 1962, the team conducted the first fan survey and settled on the Mets (based on Metropolitans), simply because it was an easy name for newspaper headlines. In 1969 Kansas City received 17,000 entries in its contest, and landed on the Royals, not for nobility but the American Royal Livestock Show, a city treasure since 1899. Other teams fairly new to the MLB that conducted write-in contests include: Seattle Mariners (1976): Toronto Blue Jays (1976); and Tampa Bay Rays (1998; the name first used was the Devil Rays). In Denver, the newly awarded NL franchise in 1993 ignored the fans’ push for the name Bears, the city’s longtime successful minor league team, but chose instead the name Rockies, to highlight the Rocky Mountains in the surrounding area.

One avenue for Cleveland to explore is a new team name that reflects the city’s history. We see a lot of history embedded in some current MLB team names, although sometimes the historical background stems from the original location of the team. LA’s National League team is an example. Founded in Brooklyn, the Dodgers were named for the Brooklyn residents so adept at dodging trolley cars in the burrough. Los Angeles’ AL counterpart, the Angels, of course, reflects its own “City of Angels”. There are some obvious feel good, historical names, including the: Milwaukee Brewers (the city’s tradition of beer brewing); Houston Astros (home of NASA’s astronauts); Minnesota Twins (the pride of Minneapolis-St. Paul, the twin cities); and Philadelphia Phillies (short for “Philadelphians”). A couple Cleveland historical names I’ve heard mentioned include the “Rocks” or “Rockers”, based on the city’s famous landmark Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That would lead to an interesting World Series matchup someday between the Rockers and the Rockies.

There are some less obvious MLB team names that are tied to events in team history. The Pirates got their name in the late 1890s when the “Pittsburgh Club of the National League” signed a star Philadelphia Athletics player, Lou Bierbauer, off their reserve list, a transaction described as “pirating away” another team’s player. Today’s San Francisco Giants retained the New York Giants name when the team moved west in 1957, a name derived from its former manager, Jim Mutrie, who described his team’s play in a big win as “playing like Giants”. Cleveland is apparently considering a return to the name “Naps”, the team name over a hundred years ago based on its player-manager. I get the sentiment, but that seems like a sleepy landing spot.

While I always advocate history’s importance to baseball, it seems like using a fun, animal-like name is the safest bet. Recently, Florida certainly found a popular name branding its fishing industry in the Marlins, but of course it switched its first name identity to Miami in 2012 and continues to struggle catching the interest of its home base. My favorite Cleveland team name would be the SPIDERS! It combines history (the Spiders were the name of Cleveland’s National League team in the late 1800s), a scary creature (would be the first MLB team ever named after an arachnid), and some intriguing marketing opportunities to increase its fan base. I’m not sure many MLB teams would like venturing into Cleveland’s “Web” in the future. And how about a World Series someday featuring the Spiders vs. the Snakes; that’d be a frightening matchup!

Until next Monday,

your Baseball Bench Coach