Some nicknames don't make sense

Hath-Time

By Nathan Hathaway

No one goes to Utah to listen to jazz music.

It’s more likely, in fact, that if you go to Utah, you’re going to be listening to two young men on bikes wearing suits telling you about Joseph Smith.

But Utah’s NBA basketball team is still called the Jazz.

It’s one of many examples of teams having names that just don’t add up.

It made sense up until 25 years ago, when the Jazz moved from New Orleans to Utah. There’s jazz in New Orleans. The city is well known for its jazz music.

It’s also true, however, that “The Saints Go Marching In” in New Orleans. So it makes sense that New Orleans’ football team is the Saints.

But it seems a name swap may be in order. Bring the “Jazz” back to New Orleans. Send the “Saints” to Salt Lake City, home of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day… (yep) Saints.

Los Angeles is bad this way. It has two teams, in two sports, with erroneous names.

There are no trolleys to dodge in SoCal. There may be lots of cars to dodge amid all the freeway traffic, but no trolleys. Dodgers just doesn’t work as far as a name. Maybe the Dodgers brass should consider changing the team’s name to the Traffic Jamz. The “z” just makes it modern and cool. The WNBA has shown us that any team with a “z” or an “x” at the end of its name is cool sounding.

The Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation lists the greater Los Angeles area as having 11 lakes, well short of the 10,000 in Minnesota, from whence came the Lakers. In 1960, Lakers owner Bob Short moved the team to the West Coast but kept the Lakers moniker. Unfortunately, no lakes came with the team. This team might be better suited for a name like the Smog, especially as long as they’ve got the self-proclaimed Diesel on their team.

New York is a giant city. Huge buildings. Tons of people. Just a monstrous city.

The only thing giant about San Francisco, however, is… well, there’s not much giant in The City by The Bay. So we’ll go with something benign like the Rainbows.

And then there are a lot of teams that just have flat-out stupid names. They required all the thought of breathing. Seriously. The Philadelphia Phillies? The Oakland Athletics? And the absolute worst of all: the Montreal Expos.

Montreal was the host city for the World Expo in 1967. Then some numbskull too lazy to name a team decided to call them the Expos.

Based on the way this organization is going, the best name for the Montreal/San Juan/Virginia/Wherever they end up team may be extinct.

Maybe some other teams’ names should be extinct too.