Category Archives: Major League Baseball

Editor’s Note: As I was working on my content schedule for the next few months ahead of the return of Major League Baseball, I came across a column that I wrote on November 7, 2022 but never posted.

Through the years I have written several columns that for one reason or another were never posted. As part of a semi-regular series called From the Vault, I will occasionally dust off these written but never posted columns and allow them to see the light of day.

So, without further ado, fresh from my vault, here is the column that was originally meant to post on November 7, 2022. Sadly, many of the issues addressed are still relevant today.

The other day the Houston Astros defeated the Philadelphia Phillies in six games to become the 2022 World Series Champions.

It is the first title for the Astros since a cheating scandal tarnished their 2017 World Series crown like a line of trash cans littering a pristine alley.

Having given up my Astros fandom years ago, I did not plan to write anything about the Astros winning the World Series aside from perhaps a quick mention about how nice it is that Dusty Baker can finally call himself a World Series winning manager after a quarter century of falling short.

My desire to avoid writing about anything Astros related all changed when I saw an article from a local television station about two students getting arrested for making threats on social media related to the Astros World Series celebration parade.

First, a little background. Numerous school districts in and around Houston cancelled class on the day of the parade to allow students and staff to attend the parade.

The University where I earned my MS in Sport Management even joined the school skipping party, which I found to be particularly odd.

The fact that a parade for a winning sports team is considered worthy of cancelling school and other events, but we still do not have a national holiday on election day to ensure that everyone who chooses to vote can vote really says a lot about the priorities in this country. But that is a column for another day.

Today’s column is about two students at two different intermediate schools within the same district who felt slighted that their district did not see fit to cancel classes like so many other districts did.

I am in no way minimizing the role that sports can play on a young person’s life, or even the role it plays on an older person. One of my very first public speaking experiences captivating a crowd was leading a Super Bowl rally in front of my entire elementary school when I was in second grade. Many decades later, it is still a very fond memory.

The two students in the suburbs of Houston will likely not have fond memories of the steps they took to show their fandom for a sports team. The students took to social media and made comments about the district being open.

The comments were deemed to be terroristic threats which led to an increased police presence and other heightened security on campuses throughout the district.

Now, some people reading this will likely say that they were just “boys being boys” who they took things too far.

Of course, in a state where many students have taken actual violent steps on campuses like engaging in mass shootings, one does not get to have the luxury of saying they were just “boys being boys,” or even “girls being girls.”

Others may respond by saying that “everyone knows that social media speech isn’t real speech so no harm was done.”

To that I will say, many of the actual events of violence that occur on school campuses, grocery stores, synagogues, United States Capitol complexes, etc., first involved threats, or boosting on social media.

Still others will say, “sure the threats are bad and they shouldn’t have done it, but they will grow out of it.

To that I say, kids who post threats on social media can turn into adults who post threats on social media. One can also look at how comments made on social media regarding a certain rally in Washington D.C. back in 2020 had real-world consequences.

The social media genie is never going back in the bottle. Attempts to regulate content and try to limit threats and violence will continue to fall short leaving people to police themselves with what they say and do.

As I have said many times, as a journalist I am a huge proponent of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and the protections it offers regarding free speech.

What I am not a fan of, is people trying to use the First Amendment to justify hate speech and generally abhorrent rhetoric that has no place in a civilized society that claims to have been formed on “Godly principles.”

Unfortunately, hate speech will continue to fall under free speech and people will be left to monitor and censor their own speech by deciding what should and should not be said in a civilized society.

That is a very sobering and troubling thought.

This all brings us full circle back to the two middle schoolers in a pair of Houston suburbs who saw nothing wrong with posting a threat on social media because they did not get their way regarding having school cancelled, so they could go see a bunch of baseball players in a parade.

They will likely be charged as minors and will go about their life’s as if nothing happened once they turn 18.

For the rest of us, social media will continue to allow hate and threats to fester in the darkness like a rat hiding in a corner waiting to strike.

As a proud member of Generation X, I, like the generations before me, can recall a time before the internet and social media were the de facto communication methods.

