The New Expos

[Demreb]

With Buddy-boy Selig finally getting it right and moving the Expos somewhere, anywhere but Montreal, it looks like they will play in Washington next year.

Assuming they won't keep the Expo name (not a lot of tradition there aside from Rusty Staub, Yoopie, and Ellis Valentine/Warren Cromartie/Andre Dawson) what should their new name be?

I found it interesting to learn that the Texas Rangers hold the rights to the name Senators (from Washington's last abdication). So if the Senators are not a possible name, what can you come up with?

I'm still trying to come up with an entry.

[Copperfields]

Good topic!

I didn't know the Rangers owned "Senators" - very interesting! I'm sure there's a deal to be worked out - this is Washington DC after all.

I guess the traditionalist in me would like to see the Senators used, but barring that...

• Washington Nationals (I like the shortend version "the Nats")
• Washington Patriots (though duplicated in football)
• Washington Federals (the Feds?)
• Washington Capitals (the Caps? Wait isn't this used in hockey?)
• Washington Statesmen (or Statespersons, I guess)

Of course, Washington DC lends itself to all sorts of fun names that will never be used:

• Washington West Wingers (think of the URL for the team - www.www.com!)
• Washington Spinners
• Washington Lobbyists
• DC ACers
• Washington Gridlock
• Washington Red Tape
• Washington Pundits

David

[MGrage]

How about the Washington Deficits?
Washington Partisans?
Washington Gasbags?
Washington Corruption?

[Copperfields]

MGrage said:

How about the Washington Deficits?
Washington Partisans?
Washington Gasbags?
Washington Corruption?

These are all fine with me except for the last one - I really hate those basketball/hockey/and now football-style singular nicknames or a nebulous concept (kind of like declaring a war on an abstract element like drugs or terror).

[Demreb]

Excellent ideas.

David -

I love the Federals for a couple of reasons:

1) Your shortened version of the Feds lets the mind reel with Sportscenter possibilities, and

2) It harkens to baseball history (there being a Federal League in the early 1900's - Chicago's team was the Whales).

The Capitals is fine except that it is a hockey name so it can't be used. The fact that there is a Cardinal team in football is ridiculous.

The Nationals isn't too bad, but since they are part of the National League I don't think it would work.

Of course I'm partial to the Washington West Wingers. I was thinking possibly the Washington Kerrys (god willing). Of course this would be a dated name (lasting at best 8 years). But it's better than the Washington Bush because first of all it has the singular/plural problem and second it would force people like Mr. Grage to force the limits of the Bulletin Board filtering system.

Matt's idea of the Deficits has many possibilities for headlines, "The Deficit is down .. . "

Reminds me of the headline when the Miami Heat became an expansion NBA franchise. "It's not the humidity that's bad, it's the Heat."

[Copperfields]

Demreb said:

Matt's idea of the Deficits has many possibilities for headlines, "The Deficit is down .. . "

Reminds me of the headline when the Miami Heat became an expansion NBA franchise. "It's not the humidity that's bad, it's the Heat."

Or you could go with the Washington Interns - because they'll suck (ok, not my idea, but I thought it was clever so I borrowed it).

I was also reminded of when the Washington Bullets changed their name. Jay Leno said (paraphrasing) "The Washington Bullets have changed the name of their team because they were concerned about the association with crime and violence, so from now on they'll be known as the Bullets."

[Nick's Picts (archived)]

Gotta say I really like the Pundits, Spinners, and Interns. I also like the Federals, but I would prefer it be hispanicized to Federales. It just rolls off the tongue in a happy way.

Truth be told, though, I hope they keep the name Expos.

[Copperfields]

Nick's said:

Truth be told, though, I hope they keep the name Expos.

Or how about the ex-Expos?

Or the Washington Exposes? (sorry, don't know how to make the accent above the last 'e')

David

[Copperfields]

It's the Nats.

The Washington Post is reporting that the Washington franchise will be christened the "Nationals" at a press conference today.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3644-2004Nov22.html
Of course, given the recent ballpark troubles, it appears that this franchise may still be called the Expos in 2005...

[Nick's Picts (archived)]

Exposés! I love it!!

[not that you really want to know, but characters outside the ASCII-128 can be had by holding down your alt key and typing in the 4 digit decimal of the hex that represents its unicode value. These values can be found via the Character Map. A lowercase e with an acute accent is 0x00E9 (in hex) or 0233 (in decimal). Thus Alt+0233 = é. Now let's hope it doesn't get mangled by proboard's CGI.]

Now the real point behind this post is to engage in a bit of topic drift. In my heart of hearts I hope the D.C. deal falls through. Then they move the frachise out west (Las Vegas or Portland) and stick them in the AL West. Simultaneously they move Pittsburgh to the NL East and balance is once again restored. It's bad enough that there are three divisions instead of two, but having the divisions and leagues unevenly distributed drives me bats. This just seems like as good an opportunity as will ever come up (barring another round of expansion *shudder*) to fix this mess.

[Copperfields]

Nick's said:

I hope the D.C. deal falls through. Then they move the frachise out west (Las Vegas or Portland) and stick them in the AL West. Simultaneously they move Pittsburgh to the NL East and balance is once again restored. It's bad enough that there are three divisions instead of two, but having the divisions and leagues unevenly distributed drives me bats.

But such a move would result in an odd number of teams in each league, right? That's leaves you with the scheduling nightmare of either: 1) one team having an off day every day of the season - and since games aren't played singly as in basketball or football, but in a series, it would mean one team in each league having 3-4 days off in a row, or 2) you have at least one interleague series going on at all times.

Given the choice between those options and unevenness between the NL divisions, I'll take the unbalanced divisions.

Don't get me wrong, though - I'd like all the mess to get fixed as well: unbalanced leagues, interleague play, the wild card, etc.

Way back in 1997 when the MLB was talking about massive realignment of the leagues, my Dad proposed an alignment that sounded pretty good. It went back to the original 8-team NL and AL, then formed two more leagues from the leftover teams. I wrote about it in the Sept. 16, 1997 report:
www.geocities.com/cfclhist3/1997/report/091697.doc
Of all of the so-called 'radical' realignment plans, I kind of liked this one.

David