Cleveland Indians considering a name change [Edit: It's "Guardians"]

The Game Room
142

Again, please take my comments in context. I have zero problem with the names of any of these teams. I even explained why many of these team names are justified. My post was a reaction to the comment that there are teams in London that are named after specific neighborhoods in London (to tell them apart from one another). I was pointing out that in the US, not only would it be unusual for teams to be named after neighborhoods in a city, but many teams named after a city don’t play in that city and many teams are named after a state or a multi-state area. So the naming conventions in the US tend to go the opposite way. I never once expressed a distaste for these conventions.

Also, I already reacted yesterday to my mistake for Washington (which still does not play in the city, but in Maryland). Yes, it plays in the Washington, DC area so it’s not misnamed, and I never suggested that.

Please, before reacting to a post please read the rest of the thread.

143

How else was he supposed to show everyone that he knew how to use the word “conurbation”?

144

I think that the closest that the US has come to naming teams after neighborhoods was the handful of Brooklyn teams. But the boroughs of New York City are a lot more than neighborhoods, and there aren’t even any prominent teams named after the other boroughs.

145

Well that conversation wasn’t a total loss because it let me learn that Chelsea stadium is in Fulham, but since it is almost literally adjacent, it seems sort of like saying that Pterosaurs aren’t dinosaurs even though they’re almost the closest related things to dinosaurs: it’s a matter of definition, and including them wouldn’t exclude anyone else.

146

Although the Brooklyn Dodgers were formed before Brooklyn joined NYC. Brooklyn Nets is obvious playing off that.

147

Brooklyn by itself would be the third or fourth largest city in the United States; its population is almost exactly the same as Chicago.

148

So they have a large number of passionate fins?

I’ll just, err, show myself out…

149

There are however unofficial nicknames, like the Bronx Bombers for the Yankees.

150

I used to conurbate a lot when I was a teenager, but not so much these days.

151

If you look at the history of professional sports in the U.S., the “nicknames” originally were the names.

Professional sports were popularized in the U.S. by baseball leagues in tehlate 19th century. Early in that era, most competitions took place among clubs located in the same area. These clubs were originally founded by gentlemen’s clubs, so they had those kinds of names.

So, in Brooklyn the Atlantic Club would play against the Eckford Club. In Baltimore, the Lord Baltimore Club would play against the Maryland Club. In Washington, the National Club would play against the Olympic Club.

So some of the more successful clubs became popular:

Athletic Club
Atlantic Club
Centennial Club
Eckford Club
Elm City Club
Forest City Club
Kekionga Club
Mansfield Club
Mutual Club
National Club
Olympic Club
Resolute Club
Western Club

As the professional game became more popular, clubs started traveling to other cities to play against more distant rivals. It became customary to add a city name to specify where those clubs were coming from, especially since some club names were common in multiple places, and also, the “club” started to be omitted:

Athletic (Club) of Philadelphia
Atlantic (Club) of Brooklyn
Centennial (Club) of Philadelphia
Eckford (Club) of Brooklyn
Elm City (Club) of New Haven
Forest City (Club) of Cleveland
Forest City (Club) of Rockford
Kekionga (Club) of Fort Wayne
Mansfield (Club) of Middletown
Mutual (Club) of New York
National (Club) of Washington
Olympic (Club) of Washington
Resolute (Club) of Elizabeth
Western (Club) of Keokuk

At the same time, a trend was developing to refer to individual members of a club by the club name. So, a member of the Mutual Club was “a Mutual.” And when a group of them played, they were “the Mutuals.” So that trend was applied to teams generally:

Athletics of Philadelphia
Atlantics of Brooklyn
Centennials of Philadelphia
Eckfords of Brooklyn
Elm Citys of New Haven
Forest Citys of Cleveland
Forest Citys of Rockford
Kekiongas of Fort Wayne
Mansfields of Middletown
Mutuals of New York
Nationals of Washington
Olympics of Washington
Resolutes of Elizabeth
Westerns of Keokuk

Another trend was also in motion, however, and the geographic designation became more important, and newspapers started to reverse the names in tables:

Brooklyn Atlantics
Brooklyn Eckfords
Cleveland Forest Citys
Elizabeth Resolutes
Fort Wayne Kekiongas
Keokuk Westerns
New Haven Elm Citys
Philadelphia Athletics
Philadelphia Centennials
Rockford Forest Citys
Middletown Mansfields
New York Mutuals
Washington Nationals
Washington Olympics

In organized leagues, usually (but not always) the city name became so important that it was effectively the only official part of the club’s name.