The generations that follow will have had access to tablets and social media in many cases from the crib to the grave.

A failure to instill responsible means to use and regulate that technology among people who don’t know of a world before social media is critical to ensuring that a civil society does not morph into a society embroiled in a civil war.

That is the problem with threats made on social media, they have a nasty habit of sneaking into the real world and becoming actual events where people can be injured or even killed.

For a platform that calls itself a social media, there is definitely a lot of anti-social behavior going on.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to curl up with a nice book and forget about social media for a while.

Grapefruit League, Major League Baseball, Spring Training, Tampa Bay Rays

Yet Another “Storm of the Century” Reignites Great Debate

October 5, 2022 Ryan Anderson

As parts of Florida and South Carolina continue their recovery efforts following the destructive path of Hurricane Ian, a debate rages about the effects that bigger and more frequent storms will have on everyday life.

No, I am not talking about the debate regarding whether warmer temperatures brought about by climate change means more powerful storms are here to stay. The answer to that is clearly yes, they do. The earth is getting warmer and storms and natural disasters will get bigger and more destructive if nothing is done to reduce the impacts of global warming and climate change. But that is a column for another day.

The debate I am referring to is the debate over the role sport plays in a disaster.

Much of my career in journalism has involved sports. When I wasn’t working as a sports reporter or editor, I served as both an intern and a director in collegiate Sports Information. I have a whole website devoted to my thoughts on baseball. I even have a Master of Science degree in Sport Management. So, needless to say, sports are something that I have a passion for.

Unfortunately, in recent years that passion has started to dim as I grow increasingly tired of the profit at all costs model implored by many sports leagues.

As some readers may recall, the issue of greed over player and spectator health is something that I wrote extensively about during the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Time and time again, examples arise where the need to host a sporting event seems to win out over common sense and decency in reading the room.

After delaying the game twice as Hurricane Ian approached, the University of Central Florida hosted SMU this evening while residents of nearby neighborhoods continued their lengthy recovery from storm related flooding and other damage.
Photo R. Anderson

Tonight, my undergraduate alma mater the University of Central Florida hosts Southern Methodist University in a football game that was first slated to be played on Saturday but was rescheduled twice due to Ian.

Likewise, one of my graduate alma maters, the University of Florida, played a rescheduled game of their own on Sunday against Eastern Washington.

While both the UF and UCF stadiums did not suffer major damage, I have no doubt that the games would have been played somewhere even if the stadiums had been destroyed by Ian’s wrath. After all, the show must go on to keep the millions of dollars of revenue flowing.

While UCF’s stadium was declared ready to play, many of the neighborhoods surrounding campus, including my aunt and uncle’s neighborhood, were still dealing with the aftermath of flooding. In many cases, it will take days for the water in some neighborhoods to recede since there is so much water it literally has nowhere to go.

This brings up the debate of whether it is wise to encourage thousands of people to drive to an area that is still engaged in storm cleanup mode just to watch a football game.

Were I still working in a collegiate Sports Information Office and faced with a to play, or not to play, decision, I would be one of the few, if only people, saying that the optics of playing a game while so many people were suffering were not good.

Classes at the University of Florida and other schools in Florida were cancelled ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Ian. As a result, the Gators game in the Swamp against Eastern Washington slipped from Saturday to Sunday.
Photo R. Anderson

Speaking of optics, Florida State University gave away up to for tickets per family to in-state hurricane evacuees for their game against Wake Forest Saturday.

In making the announcement, FSU’s assistant athletic director of ticket operations and service told a local reporter that part of the motivation behind the giveaway for evacuees was to “give them a good experience at a time when they are already experiencing a lot of loss and sadness.”

While I like to think that it was meant as a gesture of goodwill, my sports marketing brain thinks that FSU athletics just wanted to try to make the stadium look less empty on TV; since at the time the ticket giveaway was announced around 13,000 tickets remained unsold.

When I was growing up in Florida, hurricanes meant some wind and some rain, but rarely did they mean widespread flooding that lasted for days. Following Hurricane Andrew in 1992, building codes were enhanced to provide better protection against the wind.

