Idiots Write About Sports

Words has reached these shores (courtesy of Ball Wonk) that the Potomac Cannons — formerly the Carolina League affiliates of the Cincinnati Reds but now trothed to the relocated squadron in our nation’s capital — have changed their name.

Potomac Cannons club owner Art Silber announced that the team’s new name will be the Potomac Nationals for the 2005 season. The announcement took place Sunday evening at the 10th Annual Hot Stove Banquet and Silent Auction at the Hyatt Fair Lakes hotel in Fairfax.

This news is terribly upsetting to your faithful correspondent, who, as the three or four regular readers of this site will recall, took in a Cannons game this past summer. It is upsetting because the Cannons were the local minor league team that my lovely wife grew up watching — they were the Prince William Cannons back then — and it’s troubling to think that a staple of her adolescence is being relegated to the remainder bin.

It’s also upsetting because I am strongly opposed to minor league teams adopting the name of their parent organization. For one thing, it smacks of a startling lack of originality and creativity on the part of the folks running the minor league team — like they couldn’t come up with anything better than swiping the name of their big league benefactors. For another, it has the unmistakable feel of sucking up — “Yessir, big league benefactor! Whatever you say, sir!”

And then there is the unpleasant possibility of what becomes of your nickname once your big league sugar daddy starts making eyes at another small to midsize city. Oh sure, the Washington Nationals and their Potomac underlings are thick as thieves now, but one of these days — perhaps as soon as the Nationals are actually owned by someone — the parent club’s eye could wander elsewhere, leaving the good men and women of Prince William County high and dry.

For instance, this season, the Oakland Athletics have jilted their long-time single-A affiliate in Modesto in favor of Stockton. Modesto, which had clung to the A’s nickname as its own, was forced to come up with a new mascot, which it did with questionable results.

So I say, stick to your guns, Cannons! Stand on your own two feet! Big-league affiliations come and go, but nicknames should be forever.

One silver lining to this name change: it could mean the forced retirement of Big Shot, the disturbing-looking Cannon mascot.

Your days of haunting the nightmares of the children of Prince William County are over, Big Shot!

But that raises the question: just what exactly will the new Potomac mascot be? I mean, how do exactly you represent a National? A wise-cracking flag? An oversized map of the United States with eyes where New England should be?

Naturally, I have a suggestion:

Behold — the disembodied head of Dick Cheney!

Oh sure — we’d have to radically rewrite the Constitution to revise the Vice President’s duties (breaks ties in the Senate, serves if the president is incapacitated, entertains children at Carolina League home games), but it’s not like the present administration has any qualms about doing that. And really, if you’re Dick Cheney, what would you rather do — attend some boring funeral for a head of state you didn’t even like or use a t-shirt gun to pass out freebies to fans seated behind the first base dugout?

You guys might be interested to take a look at Dodger Thoughts this week. Jon has a good look at the Giants' rotation as part of a general NL West rotation synopsis.

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