Responding to the news of a presidential insistence that the Cleveland Guardians, once Cleveland Indians, and the Washington Commanders, once Washington Redskins, should reclaim those original names, New York Times columnist John McWhorter explored the intersection of American sports and politics.
However, although what McWhorter, a linguist, says is always incisive, my mind is in the mood for a lighter touch, and so I will deal with McWhorter’s perceptive views another time.
Instead, let’s look at team names as a two-part writing problem, the first part of which is simply locational. A very long time ago, I played football for the Bay Ridge Celtics, indicating a neighborhood in Brooklyn followed by an identifying nickname, in this case, “Celtics” bringing to mind the Celts, a warlike tribal people centuries ago in the British Isles.
That second part of this writing exercise asking for a nickname does require some thought; however, in some instances those responsible for providing a team nickname seem to have taken a pass.
For example, in baseball we have the Philadelphia Phillies. It’s as if the locational indicator was insufficient: thus, the Phillies from Philadelphia, a profound failure of imagination.
A second example in this category of uninspired nicknaming is the Dallas Texans referring to two professional football teams, one in the NFL, the other in the late and unlamented AFL. Perhaps those providing these teams with that locational nickname imagined their teams’ fans needed help finding their teams on a map.
Most often, however, those dealing with this team nickname writing process accept the challenge of coming up with something beyond geographical redundancy. And that is a team nickname, for example, that suggests strength and forcefulness. Thus, my ancient team of the Celtics, drawing on the warlike association of that long ago tribe.
In this respect, the choice is sometimes an animal of recognized fierce combativeness, size and/or strength, such as the Detroit Lions or Chicago Bears although I recognize that the nickname for the Chicago Cubs doesn’t work the same way as it does for the Bears. Sometimes, there is a more interesting geographical hook, rather than mere mindless repetition. That could be the case with the Edmonton Oilers hockey team since that section of western Canada where we find Edmonton is known for its wealth of natural resources, such as, well, oil.
These musings brought me to a puzzle in my own life as fan: and that is why did my Brooklyn, now Los Angeles, baseball team, having moved across the country, maintain its mystifying nickname of “Dodgers.” What were they then or now dodging?
A couple of strokes on the keyboard brought me an answer. They were in the late 19h century the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers.
OK, a start.
But this new information raises more questions than it answers. Trolleys still ran in the Brooklyn of my youth. They traveled on tracks powered by electricity drawn down from a power line. Clearly, dodging them would not seem to pose much of a problem. You would look down the tracks both ways as you would to safely cross a street. No dodging, which suggests risk, appears to be necessary.
The answer required a bit of historical perspective, namely, that those trolley lines were being constructed where the ballpark for the team played its games. Fans had to dodge the construction more than the trolleys themselves to reach the ballpark. Thus, the anachronistic nickname that has stuck for a century and a half.
I will close by asking how any of the above explains the Traverse City Pit Spitters baseball team. I get the geographical allusion to our cherry country, like Edmonton’s oil, but “pit spitters?”