MLB Thread

[emmawoodhouse]

Bay Area announcers (SF and Oakland) remain at home. 

[ebk57]

Os announcers also stay home.  They have specifically complained about having to use the camera angles and replays provided by the home team.  Which sometimes I understand.  But really, it won't help them get any better. 

 

Sigh..............

[catlover79]

The Indians' radio announcers have been going on the road with the team since mid-May. Their TV announcers have yet to go on the road with them. Don't ask me we why.

[catlover79]

It's official! My guess is that the reveal will come after the last game of the season.

https://www.cleveland.com/tribe/2021/07/cleveland-indians-have-picked-a-new-name-but-arent-quite-ready-to-announce-it.html

[twoods]

I’m not a Dodgers fan but how many saves does Jansen have to blow for Roberts to bench him? I feel sorry for him whenever he comes out now, and so it in front of all those asshole Dodgers fans. Yeesh.

[NUguy514]

14 minutes ago, twoods said:

all those asshole Dodgers fans

Hey!  I resemble that remark!

Wait, no!  Resent!  I RESENT that remark!!

Damn it.

[cleo]

I can't believe Jansen is still with the team. I know he was supposedly having a better year but I used to watch the Dodgers a lot and man Jansen was......frustrating. 

[twoods]

7 hours ago, NUguy514 said:

Hey!  I resemble that remark!

Wait, no!  Resent!  I RESENT that remark!!

Damn it.

The stadium is full of them, always booing their team any chance they get. Plus I’m allowed to say that since hubby is one of the biggest Dodger fans out there. 

[mojoween]

13 hours ago, catlover79 said:

It's official! My guess is that the reveal will come after the last game of the season.

https://www.cleveland.com/tribe/2021/07/cleveland-indians-have-picked-a-new-name-but-arent-quite-ready-to-announce-it.html

The Guardians.

Man, I was really rooting for The Spiders. I would have rooted for the Yanks wearing Spiders gear everywhere.

[galaxygirl76]

I don't care for that name at all. My husband says it doesn't gel with the rest of the team names. 

[mojoween]

Davis Samson (former owner for the Miami Marlins) called Giancarlo Stanton an Adonis and I heard no lies detected.

The Cleveland Guardians doesn’t really roll off the tongue.  Two hard consonants back to back is rather aurally displeasing.

[Crs97]

I was rooting for the Cleveland Rapids (nod to Bob Feller).  I’m going to have to think about the Guardians for awhile; my initial reaction is a firm meh.

[theatremouse]

My knee-jerk reaction is "did they have some sort of internal mandate that it needed to still end in 'dians'?"

But otherwise, meh, coulda been worse. I don't mind that it doesn't really gel with the other teams names. I mean, there are only so many birds/animals/color of hosiery that aren't already famous for another pro league/ncaa/whatever. As long as MLB doesn't go to the NBA pattern of "generic thing that doesn't really have a plural", I'm ok with it.

[catlover79]

I personally like the Guardians. @mojoween, you and my dad were in the same camp. He wanted Spiders. That was the last name I wanted, because I'm an arachnaphobe!!! Then again, to each his/her own. 😊

P.S. I didn't expect the name to become public until the end of the season! 😂

[roamyn]

Guardians is so STUPID!  What does that name have anything to do with the Cleveland area/community?
 

Are we guarding The shoreline from Canada?
 

It will always be Indians to me, and it will always be The Jake.  I’m not a fan of Chief Wahoo, but I’m going out and purchasing some stickers for my car to show my defiance.

[Moose135]

They should have just gone with Cleveland Baseball Team. "Let's go CBT!!!"

[Crs97]

Okay, I’m in:

 

 

[cambridgeguy]

2 hours ago, roamyn said:

Guardians is so STUPID!  What does that name have anything to do with the Cleveland area/community?

Yeah.  What was the alternative, naming the team after a bunch of fancily dressed medieval swordsmen?  Pretty sure that has nothing do with Cleveland either.

[theatremouse]

I don't like that style "G" they're using though. Don't like it when the Giants use that either.

[roamyn]

1 hour ago, cambridgeguy said:

Yeah.  What was the alternative, naming the team after a bunch of fancily dressed medieval swordsmen?  Pretty sure that has nothing do with Cleveland either.

How about Spiders?

The Music's?

The Lakemen?

The Parks?

