Baseball and Football team names

Recently I re-watched the classic George Carlin "Baseball and Football" routine. What he didn't mention, though, was the fact that team names mostly follow the general rule that Football is warlike and Baseball is bucolic. So in the spirit of Carlin let's see how it breaks down.

Consider the San Diego Padres. San Diego was named after the disciple James but when you think of sports competitions, priests don't immediately spring to mind. It's kind of like naming a women's team The Nuns. Anaheim has the Angels and although that's a direct reference to Los Angeles traditionally angels battle demons so it's not too far-fetched. If you want to be logically consistent, though, a better name would be the San Diego Exorcists. Although one does not usually associate football with men striving to be Christ-like, it is not impossible that Jesus did not play organized sports as a kid. 

 

San Diego's Football team is The Chargers. Their name derives from charging as in wild animals charging at you. Usually to kill you. I suppose it was tricky coming up with a logo that represented some unknown animal charging so they went with a lightning bolt or electrical charge icon. So, yeah. 

In Chicago you have the cute lil' Cubbies. What sort of adult, zookeeper, or little girl doesn't like cubby and Teddy Bears? They've made many a toddler feel safe and when drawn by animators are very much like human babies. Like George Carlin said, in baseball one of the goals is to be safe.   

When cubs grow up they are no longer something you would want to have by your pillow.  They become bears, which are still lovably anthropomorphic when drawn by animators but in real life they are the worst thing to ever happen to most people and especially campers. I think Chicago is the only city with baseball and football teams whose names refer to the same animal at different stages in life. 

New York has a baseball team called the Metropolitans (Mets). This name evokes a sort of Mad Men vibe like "Let's hit that ball and have a few dry cocktails afterwards." Other teams probably never thought, "Holy hell, we're about to face off against a metropolitan area."

 

New York's football team is The Giants. This could refer to tall people or actual giants. Who are we kidding? I'm sure it refers to actual giants. In case you've forgotten, giants are huge (as the name implies) and usually angry. Paul Bunyan and Gulliver were exceptions but both of them kicked ass when needed. 

In Oakland you have the Athletics. Because when you play sports it helps to be athletic. This name does not so much evoke fear as it does calisthenics. So how many times have people had to endure the whole, "You must be an Athletic Supporter" jab? But it's better to be The Athletics than The Sedentarys. 

To play football it helps to be like a mean swashbuckling pirate or raider. Yes, Pittsburgh has a baseball team called The Pirates. But pirates are a staple of grade-school parties and Halloween costumes. Raiders sounds a lot more menacing. There's very little about maritime thievery that can be related to football other than recovering fumbles or stripping the ball. It doesn't matter. Raiders is not a happy name and no kid ever dressed up like a pirate and called himself a raider. 

 

Kansas City has a baseball team called The Royals. The name hints at regality but derives from the American Royal livestock and horse show in Kansas. I suppose the name could evoke a street gang from the late 1950s or a Doo Wop group but I doubt the opposing teams are thinking that. But if they were thinking that, you can bet it would instill a very mild or vague form of fear and respect. 

Kansas City's football team is called The Chiefs. Now Chiefs are the Native American version of royalty so it makes sense. Not the most fearsome name but would you rather go into battle wearing a gold crown or carrying a jagged arrowhead? Arrowheads are actual weapons and I think the only one in NFL iconography unless you count the Colts' horseshoe that one could theoretically throw at someone. 

Up north you have the Minnesota Twins, named for the state and the Twin Cities. They were originally called the Twin Cities Twins to placate Minneapolis and St Paul but it was later decided they had better placate the whole state and so named them the Minnesota Twins. Also, Twin Cities Twins has the word "twin" in it one time too many. 

In Baltimore the MLB team is The Orioles. I just learned that when you Google "oriole" you have to go through three pages before the actual bird shows up. I don't know whether orioles have anything to do with baseball but I can tell you they are passerine birds in the genus Oriolus. They are monogamous and usually lay two to three eggs. Batter up!

