The San Fran 49ers are scheduled to start play in their new stadium this year. Candlestick is out. Levi's stadium is in. Evidently, they wear a lot of blue jeans in San Jose. Wait a second.... San Jose? Why is a San Francisco team playing its home games in San Jose -- some 45 miles away?
And that's the thing. If a team moves out of the metropolis it was named after -- they should change their name accordingly. Why not the San Jose 49ers?
But we've seen it elsewhere for quite some time. The Dallas Cowboys don't actually play in Dallas. Their home has long been Arlington. Yet perhaps the "Big D" sounds better to Cowboys fans than the "little A", but enough about the owner of the team. Ahem.
The New York Giants and New York Jets both play in New Jersey, in a place called the Meadowlands. This is wrong every which way. If a team is playing in a different state, than they should be required to change their names accordingly. And there's no meadows around that stadium. Just a bunch of seedy neighborhoods.
At least the New Jersey Nets had the common sense and decency to change their name to Brooklyn when they moved into the borough.
The New England Patriots play in a place called Foxborough. So when they moved out of Boston a while back, how did they come up with the name "New England"? Why not the Foxborough Patriots? Besides, there's nothing "new" about York and Jersey. They're amongst the oldest European settlements in America. And New England? Didn't our forefathers fight a war to rid ourselves of English dominance back in the 1700s? The very term New England has never made sense. Why not call the entire region New America?
The Detroit Lions finally returned to Detroit, but they spent over a quarter century in a suburb 25 miles away called Pontiac. They should have been the Pontiac Lions. The Detroit Pistons remain in Auburn Hills, even further away from Motown city limits. Change the name of the community where the venue is located, or change the name of the team that plays there. But either way, they should match up. Towns have changed their names before for various reasons, and certainly teams have.
The Washington Bullets became the Wizards. Between New Orleans, Charlotte, and a hurricane called Katrina, there were Hornets, Bobcats, and now Pelicans. They can't seem to make up their minds.
A long time ago, the Minneapolis Lakers moved to Los Angeles. "Lakers" was a great name for a team from Minnesota. They rightfully boast over 10,000 of them in their pristine state. Conversely. there's no lakes in Los Angeles. Going through LA, 10,000 is roughly the number of cars you will see bumper to bumper in front of you on the interstate, at any given time. Maybe they should have renamed that team the Jams, or the Gridlocks.
The Tampa Bay Devil Rays had to drop the "devil" from their name, but the Blue Devils of Duke and Demon Deacons of Wake Forest remain. Hypocrisy, anyone? And just where exactly do you think the name Tar Heels got its origins? Pretty sure it didn't have anything to do with resurfacing roads.
Contrary to what they would have us believe, there's no "tides" in Birmingham, Alabama. It's quite far inland. Maybe an occasional tornado, frat party, or football rally, but no lunar generated ocean movements back and forth every day.
Things were must simpler back in the old days. The Yankees were the Yankees. Everybody in the Bronx loved them, and everybody else hated them.
Come to think of it -- it's still that way. Sometimes continuity is a good thing.....
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