A of these have a more recognizable connotation. 

[catlover79]

The Guardians comes from the art deco "Guardians of Traffic" on the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge (aka the Hope Memorial Bridge) outside the ballpark. I like the name because it is different than any other name in MLB, it has -dians, and is a name that suggests protection and benevolence. I'm also glad that the team is keeping its colors and that the fonts are tweaked just a little bit.

[DoctorAtomic]

4 hours ago, theatremouse said:

My knee-jerk reaction is "did they have some sort of internal mandate that it needed to still end in 'dians'?"

I figured the same. I'm not sure naming after a bridge is any better. I think nicknames are overall silly anyway, so I don't really have any chips on the table here. 

 

3 hours ago, Moose135 said:

They should have just gone with Cleveland Baseball Team. "Let's go CBT!!!"

I'm not sure you want to be saying those letters too much though. It can mean something quite different in certain company. 

[Moose135]

50 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I'm not sure you want to be saying those letters too much though. It can mean something quite different in certain company. 

I had to look that one up. Yes, you are right...

[Mittengirl]

The more I think about it, Guardians isn’t so bad.  As far as a connection to Cleveland, there are no tigers in Detroit, giants in San Francisco, pirates in Pittsburgh or royalty in Kansas City.  Blue Jays are hardly unique to Toronto nor cardinals to St. Louis nor yankees to New York.  And it is certainly better than naming a team after undergarments like the Boston & Chicago teams.

[xaxat]

I understand complaints that Cleveland didn't go with the Spiders or Rockers etc. But were those names legally available? 

What may seem like a natural fit might be not be possible because of intellectual property laws. There was a company that I bought a couple of replica Negro League ball caps from and they got shut down because of IP challenges. Even though the teams haven't existed for over half a century. And there was a guy who was trademarking a host of possible alternative names for the WFT.

Edited July 23, 2021 by xaxat

[Fukui San]

Guardians is a perfectly cromulent name. I don’t get the level of hate aside from those who wanted to keep a racist name. 

I would’ve returned to a very old time name though: The Cleveland Infants.

[emmawoodhouse]

More complaints about conditions in the minors.

[Rootbeer]

6 hours ago, roamyn said:

Guardians is so STUPID!  What does that name have anything to do with the Cleveland area/community?
 

Are we guarding The shoreline from Canada?
 

It will always be Indians to me, and it will always be The Jake.  I’m not a fan of Chief Wahoo, but I’m going out and purchasing some stickers for my car to show my defiance.

This is why the Guardians:

The pillars on the Lorain Carnegie bridge across the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland are the original Guardians.  There are four of them, 2 at each end, and each one holds a mode of transportation and they are called The Guardians of Traffic.  Really cool art-deco stonework

The bridge was renamed The Hope Memorial Bridge  a while back after late comedian Bob Hope, who lived in Cleveland as a child.  Hope's father was a stonemason who helped carve the pillars when the bridge was built.

According to the news, the team had to get permission from Marvel comics to use the name because of Guardians of the Galaxy.

Edited July 23, 2021 by Rootbeer

[emmawoodhouse]

Hearing dates for Trevor Bauer set.

[cleo]

I liked Cleveland Spiders but Guardians is ok.

Edited July 23, 2021 by cleo

[theatremouse]

1 hour ago, xaxat said:

I understand complaints that Cleveland didn't go with the Spiders or Rockers etc. But were those names legally available? 

Even if Rockers were, there's no way it'd have gone forward because it's way too similar to Rockies.

[mojoween]

Also close to the Jon Rockers gross.

When I looked at the logo on the TV without my glasses on, the capital G’s with the wings kind of look like hands holding the baseball.  It looked blurrily cool.

[Jane Tuesday]

So, they named the team after bridge piers? They're pretty, but that's kind of boring. Is this something Clevelanders/Clevelandians are even aware of? I'm struggling to think if I know anything about St. Louis bridges beyond where they are. 🤷‍♀️

My only objection is that I hate names that don't lend themselves to a mascot. Like, what's the physical representation of a "Guardian"? Who's operating the t-shirt cannon? It seems like they all just end up with some kind of generic bird. Lol

Edited July 24, 2021 by Jane Tuesday

[xaxat]

10 hours ago, Jane Tuesday said:

My only objection is that I hate names that don't lend themselves to a mascot.

