Here in river city, thoughts are turning to baseball. Our stadium (currently named John O’Donnel stadium…but probably going to be corportately named to something like Oscar Meyer field) is currently undergoing a multi million renovation.
I think this is a good thing. it’s a stadium nestled along the mighty Mississippi River, and baseball games at night there can be pretty nice. Past flooding issues, and an outdated infrastructure make the upgrade necessary. With an upgrade, game a name change for some reason.
The powers that be held a naming contest and hired some fru fru California firm to pick the winner and design a logo etc. The team used to be called the River Bandits, not a great name…but it captures the spirit ok I guess.
After numerous entries, the best choice apparently…was
The Swing Of The Quad Cities!!!
The logo features asaxophone vomiting a baseball …
See…it’s so clever. We’re the hometown of Bix Beiderbecke, the famous Jazz player…umm who played the trumpet…and of course there is the “swing” meaning in baseball. So clever, and so insipid.
This notion of using the “Of the Quad Cities” phrasing is so chi chi as to induce its own type of vomiting. “The Cubs of Chicago”? “The Yankees of New York”?
To be fair, when a named was proposed for the civic center built here, many people hated The Mark of the Quad Cities as a name…and it’s turned out to be a successful arena. That doesn’t mean you have to apply the same logic to your local baseball team.
Signed: dave of the beagles.
Sorry, no sympathy from me…despite my generally outgoing nature. Why?
I live in Omaha, NE, sans pro football. This forces me to retain my youthful allegiance to Washington’s (also ill-named) team–damn, I miss Joe Gibbs!–but also lures me into the occasional arena football game in the off-season. Now, as arena football goes, we have a pretty decent team, but the name? Beef. ‘The’ Beef, if you will, logo only recently altered to not look like a particularly curly turd.
The Quad Cities are Davenport and Bettendorf, IA, and Rock Island and Moline , IL
Damn, somebody on the outside knows we’re here, amazing.
BTW I’ve been to the Mark, nice place. And it’s probably called “of the Quad Cities” 'cause if you called them “The Bettendorf Swing” most of us, even in the state, would say “huh”? It’s the Quad Cities, and treated as one place by most everybody.
Still though, “The Swing of the Quad Cities” doesn’t really have that ring does it? Sounds like a ballroom dancing troupe.
And the individual players are called what…Swingers? I hate team names where the players can’t be called anything that makes some kind of sense. St. Louis Blues Hockey and each player is what…a BLUE? I’m a BLUE, WTF is that?
Er…you did know that masonite was quoting from The Music Man, right?
Anyway, why not call the team the Spiders? In honor of Big Spider Beck! :::Rilchiam falls on floor laughing::: That’s how my dad told me the name was pronounced, when I was a wee 'un.
I will agree that the whole thing is a little silly. But then, my team from the same league are named after the bolts that hold the tires onto the car. Lugnuts.
I am so sick of hearing “Go Nuts” I could scream.The naming of minor league teams has gotten so out of hand.
Then again, we are league champs. And we’re a Cubs affiliate, can you believe that?
