DEATH TO TEAL: The Florida-soon-to-be-Miami Marlins have unveiled their new logo, and if you like faux-deco styling on what looks to be the entrance to a Miami subway station circa 1986, topped by something in the San Francisco Giants' font, you'll be excited.
Speaking of baseball and excitement, my sympathies are with the fans of the Red Sox and Braves. Was this foreseeable?
Any Red Sox fan that doesn't half-expect a disastrous late-season collapse likely came about the fanhood sometime around Game Six of the 2004 ALCS. This is pretty much within the Sox's character, historically.
ReplyDeleteWhy would anybody have sympathy for the fans of a team that has had tremendous success over the last decade? Even without the payroll advantage, and even without how insufferable their fans have been, and even without the whiplash from the anti-Yankee steroid moralizing snapping back on the Boston press -- even without all of that, why should one sympathize with them? If the answer is "because Red Sox fans will just not shut up about how this has been the most painful September in their collective memories," your sympathies are too easily subject to provocation. Your sympathies are properly directed at people who have to listen to people from Boston who are (at the moment, prematurely) talking about A Historic Collapse.
ReplyDeleteBecause we have HFA throughout. I'm not allowed to enjoy this.
ReplyDelete<span>Because we have HFA throughout. I'm not allowed to gloat. Feels like taunting.</span>
ReplyDelete#humbletaunt?
As for the new Marlins logo, it puts me in the mind of Johnny, from Airplane:
ReplyDeleteWhere did you get that dress? It's awful! And those shoes and that coat, sheeeeez!
John W. Henry must have done something MAJOR to piss of the gods of sport. Liverpool has sucked for the last two weeks as well. If Brighton knock LFC out of the Carling Cup tomorrow, I'd be panicking in Boston.
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Logo, fine, whatever. But let us all stand and applaud that the Marlins finally will be in line with the proper rules of Sports Geography Naming.* No longer will the Marlins be in violation of the state/region rule!
ReplyDelete*To recap, you're only allowed to use the name of a state of region if you're the only team of your league in said state/region. You must use the name of the city, state or region you are in (the Washington Redskins being the worst example, though the Rays, Lightning and Bucaneers are also prime examples for using the name of a city that doesn't even exist).
No, I reject that. Even as a humbletaunt. If you want to feel fake-sorry for anybody, feel sorry for Royals fans and Mariners fans and Pirates fans and Orioles fans, because when was the last time those teams were anything but lousy? Don't say a single word that validates the Red Sox bullshit that ESPN just won't shut up about.
ReplyDeleteIt should be fairly obvious that that was not Spacewoman.
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is keep limping to the Wild Card, Boston. Justin Verlander will be waiting for you.
ReplyDeleteAnother Detroit note:
It's amazing how in two short months Dave Dombrowski went from "Why did we re-up his contract?" to Executive of the Year. Martinez and Benoit over the winter combined with the pickups of Betemit, Young and Fister (and the rehabiliation of Brandon Inge back into a passable squad player) have created a machine that is peaking at just about the right time.
See you Oct 19, Adam.
--bd
Totally. My whole family are obnoxious Red Sox fans.
ReplyDeleteAnd those New Jersey football teams. In the case of Miami, it's especially misleading. Florida is the American South while Miami isn't really even part of the United States. The two should always be distinguished. It'd be like the Cubs going with Illinois.
ReplyDeleteI have some sympathy for Red Sox fans, but personally I'm pulling for the Rays because they're still the underdog in terms of payroll. But I'm OK either way.
ReplyDeleteBut as a Met rooter, Larry and all the Brave fans can go take a long walk off a short pier.
How do the "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" play into that rule?
ReplyDeleteThe Rays, Lightning, and Bucs use a regional name, not a city name. "Tampa Bay," by itself, does exist: it's the body of water that separates Tampa from the Gulf Coast cities of St. Pete and Clearwater. But the Tampa/St.Pete/Clearwater region is also called the "Tampa Bay area" or the "Bay area," and the teams were named with the regional base in mind. The Rays actually play in that Godawful dome in St. Pete, so it makes even slightly more sense for them.
