The Importance of Mischief
I bet most of you find little to no delight in the realm of minor league baseball. If you had any idea I was here to write on such a banal topic, you might just move your mouse towards the next shiny thing on that captivating cascade of your social media feed.
So, even if the inspiration for this might have been while recently attending such a game in Columbia, South Carolina, between the Fireflies and the Salem Red Sox, I am not fixin’ to bore you about minor league baseball.
No need to tell you that it was hot and humid as hell (Is hell humid? Must be!) or that the hotdogs were undercooked tubes of pure fat, or that the quality of play on the field was slightly below that of most high school teams...
No, today, what I want to talk about is: the importance of mischief.
What would the Puritans say?
Our Puritan ancestors would haunt us with a lecture from the great beyond, imploring us to cast aside the temptations of mischief. The origins of the word, likely a combination of old English and French, meant "unfortunate, disastrous, miserable" but by the time the Puritans were arriving in North America, it could also be used to mean: "playfully malicious,” or “annoying".
In any case, proper folk tried to avoid mischief, and so, somewhere along the line, things became too dang serious. Those solemn whispers of Puritans from our distant past still echo in our ear, telling us that mischief, in general, is one of those "childish things” we should leave behind.
Recently, I discovered that many of these baseball teams have been engaging in a wonderful form of mischief which those Puritans would definitely not approve of.
In pursuit of reclaiming your narrative from the Puritans, let me tell you about this mischief, so you can pitch it back in the face of any turkey leg-eating, pilgrim hat-wearing Puritan you happen to meet in your neck of the woods.
Mischievous Monikers
Within the fascinating world of America’s so-called favorite pastime, a subversive tapestry unfolds, revealing the mischievous monikers chosen for these modern times.
Maybe you’ll recognize the New Orleans Baby Cakes (King cake, anyone?)
Speaking of turkey legs, there’s the Carolina Disco Turkeys, from Winston-Salem.
Then there’s the Norwich Sea Unicorns, from Norwich, CT.
(Wonder why they missed their chance to call ‘em the Norwich Narwhals?)
Or how about the Hartford Yard Goats, from Connecticut (what is it about those Connecticut folks?)
How do you like the Amarillo Sod Poodles, from the panhandle of Texas? (Sod poodles are what Texans call a prairie dog.)
Ever heard of the Rocket City Trash Pandas from Madison, Alabama?
Best of all, there’s the Burlington Sock Puppets, from North Carolina.
And how about these crazy names?
They call them the Savannah Sand Gnats, in Georgia…
In Jacksonville, they’re rooting for Jumbo Shrimp!
In Virginia, squirrels fly, hence the Richmond Flying Squirrels!
Then there’s the El Paso, Chihuahuas:
In East Texas, they call ‘em the Sugarland Skeeters (nicknamed for the national bird of the Gulf Coast region: the mosquito).
Perhaps the most baffling name of all....
The Lexington Counter Clocks…
This is mischief, by golly!
Are these teams crazy? Perhaps they are all living in a "counterclockwise" turning universe. We know FOR A FACT, that those mad folks down in Kentucky are.
Speak of the devil
To understand the phenomena, let's briefly examine the historic (or should I say, hysteric) renaming of the Jacksonville, Florida baseball franchise. Originally named the Jacksonville Suns to signify that... well, it's hot and humid as hell in Jacksonville, and yes, this is all caused by the sun. So why the hell not name it after what is causing all of the discomfort at their mid-summer games there. So original!
Nevertheless, management was surprised to eventually discover that folks were not really that enthusiastic about the name. (Or the broiling sun. Or the fatty hot dogs.) While management could not do much about the sun or the hot dogs, they could do something about the name.
There were all-day and all-night naming workshops, likely involving the consumption of massive amounts of cold beer, and more than their fair share of tasty boiled shrimp. After a week or so, they came up with the perfect name: The Jacksonville “Cold Beers”.
But no! Tee-totalers might not attend baseball games if the team was named for Satan's favorite beverage. After all the the weather was already "hot as hell", just like Satan liked it. They couldn’t let Lucifer have both his beverage and his weather all at once, so by God, the Jacksonville “Cold Beers" were never meant to be.
