Team name of the week
 

As even casual observers have noticed, 99.99% of the good sports team names are taken. This poses a problem for the legions of high schools, colleges and minor league teams looking for decent mascots and logos.

I picked up two caps tonight at the Blue Rocks game, partly because they both fit reasonably well (I wear a 7 3/4 hat, so most adjustable one-size-fits-all caps are too small for me), and partly for the concepts alone.

One was the <a href="http://www.whitecaps-baseball.com">West Michigan Whitecaps</a>. A nice, simple logo (an anthropomorphic wave carrying a baseball in its curl), a non-overused name, I liked it.

The other was an example of how goofy names and mascots can get when the good ones aren't available. Ladies and gents -- the <a href="http://www.biscuitsbaseball.com">Montgomery Biscuits</a>.

Really.

Well the most obvious choice for me is my alma mater, the home of the fighting Unicorns.

I've always been a fan of the UC-Santa Cruz Fighting Banana Slugs.

I always liked "The Rhinos"

i don't know if it;s taken, but I'm unaware of any team with that name. I think it would be an excellent Football team name. Rhinos are fast, unpredictable, and strong. And they have thay cool horn. You just know there would be a styrofoam horn hat to buy if you were a rhino fan.

Also like my fantasy football team name....The Butchers.

There aren't enough violent or nasty sounding team names around. How'd you like to have to travel to some city and play the:

Frisco Father Rapers

Anaheim Axe Murderers

Philadelphia Pedophiles

Boston Bone Saws

Cleveland Cleavers

Georgetown Guillotines

Manhattan Misogynists

Brooklyn Bloodletters

Riverdale Reapers

my wife graduated from Geneseo High - "Home of the Maple Leafs"

oh and Jim as far as new ideas? i'm partial to Scottsdale PsychoSwans. or maybe the flagstaff flaming squirrels

As much as I love going to games up there, I think the "Reading Phillies" leaves something to be desired. Yes, it's easy to identify for whom they are the farm team, but it is rather boring.

Lacks the romance of the "Albuquequerque Isotopes" and the "Inland Empire 66ers of San Bernadino" or even the "Toledo Mud Hens" so adored by Corporal Klinger in M*A*S*H.

And as far as high school team names went ... my High School was "The Trojans."

We took a lot of ribbing.

But not as much as the class of '69.

Not surprising that my college years were spent amongs the Golden Rams, is it?

The Akron Zips...that sounds cool.

When the XFL came out, there were some complaints from the mental health community regarding the Memphis Maniax.

That's just NAMI, not the mental health community as a whole.

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill has a very active wing called "Stigmabusters" which spends their days chasing down anything deemed deragatory ... from the "Psych Ward 666-27-7" Tee Shirts available at Spencer Gifts to portrayals of the mentally ill in movies and television (The loved "A Beautiful Mind" hated "Wonderland" and had it cancelled after two episodes) to a line of candies called "Psychopops".

Like I said...some complaints from the mental health community. :)