Unlike in Texas, where they seem to build their house out of sticks and straw, most modern homes in Florida are constructed using cinder blocks with straps tying the roof to the walls.

Of course, building a structure to survive Category 5 winds does nothing to protect it when the agent of destruction is multiple feet of water brought about by storm surge and freshwater flooding from torrential amounts of rain.

While the climate change deniers can stick their heads in the sand and scream, “fake storm” all they want, recent years have shown that today’s hurricanes are different from our grandparents’ storms. Ignoring them is not going to make them go away.

Hurricane Ian is expected to be declared the biggest natural disaster in Florida history. That is saying quite a lot, since there have been many disastrous storms to hit the Sunshine State.

As Hurricane Ian trained its wrath on the southwest coast of Florida, one of my initial thoughts was, “oh no, there are so many ballparks in the path of the storm I hope they survive.”

Charlotte Sports Park, the Spring Training home of the Tampa Bay Rays is just one of the many ballparks that were in the cross hairs of Hurricane Ian.
Photo R. Anderson

While it is certainly true that a bulk of the Grapefruit League Spring Training ballparks stretch from Clearwater to Fort Myers, I am somewhat ashamed that my first thought of seeing the storm heading towards the west coast of Florida was I hope the ballparks make it.

My grandparents used to live on Longboat Key and Bradenton Beach. I would hope that if they were still alive, my reaction to the approaching storm would have been concern for their safety and not for the safety of some empty ballparks.

At the time of this writing, I am not aware of any damage to the ballparks along the path of the storm. However, I am confident that if any of the ballparks were damaged, the teams and cities impacted will move heaven and earth to ensure that they are up and running come February. After all, the games must go on.

That is part of my growing struggle with the sport business. Even when Spring Training rolls around in four months, many of the people who work in those ballparks from the ticket takers to the concession stand workers likely will still be dealing with some impacts from Hurricane Ian.

While I would hope that the Major League Baseball teams that employ those seasonal workers will have some sort of assistance plan in place, I can see a scenario where impacted workers are left to fend for themselves.

Following the attacks on September 11, 2001, a great deal was made about the calming effect the return of baseball had on the country. President George W. Bush famously went to Yankee Stadium and threw out the first pitch declaring that it was okay to play ball while the nation was still in mourning.

I don’t dispute the fact that sports can be a good diversion.

My issue is when the diversion becomes the main focus and other issues are ignored.

To be fair, most of the country was not impacted by Hurricane Ian so people might think, “why should they miss out on getting to watch sports, if their homes didn’t blow away or flood?”

That sort of narrow minded approach is part of the problem that seems ripe to tear society apart.

There will be other “Storms of the Century” in the coming years. Of that, I am sure.

What I am not as sure about is whether people will take the necessary steps to be better prepared and try to lessen the impacts, or if they will just continue to whine about the inconvenience of having their sporting event delayed by a few days.

There are no easy answers. The more time I spend working in sports, the more disenchanted I become with the priorities some leagues seem to have of putting profits over people.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I am off to reread some chapters on sports ethics.

Baseball Movies, Durham Bulls, Major League Baseball

Observing Friday the 13th During a Pandemic Once Again

May 13, 2022 Ryan Anderson

Last year, on Friday, August 13, 2021 I wrote my semi annual column about Friday the 13th. The column featured a pandemic twist with the thought that by the time the next Friday the 13th rolled around the pandemic would be over and the only thing to fear on Friday the 13th would be bad horror movies and superstitious people.

Oh how wrong I was, as once again Friday the 13th has arrived in the middle of a pandemic.

With that in mind, I present once again my thoughts on Friday the 13th on the only 13th of Friday that will befall us in 2022.

I first explored the Friday the 13^th phenomena during the before times of 2015. Partly because I was feeling too lazy to come up with a new topic, and partly because it is still relevant today, I figured I would give Friday the 13^th another look.

Consider this the surviving Friday the 13^th during a global pandemic edition part two with all new material not seen in the 2015 and 2021 versions of this column.