Additionally, the success of the 1869-1870 Cincinnati Red Stockings solidified sock color as a popular way of identifying a club.

So the 1876 National League’s clubs were:

Athletic
Boston
Chicago
Cincinnati
Hartford
Louisville
Mutual
Saint Louis

By this point, the non-geographic part of the name was usually informal and impromptu. Sometimes there was a name that was widely accepted as the “real” name, sometimes not. Today, a lot of sources regularize the names of 19th century clubs using the modern format:

Boston Red Stockings/Red Caps
Chicago White Stockings
Cincinnati Red Stockings
Hartford Dark Blues
Louisville Grays/Colonels
New York Mutuals
Philadelphia Athletics
Saint Louis Brown Stockings

Even as late as 1901, however, there was no standardization. That’s why there’s no real agreement over what the “real name” of the American League’s Boston club was in 1901. It’s now officially the Boston Red Sox, but in 1901, it was really just “Boston.”

Over the first few decades of the 20th century, the two-part name, with a geographic designation first and a nickname second became customary, and club ownership stopped leaving the nickname up to popular agreement, designating it officially for marketing purposes.

152

Is that a conure in your pocket or are you happy to see me?

153

Good post. For some of the other clubs, the current names started as nicknames used by reporters, such as the Cubs or the Tigers.

154

Thank you. That was interesting. I like this type of historical oddity.

155

Yes, that’s what I mean by informal and impromptu. Anyone was free to come up with a nickname when talking about or writing about a team. And nicknames often became tied to a city rather than to a particular corporate entity. So there were multiple unrelated teams called the Boston Red Stockings/Red Sox, New York Mutuals, Philadelphia Athletics, Washington Nationals, Baltimore Orioles, Cincinnati Red Stockings/Reds, Chicago White Stockings/White Sox, Milwaukee Brewers, and Saint Louis Brown Stockings/Browns, Los Angeles Angels, etc. Writers and fans used those names just because they liked them.

Today, when the Brooklyn Dodgers move to Los Angeles, they take the Dodgers name with them, but in an earlier era, the next team in Brooklyn would have almost automatically had a claim on the Dodgers name. When these nicknames became “official,” however, things changed.

And that would make sense. Today we have several team whose nicknames really make more sense if they had stayed in their original cities—Los Angeles Lakers, Tennessee Oilers (since changed), Utah Jazz, Los Angeles Dodgers.

Today, the Texas Rangers hold the legal rights to the Washington Senators name, but what’s the real point of that in a historical sense? They don’t need that name and they don’t use it because it doesn’t make any sense.

156

As a matter of contrast, consider the Nippon Professional Baseball league in Japan. It’s kinda reversed – the team name is associated with the corporate entity (specifically its sponsoring corporation) more than the city they call home. Hence, the Softbank Hawks (of Fukuoka) or the Yomiuri Giants (of Tokyo).

The closest thing I’ve noted in American sport is the Green Bay Packers, whose nickname is derived from the corporate name of their founding sponsor company, the Indian Packing Company. But their “first name” is still geographic.

157

Great post, Acsenray - thanks! I learned a lot. Once again the Dope brings a smile to my face!

158

Hence one of my favorite team names, the Nippon-Ham Fighters (of Hokkaido). It’s now more commonly written in English with the hyphen in the company name, but when I was in high school, and first learned about Japanese baseball, I saw it written as “Nippon Ham Fighters,” and I thought that “Ham Fighters” was an awesome nickname for a team. :smiley:

159

I think it’s more that it’s derived from the common profession of men in that city. Back in the early days, before sports became a full profession in their own right, the athletes would still have needed day jobs, and most of the players on the Green Bay football team would have been packers. Similarly, see the Pittsburgh Steelers and the (former) Houston Oilers.

160

The Detroit Pistons were originally the Zollner Pistons of Fort Wayne Indiana, owned by Fred Zollner, who also owned the Zollner Piston company. When they moved to Detroit the Piston part still worked so they kept it.

161

No. As mentioned, it’s named after the Indian Packing Company, which donated $500 to Curly Lambeau (who worked for them) for uniforms and equipment in 1919. The company required him to name the team after it in return for the donation.