The Baltimore football team is also named after a bird. Ravens are already badass birds but the association with Edgar Allen Poe makes it particularly dark and awesome. I have to say it's bizarre to see a literary reference in football and the Poe allusion takes it out of the ordinary all-American vibe of The Falcons to something creepier like witchcraft. Also, ravens can mimic human speech.

St Louis has their team known as The Cardinals. Here you have another bird team and potentially another religious reference. Although the name hardly make the knees tremble you don't ever want to mess with a male cardinal. They are territorial and can perch on baseball bats (see below).

The football team for St. Louis is The Rams. Rams sounds unambiguously aggressive and that's why they name trucks after them. Would you buy a pick-up truck called a Dodge Cardinal? Ram behavior is much like that of linemen and they also evoke a little bit of Egyptian and Greco-Roman idolatry. 

In Colorado they have a baseball team called The Rockies which is a nickname for their mountain range. Rockies has a sort of nature-loving vegan ring to it. Unlike animal names such as The Tigers, an individual player cannot actually think of himself as being a Rockie but more of a component in a geologic formation of metamorphic rocks.

In contrast, the Denver Broncos are named for wild horses or horses that haven't been saddle-broken. Taming a bronco is a job for badasses but being a bronco out-badasses that. Don McLean once sang that he was a "lonely teenage broncin' buck with a pink carnation and a pick up truck." I'm guessing it was a Dodge Cardinal. 

In Cincy you have The Reds (the old Red Stockings). Stocking names were popular in the early days of baseball but shoes and pants never caught on. Sock names are about as passive as it gets but still better than something like the Cincinnati Khakis. There is nothing inherently intimidating about socks unless they are rank or filled with cans like in the Sean Penn movie Bad Boys. 

Grammatically I think they should be called The Bengal Tigers. The Spotted Leopards wouldn't be referred to as The Spotteds. It is true that Detroit has a football team named the Lions and a baseball team called the Tigers, both of which are classified under the genus Panthera, but the name Bengal for the subspecies is more specific and daunting. And they look cool as hell. If you were stranded on a life boat with a Bengal tiger you would probably not live to tell about it but if you did it might make a good story. 

Philadelphia has a baseball team called The Phillies, which everyone knows is a nickname for Philadelphia. Their original name was the Philadelphia Quakers and they later became the weirdly redundant Philadelphia Philadelphias. But wait, isn't that like calling a team the New York New Yorkers, Chicago Illinoisans, or Twin Cities Twins? Either way it's Greek for Brotherly Love which is not football-like. 

Philly's football team is the Eagles, which is another bird name you might consider for baseball or a mid-tempo pseudo Country Rock band. But applied to football, Eagles works and they are an American symbol. Eagles are not only birds of prey, they are apex predators pretty much sitting at the literal and figurative top of the avian world. If you're going to name a team after a badass bird other than eagles you'd either have to go with The Cassowarys or the prehistoric Argentavis Magnificens. 

Seattle's baseball team is The Mariners for obvious reasons. Bottom line is that it's from the Latin word for sailor. Okay, so nothing wrong with sailors or the mighty US Navy. Then again, you could just be a sailor out in a boat like the Gorton's Fisherman or the kid in Life of Pi. Like most names we've covered, mariner is great for baseball but would not work for football unless you were named after the Sub Mariner, otherwise known as Prince Namor from Marvel Comics fame. 

The Seattle Seahawks covers the sea reference AND the bird of prey angle. Sea Hawk is really just a nickname for the raptor known as the Osprey, which spends its time hunting down and eating fish. As Carlin pointed out, football appropriates Air Force terminology so it's not a stretch to name a team after a raptor that attacks from the air. And we use the term hawks to refer to warlike politicians because hawks have that blood lust and they are nature's version of drone aircraft. Seahawks sounds more intimidating than The Eagles but it would still be a really lame name for a band. Yet still better than The Jayhawks.