Suns setting in Jacksonville

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

New owner in baseball for all the wrong reasons announces new name for the Jacksonville Suns. Met connection as the Suns were the Mets' original (?) and pre-Tidewater AAA franchise, now the AA club of the Marlins now known as the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp.

http://jacksonville.com/jacksonville-suns/2016-11-01/jacksonville-suns-changing-name-jumbo-shrimp

[Benjamin Grimm]

No, not the original. The Mets had their AAA franchise in Syracuse in 1962 and in Buffalo from 1963-1965. Jacksonville's first year was 1966, just in time for George Feaver.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

[fimg=700:1xfqiwf7]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwRBf7HWcAA0k7i.jpg[/fimg:1xfqiwf7]

[Frayed Knot]

Kwik Kwiz: What -- or, more accurately, Who -- is the is the brief location of the Mets AAA team in Jacksonville (1966-68) responsible for producing? answer below





The change of the name to to the Jumbo Shrimps “is a high-energy, impactful, bold move,” says idiot responsible for it.

No it isn't, it's stupid. Plus there's the whole half-century-plus of tradition out the window.






** it was during the time he played at Jacksonville that Tug McGraw had a brief affair with neighbor Betty Ann D'Agastino which resulted in her pregnancy and the eventual birth, in May 1967, of future singer/actor Tim McGraw

[Guest Mets Guy in Michigan]

That name seems a little silly, but then again I can look out my window and see the Lansing Lugnuts stadium. And the team's logo is a screw instead of a lugnut.

Weren't the Binghamton Mets looking at a goofy name change? What did they pick?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Announcing results tomorrow:
Binghamton Bullheads
Binghamton Gobblers
Binghamton Rocking Horses
Binghamton Rumble Ponies
Binghamton Stud Muffins
Binghamton Timber Jockeys

[Benjamin Grimm]

Geez, I hope it's not "Stud Muffins" or "Rumble Ponies"

[Frayed Knot]

Minor league and Negro league baseball in Jacksonville dates back, nearly continuously, to 1886. Previous names used include:

Clippers, Macedonias (now there's one you don't hear everyday), Athletics
Those three were all from the same year in the 'Southern League of Negro BaseBallists' and most likely reflect the more informal nature of sports team nicknames at that time which sometimes depended on what your part of town called them or which newspaper you read.

Since then they've variously been the
Jays
Tarpons
Roses
Red Caps
Scouts
Indians
Tars
For a while there there was a nearly every other year switch between Tars and Red Caps as the team flittered between South Atlantic (Tars) and Negro American (Red Caps) league ball
Braves
Jets
Suns since 1962 interrupted only by a three year stint as the Expos

[MFS62]

I guess an oxymoronic name like Jumbo Shrimp is appropriate in the state where "The farther you go North, the farther you go South".

Later

[Edgy MD]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: [fimg=700]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwRBf7HWcAA0k7i.jpg[/fimg]

Are 100% of all minor league team logos done by the same firm? Because I don't have much of an eye for industrial art, but it's so obvious from the lines and stylizing.

And what un-natural act is that shrimp doing with the state of Florida? FFS, think of the children.

[Frayed Knot]

Plus, as that great American philosopher George Carlin once said, "Isn't Jumbo Shrimp an oxymoron?

[Frayed Knot]

Edgy MD wrote: Are 100% of all minor league team logos done by the same firm? Because I don't have much of an eye for industrial art, but it's so obvious from the lines and stylizing.

Apparently it's a company called 'Brandiose' who does a bunch of these things, including the recently relocated, to Kinston, NC, DOWN EAST WOOD DUCKS
[fimg=400]http://www.baseballamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Wood-Ducks-3.jpg[/fimg]

"The Wood Ducks are the fifth minor league team to use Brandiose this season in a rebranding effort" [baseball America] -- joining the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, Florida Fire Frogs and New Orleans Baby Cakes. The San Diego-based Brandiose "has worked with more than 50 teams [sLATE - Sept 2015] since its founding in 2000, including the Akron RubberDucks, the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, and the Biloxi Shuckers."


I didn't even know there was a "Down East" section of North Carolina. My first reaction to seeing 'Down East' was wondering who was moving a minor league team to Maine.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

The SI MFYs were going to rebrand this year (Pizza Rats and Heroes were under consideration) but evidently their agency couldn't get it done in time, or they had second thoughts.

[Edgy MD]

It's just another sad step in the homogenization of baseball.

Stand out! Be different! Stop taking the commissioner's calls!

[Frayed Knot]

Don't know about you, but whenever I'm in eastern Massachusetts, my mind usually turns to ... Alligators!
OK, MY mind doesn't, but apparently someone's does; probably those guys at Brandiose.


[fimg=500]http://mlb.mlb.com/assets/images/2/3/8/214896238/cuts/Spinners_yl98ebsc_uh2mfq7z.jpg[/fimg]

[MFS62]

The guy who thought of that should be fed to the alligators. But I seriously doubt you can find any in Lowell.
That is just world class stupid.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

At least this was merely a new logo/mascot and not an entire change of name and 'Brand' as the team will retain its long-time name of 'Spinners' in a nod to Lowell's history as a textile town.
The new mascot is 'Canaligator', apparently a reference to a series of canals that run through the town where conceivably an alligator might hang out if they were native to the Bay State, which of course they aren't. He also brings to the games his wife 'Allie' and daughter 'Millie' who are presumably the other two in the picture there although it doesn't speak well for Allie or Millie that they both essentially look just like pops. I suspect that young Millie doesn't get many dates on account of that, well that plus the fact that the nearest Alligators to her are either in zoos or in, y'know, South Carolina and there's no direct Amtrak service from there to Lowell.