While one could argue that the fear of Friday the 13^th has about as much scientific backing as people claiming that masks actually cause disease, the simple fact is that Friday the 13^th is just a day like any other day.

Each year has at least one Friday the 13^th but there can be as many as three in a 365-day span.

For many people a black cat crossing their paths is a sign of bad luck. Were that cat to cross their path on Friday the 13th they might think that it was even worse luck.
Photo R. Anderson

In 2015 when I first wrote about the topic, Friday the 13th occurred in February, March, and November. In 2017 through 2020 there were two Friday the 13ths per year.

Last year when I explored the issue as well as this year, much like the Highlander, there can be only one.

From a strictly scientific perspective Friday the 13th occurs in any month that begins on a Sunday. Simple as that.

Of course, these days it seems nothing is ever really as simple as just following the science for some people.

Hollywood definitely loves to roll out the scary movies on autumnal Friday the 13ths for maximum marketing impact so one would certainly be forgiven if they were unable to purge their memories of thinking that Friday the 13^th is something straight outta Tinsel Town and the scary movie craze.

While many may think that the Friday the 13^th craze started with a certain movie character named Freddy, the roots of Friday the 13^th actually run much deeper than late 20^th Century cinema.

According to the Oxford University Press Dictionary of Superstitions, the first reference to Friday the 13th did not occur until 1913, however, the components that ultimately converged to form it are much older and involve first looking at the two parts that make up Friday the 13th.

Folklore historian Donald Dossey contends that the unlucky nature of the number “13” originated with a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party in Valhalla.

Long before he was the subject of a television series, the trickster god Loki, who was not invited, arrived as the 13th guest, and arranged for Höðr to shoot Balder with a mistletoe-tipped arrow, which it turns out was the only substance that could kill him. I guess one could say that Höðr kissed him deadly under the mistletoe.

So, if we trace the unluckiness of the 13^th back to Norse gods, and accept the position that in the 19^th Century Friday was “Execution Day in America” based on it being the only day of the week that all executions took place, one could see how the convergence of a Friday on the 13^th could be consider doubly unlucky.

Of course, the value and mysticism associated with Friday the 13th is strictly a product of the imagination of humans. In particular, American humans, since the United States is the only country that appears to celebrate Friday the 13^th.

Or, put in Willy Wonka speak when it comes to Friday the 13th, “Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination.”

Friday and the number 13 were considered unlucky by some on their own, so it was only logical that both occurring at the same time would be even unluckier.

In fact, fear of Friday the 13^th even has a name; friggatriskaidekaphobia (Frigga being the name of the Norse goddess for whom Friday is named in English and triskaidekaphobia meaning fear of the number thirteen).

Talk about a great word to roll out on the old Scrabble board.

Now that we know when it was first originated, as well as the scientific name for it, we might as well take a deeper look at why it is that some people ascribe such attention to Friday the 13^th.

Personally, I have never feared Friday the 13^th and am among the people who consider it just another day. Now, were yesterday Friday the 13^th I may have considered it unlucky after cutting a piece of my toe with nail clippers.

Although he could be moody and liked to bite my nose to wake me up each morning, my dearly departed black cat, Lucky, was mostly a sweetheart and was certainly nothing to be superstitious of on Friday the 13th or any other day for that matter.
Photo R. Anderson

However, yesterday was Friday the 12^th and just a slip of the clippers versus a cosmically unlucky day causing me to draw my own blood.

I will not alter my activities today, nor will I think that today is any unluckier than any other day.

Certainly, one could argue that we are all living in some sort of extended Friday the 13^th unlucky paradigm brought about by the destruction of natural habitat and rising global temperatures that is creating new viruses that are pouring through the global population like an avalanche coming down the mountain. But that is both a column for another day, and a case for Mulder and Scully.

While there are other days to write about havoc humankind unleashes on the planet as a whole, the arrival of Friday the 13^th made me think about sports and the superstitious rituals that many players seem to follow.

During my years covering sports at all levels, I have seen more than my share of superstitions play out among the people I have interacted with.

