Monday, March 30, 2009

Know Your Minor League Mascot

Opening Day's now a mere week away, even as we stubbornly cling to the last threads of the basketball season. And while my colleagues search in seeming vain for the press releases detailing the Cauc Hop's Final Four results (a real stunner, in one case), I return to our ongoing celebration of the not-quite corporate.


League: Pacific Coast (PCL) (AAA)

Affiliation: Florida Marlins

Mascot: Orbit

Self-Absorbed East Coast Elitist Commentary: Though Los Alamos, NM is but a plutonium stone's throw from Albuquerque (we're assuming this to be true, as we're not paid enough to actually research and confirm this - in that respect, we're a lot like Bill O'Reilly, other than the 'paid enough' part), we're convinced that the 'topes name is a not-so-subtle homage to Matt Groening's legendary franchise. We're mostly convinced of this because it's actually the case. After readers of the Albuquerque Tribune voted overwhelmingly in 2003 to name the team the Isotopes, team President Ken Young admitted that the name was initially inspired by The Simpsons. Which brings us to one of the things we love the most about minor league baseball, namely the general lack of pretension and bias towards whimsy in comparison with the big-time version of the game. If Abe Pollin only had a smidgen of that bias, we wouldn't be saddled with the dreadful Wizards (name and performance interchangeable).

Gheorgheness Quotient: 67/77

9 comments:

zman said...

Why does their logo have a sperm cell as the horizontal line in the "A"?

rob said...

the glorious stupidity of kwame brown. from steinbog's twitter feed:

Bog: Did you ever go to Ben's? KB: Ben's what?
Bog: Ben's Chili Bowl.
KB: No, I don't know if that was here when I was here.

T.J. said...

This really needs to be a post all itself, but come on people, if you have never read the Sally Jenkins Kwame Brown pieceyou are realllllly missing out.

rob said...

memphis asking permission to speak with mike anderson. yet another round in the 'why would he be interested in that job?' game. much worse conference, very high expectations. if he's smart, he plays memphis for $ and stays in columbia.

T.J. said...

1 - Coach Cal goes to Kentucky
2 - Kentucky gets some random big level recruit in 2010
3 - Kentucky is Sweet 16 team next year
4 - Gore-net starts to buzz of Coach Cal tactics
5 - Kentucky is in 2011 Final Four
6 - Eddie Sutton hands Cal envelope of cash...disguised as weird UPS whiteboard graphic...

Mark said...

Sounds about right TJ. Except for # 2. Cal will take his whole class to UK (he's got 2of the top 5 players right now) and he'll likely add John Wall, the nation's #1 pg who is considering Memphis, Miami, NC State and Baylor. If I was a UK fan I wouldn't be able to do anything else until I found out Calipari was signed, sealed and delivered.

rob said...

wouldn't the eddie sutton cash package be step #1?

Geoff said...

Are the underpants gnomes involved in this transaction at all?

Jerry said...

Dancin' away my hunger pains
Movin' my feet so my stomach won't hurt
I'm kinda like Jesus
But not is a sacrilegious way...