So do they move the Guardian statues to the stadium now and replace them with some rock-n-roll guitar statues on the bridge?
Do certain British newspapers receive royalties and/or start providing coverage of the team?
Will rival teams derogatorily refer to them as the Gardasils?
There is already an Atlanta Phoenix sports team, so clearly it’s not a problem. That’s why I suggested Firebirds.
It has absolutely nothing to do with their role in the war. It only represents the rebuilding of the city afterward. It’s not a Confederate monument or anything. Quite the opposite; if anything it is a reminder of the price for their part in the war.
This is true and you can lecture people about it all you want, it’s still bad optics and an especially bad idea when you are changing a name for its associations.
The city of Atlanta clearly disagrees with that.
A huge percentage of them clearly think that the Braves name should stay. If this was about the city of Atlanta alone, there wouldn’t be a name change in the first place.
Fair enough.
Still I think it’s a bit silly that people will object to a city celebrating its ability to rebuild itself. I guess we’ll just have to disagree about that.
I am fully confident that someone, somewhere will be mortally offended by the name Guardians.
The superior in a Franciscan monastery is sometimes called a “Guardian”, so people might object on religious grounds maybe? (Just spit-balling.)
FWIW, over at the NFL, the owners of the Washington (DC) Football Team announced earlier in the month that they would not be going with the fan-popular “Warriors” alternative, and in fact will be seeking to avoid any even indirect Native American allusions or references.
The city of Atlanta leans heavily Democratic. John Lewis was the Congressman representating most of the city for years after all. And in decades of Democratic rule no one has suggested replacing phoenix iconography which happens to also be on the seal of the city:
https://dlg.usg.edu/record/geh_athpc_2148
Of course the baseball team doesn’t play within city limits anymore.
The near end of the bridge is already about as close to the stadium as you can get, without losing street lanes or something to make room. And I can’t even imagine how you could move the statues-- The closest you could come would be demolishing them and re-building them from scratch.
Here’s a street view, from which you can see both the statues and the stadium:
EDIT: The view from the other direction, which would be seen by anyone on the west side on their way to the stadium:
Well, this guy doesn’t like the name change:
https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2021/07/26/portage-county-sheriff-used-official-letterhead-to-whine-about-guardians-name-change?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=articleblog&utm_campaign=rightrail&utm_content=TabbedPopularity
It could literally be named after the color of the teams socks, like two baseball teams already are. It could refer to something that doesn’t even exist in the city the team is currently in (Utah Jazz, LA Lakers…)
We only think these names are good (if we do…) because they are old and familiar. There is a zero percent chance that if Utah got an expansion basketball team they would come up with Jazz as the team name.
Rockers would actually have been OK, IMO, except that the Colorado Rockies already exist. Too similar.
I think Spiders might have been better, but I like that Guardians has a connection to the city (that image of the statues with the stadium in the background is cool) and is a timeless and flexible word. Spiders locks you into a pretty specific motif.
Rockers would have been okay? To resurrect our fond memories of that closer we picked up from the Braves in the late 90s? He was a real gem, as I recall.
Cleveland has nothing to do with rock and roll. Hell, for the name reveal video, they got a band from Akron. The only musical group that anyone has heard of from Cleveland is Bone Thugz N Harmony: not really a rock group. I could name five American cities more closely aligned with Rock and Roll in the US than Cleveland, and one of them is even on the same lake as us.
Another issue with the “spiders” name is that it may, perhaps, be too closely associated with the trademarked Spiderman character?
Other than Alan Freed and the very first major rock concert.
And, which is part of the reason why the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland.
That said, I wasn’t a big fan of the idea of the Rockers name, anyway.
THREE teams - the Reds, too. Also the Cardinals, who apparently get the name from the color, not the bird, but I’ll give them a pass because it’s pretty strongly associated with the bird now.
A lot of baseball team nicknames are dumb, to be honest. PHILLIES, for God’s sake. Padres. No one would use “Dodgers” now; we’re just used to it, that’s all. Cubs? Come on. Nationals is a ridiculous name. “Mets” aren’t even a thing. Athletics. Guardians is no worse than any of those and better than a lot of them.
See, I actually like most of those names. I like the punning of Phillies (whether intentional or not and the sheer silliness of the name.) Mets is cool with me. Athletics is a bit boring, I admit, but I like the shortened “A’s.” Cubs is at least a different type of animal, going for the cutesy offspring rather than the big mighty Bear or Wolf or Lion or Wildcat. Padres is unusual in a good way (and reflects the founding of San Diego.) I like all those. I would have liked “Spiders” for the same reason. It’s kinda goofy in a good way.
“Rockers” would have been way too cutesy. If the team wanted something that referenced the city’s musical heritage, “the Buzzards” would have been good - a nod to the iconic rock station WMMS, Home of the Buzzard.