Three of the four Philadelphia teams are named after abstract concepts and they do OK. 

[Jane Tuesday]

12 minutes ago, xaxat said:

Three of the four Philadelphia teams are named after abstract concepts and they do OK. 

That's making my point, though. WTF is that thing? They end up just making something up. Old teams, I get. There probably weren't mascots back then, and they aren't going to change now. But why deliberately choose a name that then has to have a separate mascot assigned?

To be honest, I don't care if a team has a mascot. If Fredbird disappeared forever, I probably wouldn't notice. But if you're going to have them, it would be nice if they made sense and weren't just a random fuzzy orange thing with eyes. 

[Crs97]

Someone posted this on Facebook, and it now makes Guardians my favorite name ever!

It’s not #WINDIANS it’s #WINGUARDIANS LEVIOSA

[DoctorAtomic]

I guess the mascot would be the bridge guy? 

4 hours ago, Jane Tuesday said:

There probably weren't mascots back then, and they aren't going to change now. But why deliberately choose a name that then has to have a separate mascot assigned?

Nowadays, you'd think you'd want something you can trademark so you can sell merchandise. I guess they can still trademark the logo, but I'm not seeing it as quite a seller. 

[Crs97]

 I don’t know that they have to change Slider.

[Maximum Taco]

I kinda like the new name.

The new C-logo looks good too, and the word mark logo is pretty great. 

That 3-D logo with the winged G's is weird though. Gonna have to go back to the drawing board in a few years. 

[mojoween]

On 7/21/2021 at 7:27 PM, xaxat said:

Does anyone know how many team networks are not sending TV color and play by play guys out on the road? I know the Mets and Pirates announcers are doing road games in the home studio, any others?

From what Michael Kay just said he and Coney are in New York (and Paulie remains relegated to the basement in Studio 21 in Cincinnati).

Meredith Marokavits, however, is in Boston this weekend.  I honestly haven’t noticed if she has gone to any other away games.  Also, that’s sad, because it means she celebrated her birthday Thursday all by her lonesome.

[Rootbeer]

Tweet from the Cleveland Indians.  This is, of course, the very first shot of that cinematic classic, 'Major League'.  Back in the dark ages before the mid 90's, the test to see whether someone was a true Tribe fan or not was to ask if they cried at the end of that movie.  I did, and so did every other Cleveland fan I know.

'We've been planting these seeds since 1989.'

Edited July 25, 2021 by Rootbeer

[Rootbeer]

18 hours ago, Crs97 said:

 I don’t know that they have to change Slider.

I wouldn't mind if they did. Don't love him though he's no Chief Knockahoma. Unlike many other teams named after Native Americans, the Indians, despite the Chief Wahoo cartoon, have never used any sort of actual Indian figure as a live mascot.

Edited July 25, 2021 by Rootbeer

[theatremouse]

Live vs only illustrated/embroidered isn't really a greater/lesser offense, to me.

[Moose135]

Oops...

 

[Lantern7]

Breaking: Mets are bringing back Banner Day! Well, sort of.

[AimingforYoko]

18 hours ago, Moose135 said:

Oops...

 

So you're saying Spiders is still on the table?

[xaxat]

I felt so bad for Domingo German watching him in the dugout during the eighth inning of yesterday's Yanks/Sox game. I know it's an unwritten rule that starters have to stick around through the rest of the inning after they have been relieved, but that must have been brutal.

Edited July 26, 2021 by xaxat

[Maximum Taco]

21 hours ago, AimingforYoko said:

So you're saying Spiders is still on the table?

Probably not. 

Radio silence from both teams usually signifies a deal in place or progress. We can probably expect the roller derby team to receive a cash pay-out (maybe as much as 6-8 figures) and the MLB Guardians to acquire the roller derby team's website and social media accounts.

Edited July 27, 2021 by Maximum Taco

[theatremouse]

Yeah, when they said they'd picked but wouldn't announce until after the season, I initially suspected it was something like they weren't done obtaining the domain names they wanted, social media accounts, etc, and wanted that wrapped up first. So it was odd when they had the Tom Hanks video a day later. But the "no comment" from both sides screams they've been negotiating and the roller derby team's existence was probably not a surprise to the MLB team. Why they released their video right away before working the rest out first is mysterious.

[xaxat]

I bet you we get a roller derby night at the Jake next season.