ReplyDeleteIt's still mostly stupid (akin to coming up with, say, the "Tri-State Jets" or the "Delaware Valley Flyers"), but it doesn't run afoul of the Finn Rules of Sports Geography Naming. This is one of the few things on which I will defend my erstwhile home. (That, and I won't let anyone get away with saying that Tampa doesn't have very many strip clubs.)
Let's also be clear - whatever happens to the Braves and Red Sox, the greatest and most improbable collapse of all time will remain the 2007 Mets.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'm slow, but what does HFA stand for? The best I could come up with was High Frequency Accelerometer...which you would need to go back to the start of the season to put some money on the Cubbies. 100-1 shots! (yes, I've already made this joke, but by definition, Back to the Future II jokes never get old).
ReplyDeleteHome Field Advantage.
ReplyDelete"<span>How do the "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" play into that rule?"</span>
ReplyDeleteI feel free to ignore this craven marketing maneuver by the Anaheim Angels. Violates the "must be in the city in the name of the team" rule.
Adam does make an interesting point about Tampa Bay being a regional name, one which I'm not especially familiar with. I'm still inclined to rule against the name (cue Judge John Hodgman gavel sound) just because saying only Tampa Bay to me still sounds like they're playing underwater.
One of these days, I'm going to have to write down the full set of rules for y'all, with clauses. And lists of proper team names like the Maryland/Landover Redskins.
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As far as the Braves go, yeah, totally foreseeable. There's not a team in baseball that could lose their #2 and #3 starters at the beginning of August and be secure in their playoff position. The Phillies are the closest, but if Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels had gone down and the Braves had stayed healthy, the division would be a dogfight by now.
ReplyDeleteI've always liked St. Louis as a baseball town and always liked Cardinals fans, but I'd really like them to lose three or four games down the stretch. (Six would be ideal, but.....)
And as for the Marlins, we watched the game last night and it inspired us to Google airfare to Miami and Youppi! costumes, because ouch. You can hear individual people cheering. And I think most of the people who were there were Braves fans.
What about the Houston Texans? Is that okay because Houston is the specific city they're in, or do we also look to the nickname and ding them because there are also the Cowboys?
ReplyDeleteThey're not the Bay Rays, Bay Lighting and Bay Bucaneers of Tampa?
ReplyDeleteI agree and endorse this comment, but I don't want to "Like" it. I don't like it one bit.
ReplyDeleteHowever bad the new logo is for the newly alliterative Miami Marlins, it is still a major upgrade over the current Marlins' logo. So it has that going for it.
ReplyDelete2009 Tigers. Anyone can lose a seven game lead in 17 games. It takes real talent to lose a three game lead in only four games.
ReplyDeleteThe first year I really spent invested in the Red Sox was 1986, when I was 10 years old. Collapse is totally foreseeable and, in fact, regularly expected by many. A friend from summer camp had as his FB status, "The leaves are changing, there's a chill in the air, the Sox are falling apart. Must be September!"
ReplyDeleteWe're not down and out by any stretch of the imagination. Dammit.
ReplyDeleteAh...thanks Adam. And Cholly.
ReplyDeleteGeez, that's one awful looking logo. That is all.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Oh, weep for the Red Sox and their payroll and their total control of baseball media. Boo hoo.
ReplyDeleteAnyone feeling even token sympathies for fans of the Red Sox should review the following link and reconsider:
ReplyDeletehttp://twitpic.com/6o9rgo
Paul Lukas's Uniwatch blog recently had a link to an article circa 1974-75 reporting on the Bucs name and team colors (which were originally going to be orange, green and white, like U. of Miami), and the reporter actually said that they expected the team to be called the "Bay Bucs" for short. That did not catch on, fortunately.
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