There are players who will eat the same pregame meal because they feel that to eat anything else would risk certain disaster on the field.

Hitters on a hot streak in baseball are notorious for continuing whatever “routine” it is that they feel is behind their streak since they feel any deviation will likely mean the end to the streak.

The movie Bull Durham did a very good job showing the superstitious side of baseball through chants over bats, breathing through one’s eyelids, chicken, and of course a garter belt where the rose goes in the front.

Baseball is not the only sport with superstitions. Across all level of sports there are athletes who have a lucky shirt, or other article of clothing that they cannot go onto the field of battle without.

The tradition of “playoff beards” can be considered another sport superstition that athletes employ.

The link between superstitions and sports can start at a very early age.

Back in high school I did a feature article on the goalie of my school’s woman’s soccer team, who attributed her on-field success to a lucky argyle sock that she wore during every game.

Granted it was not a pair of socks but one single sock that took over when her “magic shoes” fell ill.

Throughout my career, I have been around many other superstitious athletes, and I am sure I will meet many more. To date though a single “lucky” Argyle sock has been the most memorable superstition I have encountered.

On this Friday the 13^th beware of those around you who are extra cautious of their surroundings and if you find yourself short one Argyle sock in the wash, I have a pretty good idea where it might have run off to.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to see if I can find a black cat while walking under a ladder and holding a broken mirror while stepping on all of the sidewalk cracks I can find.

Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, Durham Bulls, Major League Baseball, Minor League Baseball, Southern League, Sugar Land Skeeters

Way Back Wednesday: May the Fourth Be With You and Play Ball

May 4, 2022 Ryan Anderson

Editor’s Note: As part of our occasional Way Back Wednesday feature, today we travel back to a column written long, long ago, in a Gigaplex far, far away on May 3, 2014. In this column, we covered the unofficial holiday of Star Wars Day in the pre-Disney+ era of Baby Yoda. As you await the release of Obi-Wan Kenobi, as well as the return of the aforementioned Baby Yoda, please enjoy this column on how the world of baseball celebrates Star Wars Day and as always, May the Fourth be with you.

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This Sunday is May 4^th. In many Ballparks in galaxies both near and far, far away teams will be celebrating in blockbuster ways in honor of a little science fiction franchise that first hit the global scene before most of the current professional ballplayers were even born.

For those who may not be aware, May 4^th is known as Star Wars Day due to a pun surrounding a popular phrase found in the films.

That phrase of course is “May the force be with you,” which can easily translate to “May the fourth be with you.”

For years baseball teams have celebrated May 4^th in the Ballpark, but how many times can you really dust off that storm trooper costume to throw out the first pitch before it gets a feeling of been there done that?

With teams looking for creative and new ways to celebrate Star Wars Day it was only a matter of time until May the Fourth was celebrated on a Minor League Baseball diamond in the form of players wearing Wookie jerseys.

Each year, Swatson, the Sugarland Skeeters mascot went all out for Star Wars Day. Through the years, Swatson was dressed as Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Sadly, Swatson, like many mascots before for him, as been sent to pasture due to a changing of ownership and name change of the Skeeters. While he may be gone, thankfully I still have the memories, and the photos.
Photo R. Anderson

The Wookie awakening occurred last year when the Detroit Tigers’ Triple-A Affiliate, the Toledo Mud Hens, celebrated both May the fourth and May the fifth wearing jerseys that looked like a Wookie complete with utility belt.

Thankfully, the team opted away from the faux hair version of the jersey and instead went with a more diamond appropriate version where the fur is implied.

Not to be outdone the Kane County Cougars, the Chicago Cubs Class A affiliate, went Wookie wild this year with a double dose of furry jerseys on May 2 and an encore planned for August 30.

While players dressing up as Wookie is a fairly new Ballpark trend it is not the first time that a Wookie, or at least an actor who played a Wookie, has been at a Minor League Ballpark.

During a May 1, 2010 game between the Oklahoma City Red Hawks and the New Orleans Zephers Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Wookie extraordinaire Chewbacca, threw out the first pitch as part of the 30^th Anniversary celebration of the original Star Wars film.

