MLB Team Names

• New York Yankees – Similar to the Vancouver Canucks, naming a team based off of a nickname for a country’s people is somewhat dicey. I suppose it could be argued that the name is regional since Yankee often refers to a northeastern citizen of the United States and New York is certainly in that region and it could also be argued that it is a patriotic name which invokes images of the best qualities of the American spirit. Those arguments would be weak, but you could make them.
• Kansas City Royals – I guess suggesting nobility can be inspiring for a sports team, but royalty really has little to do with athletic prowess and has absolutely nothing to do with Kansas City. Except that the name actually came from the American Royal Livestock Show held in Kansas City every year since 1899, according to Wikipedia. Naming a team after a livestock show is kind of dubious but it is locally specific so it sits right on the fence between really lame and just mostly lame. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt for now.
• Minnesota Twins – Locally specific is fine, such as with the Twins who are named after the Twin Cities (St. Paul and Minneapolis) but Twins aren’t any better at baseball than anyone else so the end result, while well intentioned, is less than stellar.
• Chicago Cubs – Why cubs? Like my dad says, naming a team after a younger version of an animal that would be a much better team name (in this case the Bears, which works fine for the football team so why not the baseball team?) is pretty silly. Still, animal names and alliterations are better than some of the junk in the next section so we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt here, a little.
• Houston Astros – The team based out of Houston was originally called the Colt 45s, which being an intimidating firearm is a pretty decent name. Then NASA set up shop in Houston and in 1965 the team was renamed to honor that (probably due to the popularity of the space program at the time). The problem is that “Astro” isn’t really a noun, it’s more of an adjective unless you’re talking about the dog on The Jetsons, which I don’t think we should. At least the spirit of the team name which evokes concepts of speed, progress, intelligence and so on is in the right place, but the end result is only so-so.
• Milwaukee Brewers – Certainly locally-specific since Milwaukee is home to numerous beer breweries, I’m not convinced that (unlike the Steelers or Packers from football) a brewer suggests any quality that would be useful to a baseball player. Patience maybe? I dunno, although it may be salvaged somewhat due to the common correlation between baseball and beer, at least from a fan’s perspective.
• Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim – Never mind the stupid city madness in the team name, Angels is questionable because it’s hard to imagine how an Angel would suggest anything terrestrial which might be an asset to a baseball team. But Angels refers to the English translation of “Los Angeles” (City of the Angels) which makes it locally appropriate (if not factually appropriate) and I suppose—at least if you believe some cut rate Disney movie—a team of Angels would be pretty tough to beat. It still seems kind of iffy to me though.

Actively Ridiculous or Stupid Names

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