Next, they thought about naming the team the "Boiled Shrimp". But again, they somehow rejected such a great name idea, as it might remind their fans that they, too, were being boiled alive in the hot Florida sun, as they watched their beloved Shrimps get crushed (again) by formidable foes such as the Savannah Sand Gnats, or the El Paso Chihuahuas.
To stand up to such ferocious competition, Jacksonville needed a team name which was equally formidable. What if they made the shrimp JUMBO? Wouldn't that scare the hell out of every team that came to town, and remind the Jacksonville crowd of something they loved to consume in large quantities? What better name than the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp!
So it was to be that Jacksonville would join a growing trend in baseball– renaming themselves something weirder and cooler.
#1 lug nut Fan
It turns out that social media favors the weird and cool, and pretty soon folks who didn’t even like baseball, like you folks reading this article, (which is definitely not about baseball) began showing up for the games, buying the t-shirts, and claiming to really like the Sand Gnats, Lug Nuts, and the Sock Puppets.
Well, really, everybody has always liked sock puppets, so I can understand that one. And Jumbo Shrimp too– who doesn't like those! Minor League baseball sales actually doubled between 2015 and 2019.
The Columbia Fireflies, Richmond Flying Squirrels or the Sugarland Skeeters are not the only things flying high these days.
Strangely, this is not actually a modern phenomenon. The mischievous naming of baseball teams goes back decades. As the CounterClocks would say, "Let's turn back the hands of time…"
For instance, you gotta love the Montgomery Biscuits, all the way back from 2004.
What about the Lansing Lugnuts, from 1996?
Or the Las Vegas 51's (after Area 51) from 2001.
Heck, the Hickory Crawdads’ name goes way back to 1993.
A really old name, and one that gets a bit mischievous, is called the Asheville Tourists, named that way in 1916.
Perhaps the granddaddy of them all, and still one of the best names in all of sports, is the Toledo Mud Hens, so named in 1896, still going strong up there in Ohio.
What’s up with all this mischief?
So, if it's not just about social media marketing, and trying to capture more young people, what's up with all of this mischief?
I think it's about the art of happiness. The sweetness of silliness. The sensibility of just having fun and letting go. We often consider that the secret to success is hard work, grinding away, sacrifice, and yes, even a bit of suffering. Yes... and no. Fun and happiness can also be the secrets to success. It's no secret that ball clubs have parlayed these silly names and images into something that is much more popular than it might have been when these clubs had more conventional names like the Braves or the Cubs. Those are good names too, of course, but not very mischievous.
Here's a homework assignment for you…(suspend your dislike of baseball for just a moment, so you can complete this homework assignment).
If you were your own minor league baseball team, what would you name yourself? I hope it would not be something as blasé as "the Lions", or the Tigers, or Bears (oh, my!).
Rather, can you think of something weird, fun, social media-worthy, or mischievous?
Maybe I will be the Ray Guns, or Ray Bans, or the Ray Mones.... I could go on.
The real challenge is, can we incorporate a little mischief in our daily lives every once in a while? You might be surprised what fun and creativity is unleashed. Perhaps this all feels childlike to you? That's the point! As Pablo Picasso would say: "I spent the first half of my life learning to be a man, and the second half learning how to be a child again." That, my friends, is the reason Burlington has its Sock Puppets. Go Sock Puppets!
Come on! You gotta love the SOCK PUPPETS!
Magic in Mischief
Why is this marketing strategy meeting such success? Clearly, folks are delighted by it. What might be the nature and cause of such delight?
Perhaps it's because all of this mischief recasts a minor league baseball team from a low-level sporting event into something out of our childhoods. When you attend and follow a minor league baseball team with a mischievous name and logo, perhaps you are recalibrating your experience akin to something you might have had as a child.
Silly fun, crazy team named after things like bugs, small dogs, Mardi Gras cakes and tourists all presented in airy, grassy spaces, on a summer night, with cold beer and jazz bands wearing colorful hats in the bleachers, the “thock” of the baseball bat cracking leather, and the crowds’ unanimous cheers. Done right, this can transport the experience away from what might just be a boring baseball game, to a magical backyard party. Like the ones you may have had in your youth.
True mischief is nothing short of magical. Finding, and yes, even marketing with magic, is always going to strike a chord in our hearts. Isn't there an element of magical mischief in practically everything? You just have to find it, bottle it, perhaps take a sip occasionally. As the poet Mary Oliver said: “I believe in kindness. Also in mischief.”