While Wookie jerseys have a certain been there done that feel to them after two years on the field, a pair of Minor League teams are upping their game this year when it comes to honoring characters from the Star Wars stable.

While Lance Berkman gets the visiting villain treatment during a past Star Wars Night at Minute Maid Park a complete team will turn into Darth Vader this year.
Photo R. Anderson

The Durham Bulls, Class Triple-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays will celebrate May the fourth in R2 D2 uniforms while the Milwaukee Brewers Single-A affiliate Wisconsin Timber Rattlers will sport Darth Vader jerseys.

It seems that if a team is going to the trouble of wearing Darth Vader jerseys they should invite James Earl Jones, the man behind the voice of Vader, to announce the players.

Of course, with James Earl Jones playing a pivotal role in Field of Dreams it seems even more appropriate to have his booming voice over the Ballpark public address system.

That truly would be a field of dreams to see James Earl Jones announcing a game with players dressed up as Darth Vader.

Players are not the only ones who get into the May the fourth festivities. Often times fans dust off their finest galactic duds to head to the Ballpark.

While I have never dressed up as Boba Fett, I have attended games where ushers were dressed like Princess Leia. I have also been at games where the opposing players were made to look like Darth Vader and other villains on the Jumbo Tron.

It is all done in good fun and is kind of cool to see the worlds of film and baseball combine in such an entertaining way.

With Star Wars Day around the corner the search is on for the perfect shirt to mark the occasion.
Photo R. Anderson

Baseball, hot dogs, and post game pyrotechnics, it doesn’t get much better than that.

These may not be the droids you are looking for, but it certainly makes for a fun night at the Ballpark.

With many more Star Wars films in the works it is unlikely that the May the fourth phenomena will die down any time soon so it is best to just embrace it in the spirit of fun it is intended.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go see if I can still make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. And May the fourth be with you.

Houston Astros, Major League Baseball, Minor League Baseball, Sugar Land Skeeters

Space Cowboys and Commanders Leave Much to be Desired

February 2, 2022 Ryan Anderson

Recently, two teams I have a lengthy history of supporting decided to change their names.

That fact alone is not that surprising. In recent years, teams changing their names has been a rather common occurrence with the reasoning behind the name changes running the gambit from bowing to pressure from outside forces, to wanting to freshen a brand to sell more merch.

In keeping with that tried-and-true model, in the latest example of the name game, one team changed their name due to outside pressure from groups who considered their old name to be offensive, and the other team changed their name for what can likely be called a money grab to force their fans to buy new merchandise and to put their special seal on a new asset.

In both cases, the new names left me feeling less than excited to continue rooting for either team.

The first example of rebranding gone bad is the Sugar Land Skeeters becoming the Sugar Land Space Cowboys.

If the team really wanted to pay homage to the Sugar Land past, they could have gone with calling the team the Imperials in honor of the rich history of Sugar Land as a producer of Imperial sugar. Instead they decided to play the role of the Joker.
Photo R. Anderson

Because when I think of a great name for a Minor League Baseball team I think, “hey let’s find a title from the Steve Miller Band’s catalog and go with that.” I suppose it could have been worse and they could have called them Maurice.

But all tributes to the Joker aside, Skeeters was a name that reflected the fact that this side of Texas is ground zero for the blood sucking insects.

The rebranding trying to tie the Space Cowboys to actual aerospace workers and the “old west” history of a Houston suburb just falls flat on so many levels.

If the team really wanted to pay homage to the Sugar Land past, they could have gone with calling the team the Imperials in honor of the rich history of Sugar Land as a producer of Imperial sugar.

Better still, they could have left well enough alone and built on the legacy of the Sugar Land Skeeters instead of feeling the need to create a new brand.

In many of my marketing and management classes the value of building on an existing brand was front and center in lessons on what good marketeers do.

Instead, of following those tried and true principles the team decided to rebrand mirror the Astros lest we forget that they are an affiliate of the Major League cheaters.

