Baseball Returns to D.C. Take a swing at a new name - you can't miss

Posted: September 30, 2004

Washington may or may not get a new President next year, but it is getting a new baseball team. And like almost every major-league team that has ever worn Washington on its jersey, this one is a last-place bunch.

Word yesterday was that the poor, mistreated, bumbling Expos will end their long twilight in Montreal and move to the imperial city. Let's hope this team is more successful that the District's previous two. It's not a high bar. The original Senators' penchant for losing inspired the quip, "Washington, first in war, first in peace, last in the American League." The team became the Minnesota Twins in 1961. The second set of Senators, equally inept, lasted in the District only slighter longer than the Nixon administration. In 1972, that team became the Texas Rangers, which still hasn't won anything.

Clearly, to change the bad baseball karma on the Potomac, the new team needs a new name. Impeach the Senators. Options abound. Singular nouns are chic as team names (e.g. the Chicago Fire). The Washington Spin, perhaps, or the Washington Deficit? How about the Exposes? That would honor the team's genealogy as well as its new milieu.

Other names could evoke items the seat of government has in abundance: the Lobbyists, the Leakers, the Pundits, the Hardballers, the Demagogues, the Expense Accounts, the PACmen, the Earmarks, the Scandals, the Beltway Bandits, the Unindicted Co-Conspirators or the Deputy Assistant Undersecretaries.

Currying favor, the team could name itself after the most powerful man in Congress, House Majority leader Tom DeLay: the Hammers. Or the fellow with the most nukes at his disposal: the Rummys.

If conservative activist Grover Norquist has his way, the team will be named in the same way he wants every free-standing public structure in America to be named: the Reagans.

Have your own idea? Send it in to editor@phillynews.com.

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