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Rome Braves 41

Posted 2009 August 20

The Atlanta Braves own all of their farm teams except for their Advanced Single-A affiliate, the Myrtle Beach Pelicans of the Carolina League. It shows. All of the other teams use the Braves name, and all of them use the Atlanta Braves logo with some modification that serves no purpose other than to get the name of the city into the logo.

This, my friends, is phenomenally boring. I understand that the Atlanta Braves are a relatively popular team, thanks to their having been broadcast on TBS for years, so there's a certain marketing value to using the Braves name. But four times? Not even the Yankees do that, for crying out loud (they do this three times). And the fact that the Atlanta Braves own the teams doing this puts a different spin on it. If the local owners of the baseball team in Des Moines decide that they want to call their team the Iowa Cubs, no one can say that nobody in Des Moines was asked what they thought of the name. It's a little different when a team in Danville Gwinnett Mississippi Rome is named after a team in Atlanta because of a decision made by someone in Atlanta. Granted, there's no worry of the team in Danville Gwinnett Mississippi Rome changing its affiliation the way the team in Des Moines might, but I still don't like it. Would it kill them to run "Name the Team" contests in each of the cities and let them have their own identity? Apparently so.

And it's not like it's a great name or logo to begin with. No, I'm not going to go off on a rant about the name being offensive to Native Americans (I try to steer clear of that controversy). But even if you accept the idea that Native American-themed names are acceptable, then "Braves" is still pretty stupid. It just sounds silly, and it's worth pointing out that you never hear people, even in a historical context, referred to as "Braves" anymore. In other words, while arguments about the word "Indian" are largely confined to its use as a team name, use of "Brave" seems to be controversial even in general use. Between that and the fact that the name sounds fairly stupid anyway, it probably needs to be retired. But even if they're not going to quit using the name in Atlanta, they could at least find something better for their farm teams.

They could do do what the NHL's Los Angeles Kings have done. The Kings have given the minor league teams they've owned named with a similar but different name: Reading Royals, Manchester Monarchs, Ontario Reign. (Okay, so the last name sucks, but it fits the theme. And the other two are pretty cool). The Atlanta Braves could do the same. You could have the Gwinnett Warriors, or the Danville Chiefs. Or maybe they could try to obtain permission from nearby nations to use those names, the way Florida State does with the Seminole. It might not work. Maybe the Choctaw wouldn't be too keen on working with an organization called the Atlanta Braves. There's no longer a significant native American population near Gwinnett. But it's a thought. Like I said, it would be an improvement.

As for the Danville Gwinnett Mississippi Rome Braves, they modify the Atlanta logo by adding a baseball and a baseball diamond (complete with curved outfield) simply adding the word "Gwinnett" above the logo putting a state outline behind it, having a baseball flying out of the city where the team plays, and adding the word "Mississippi" in a block near the top of the state adding the name "Rome" in the same script as "Braves" and putting a classical column behind it. What's really sad is that even these differences weren't original. They were originally used by the Richmond Braves, although now that that team has moved to Georgia, they no longer use the same logo. Maybe the people in Atlanta figured that since Danville is so low on the totem pole, they didn't deserve their own logo. Or maybe that was just their plan for Virginia teams. Given the fact that all the others were given some kind of background element, this does make them somewhat distinct. Or maybe they just couldn't be bothered to try this time around. Apparently they were inspired to really try to make it as different as possible this time around, given the limitation of needing to keep the Atlanta Braves logo in it. Or maybe they just couldn't decide what to do. This is the only team that has something representational in the logo, and it's a neat reference to the other Rome. Or maybe they just couldn't think of anything worth mentioning about the Rome the team is actually in. I don't know. But at least now they're the only team using that particular variation, so at least they are unique in their lack of being unique.

That doesn't change the fact that the name stinks and the logo is unoriginal.

Final Score: 41 points.
Penalties: Script, 7 pts; Offspring, 12 pts; Name, 10 pts; Logo, 12 pts.
Bonuses: None.