In addition to a really lame new name, one of my favorite mascots, Swatson, is being sent on an imaginary trip around the world with another former Skeeters mascot named Moe and being replaced by a blue space dog. Call me crazy, but wouldn’t the sidekick of a space cowboy be a space horse and not a space dog?

I mean I get that dogs are man’s best friend and all that, but a horse, or a cow, really would have sold the whole space cowboy theme a bit more unless the space dog is meant to corral all of the sheep into buying into the new name.

As part of the rebrand launch back stories were written for the new mascot as well as detailed descriptions of how the team colors and logo were designed. When a marketer has to spend several paragraphs justifying their actions one really has to question their own buy-in on the project.

Talk about the pompatus of self-righteousness.

Shortly after the news broke that the Houston Astros bought the Skeeters, I wrote a column noting that they would likely take something I considered special and turn it into something fit for a metal trash can, and in a little over a year they did just that.

Sorry Space Cowboys but this is one fan who will not be joining you on your new quest to get money from the citizens of Space City. I would rather cling to my good memories of Swatson and the Skeeters while taking my money and running away from your rebrand.

The second example of rebranding gone bad is the Washington Football Team becoming the Washington Commanders.

As noted before in several other columns, I was born outside of Washington D.C. and was a fan of the burgundy and gold from a very young age. I even have the Hogs nose to prove it.

While I will certainly concede that the team needed to move past their use of Native American branding, the Commanders just makes me think of a bad G.I. Joe cover band.

It also creates the issue that one usually would have a single Commander in Chief versus multiple Commanders. Or as the old saying goes, too many chefs ruin the soup.

I am not alone in thinking that the Commanders name fails to capture the imagination. Former players and fans alike have not been afraid to unleash the full fury of their displeasure about the new name on various social media platforms.

One of the early leaked new names for the Washington Football Team was the Red Wolves. Unfortunately for proponents of that name, the trademark was already owned by Arkansas State University.
Photo R. Anderson

I get that the team needed to find a name that they could trademark and make money off of. One of the early favorites for a new name was the Washington Red Wolves which would have allowed fans to keep singing a certain song by replacing the word “skins” with the word “wolves.”

Sadly, for that football team in Washington, Arkansas State University already held the trademark for Red Wolves. So, any thoughts of singing Hail to the Red Wolves in D.C. were quickly dashed.

I get that the Red Wolves fell out of the pack of potential names, but are we to believe that after nearly three years of trying to find a name that was not offensive and could be trademarked, the only options was Commanders?

The anticlimactic reveal of Commanders follows the news last year of the Cleveland Indians becoming the Cleveland Guardians which is another name that falls short.

As I noted last year in a column about the Guardians, there was already a team in Cleveland named the Guardians. So, not only did the Cleveland Indians brain trust come up with a less than stunning name based on some monuments on a bridge, they did not even do enough research to realize that the name was already in use in their own town.

One certainly hopes that after three years of searching the Washington Football Team at least verified that there wasn’t already a Washington Commanders franchise in town.

I realize that there are likely people who think that the Space Cowboys and Commanders are good team names. Some of those people may even not be employed by the two franchises that chose those names.

But for me and my time and money, I am not planning to give any thought to the Space Cowboys or the Commanders, since they are doing me wrong, doing me wrong.

Thanks for the memories, Swatson. I will always remember the times we shared at the Ballpark before the Astros came and ruined everything. Stay Gold Swatson. You will be missed.
Photo R. Anderson

I am not ruling out a return to the Ballpark in Sugar Land since my desire to see live baseball will likely overcome my disdain for the Space Cowboys name and a desire to not give any money to anything owned by the Astros.

But, if I do return to Constellation Field, I will either be wearing my Skeeters gear, or showing support for the Round Rock Express or Albuquerque Isotopes.

As far as the Commanders go, I will remember the glory days of my youth in a Maryland suburb where I led the Super Bowl cheers in elementary school. Those are enough Lovey-dovey, lovey-dovey, lovey-dovey all the time memories without tarnishing them by going commando for the Commanders.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a strange urge to listen to the Steve Miller Band.

Southpaw Musings