Brian in Boston

Incidentally, I wanted to add that the Henderson Hoo logo is the work of Grant O'Dell of Forte Studio, the sports branding side of technology and design company Maestro in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The Western Association of Professional Baseball Clubs (WAPB) - an independent minor league set to launch in 2020 - has its first member-franchise. The Henderson Hoo will be based in Henderson, Nevada and play their home games at Morse Field on the campus of the College of Southern Nevada. Incidentally, the logo is the work of Grant O'Dell of Forte Studio, the sports branding side of technology and design company Maestro in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Oak View Group has filed three more trademark applications with the USPTO that are related to their planned Palm Springs-based American Hockey League affiliate for NHL Seattle. The list of six proposed team identities now includes (new filings in bold print): Palm Springs Dragons (filed 8/15/19) Palm Springs Falcons (filed 8/15/19) Palm Springs Sun (filed 8/15/19) Palm Springs Eagles (filed 8/14/19) Palm Springs Hawks (filed 8/14/19) Palm Springs Firebirds (filed 8/9/19)

That is a pretty uninspiring list of team names that Alpha Entertainment reportedly registered with the USPTO. Based upon what they were considering, I'd have probably ultimately unveiled... Eastern Conference DC Sentinels New York Gothams St. Louis Archers Tampa Bay Vipers Western Conference Dallas Lobos Houston Roughnecks Los Angeles Legion Seattle Dragons

Bingo! While a Boise-based American Hockey League affiliate would have been more conveniently located in relation to its NHL Seattle parent-club, its distance from the markets of other AHL Pacific Division opponents would have been significant in terms of the time and expense necessary to travel to them for games. Certainly greater than the distance, time, and expense involved in traveling to the markets of divisional opponents from the proposed Palm Springs arena site. The proposed Palm Springs arena site to the arenas in...Ontario, CA = 68 milesSan Diego, CA = 127 milesBakersfield, CA = 216 milesTucson, AZ = 381 miles Stockton, CA = 444 milesSan Jose, CA = 446 milesLoveland, CO = 1,025 miles Boise arena to arenas in...Stockton, CA = 604 miles San Jose, CA = 673 miles Loveland, CO = 765 milesBakersfield, CA = 802 milesOntario, CA = 827 milesSan Diego, CA = 929 milesTucson, AZ = 1,037 miles

XFL Football: The pro sports "Sword of Damocles" hanging over the collective head of St. Louis.

My 2¢ (after killing an abundance of time on a trans-Pacific flight): Dallas Renegades: This is a solidly-rendered logo (though that renegade has awfully big eyes) that might impress me more if the majority of sports franchises in the Dallas area weren't already leaning so heavily into the "Old West" theme for their identities. Although the sizzle reel unveiling the Renegades' identity goes to great pains to link the "spirit and swagger" of 19th century Dallas cattle hands to 21st century hell-raisers via images of tattoos, graffiti tags, smoking tires, pool halls, and motorcycles, the end result is a logo that's comfortable settling into the visual trope of a masked Texas outlaw. If the XFL truly wanted to break the mold and embrace the modern renegade definition, it would have been interesting to see biker imagery married to that of the Old West in this team's logo. Instead of having the Renegade's demonic eyes glaring out from under a cowboy hat, have them peering from beneath a motorcycle helmet... and out over the stylized horns and skull of a Texas longhorn, the former taking the place of handlebars and the latter positioned as though leading down to a motorcycle's twin forks. Over the top? Quite possibly... particularly if not executed properly. Still, I'd rather something like that then a logo that seems derivative of what's already existed in the Dallas sports marketplace (you could be forgiven for mistaking the Renegades' mark for a modern updating of the old Dallas Desperados logo). Now, if the Renegades were content to go the tried-and-true "Old West" route, then I'd have rather seen them adopt a brand identity similar to what Dane Storrusten of Gridiron Labs designed for the Dallas Wranglers of the A11FL, or Texas Outlaws of the FXFL. Visually play up accoutrements of the cattle trade - brands, branding irons, barbed wire, rope - or cattle itself, rather than just cowboy hats, bandanas, lawmen's badges, and six-shooters that are more often the symbols utilized. DC Defenders: Houston Roughnecks: I love the name. I felt it was the direction in which Houston's NFL expansion team should have gone, rather than the generic Texans moniker. It is clearly the new XFL identity that most directly ties to not only the market of the team it graces, but the former pro football history of said city, as well. The logo? It has its issues. The line weights are all over the place. Ditto for the perspective. The 'H' superimposed on the derrick threatens to be too cute for its own good. The logo wouldn't suffer if the star was to be removed. Finally, it's the new XFL mark that is the most likely to be negatively impacted when reduced in size. That said, it's amazing how much I'm willing to forgive in all of those areas simply because I give full credit to the XFL brass for thumbing their noses at the NFL and challenging the more established league to make something of the fact that Houston's XFL team is clearly trying to resurrect the brand history of the Houston Oilers. That's a pretty ballsy move. Frankly, it wouldn't shock me if the NFL were to up and slap a lawsuit on the Roughnecks yet. To that point, it's clear that the reason the Roughnecks aren't sporting a lighter shade of blue with their red and white is because the XFL brass concluded - rightly so, I believe - that such a color scheme in combination with their logo would have absolutely drawn legal action from the NFL. Los Angeles Wildcats: For starters, the team's name is not only exceedingly generic, it's also inaccurate. That species of cat that appears in the Los Angeles Wildcats' sizzle reel? Well, while it may be a wild cat, it isn't a wildcat. Felis silvestris is the European wildcat. Felis lybica is the African wildcat. Here in North America, you can even get away with slapping the wildcat label on Lynx rufus (American bobcat) and Lynx canadensis (Canada lynx). That said, the species featured in the Wildcats' sizzle reel is Puma concolor, better known as a catamount, cougar, mountain lion, panther, or puma. As for the logo and color scheme, the 'LA' monogram is tremendously well-rendered and the orange-and-red palette calls to mind a Southern California sunset. It seems clear that the XFL brass see this mark as being an attempt to replicate the classic, straightforward simplicity of such letter-based primary marks as those sported by the Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, New York Giants, and San Francisco 49ers. However, where each of those NFL team logos benefits from having been initially adopted in a simpler age and afforded the opportunity to build brand equity over more than 50 years, the Wildcats' logo is facing the formidable task of fighting for relevance and establishing a lasting foothold amongst a vast sea of brands almost immediately... and in a Greater Los Angeles market that enjoys no shortage of entertainment options, including a surfeit of pro sports franchises and major college athletic programs. I fear that for a team promising "showtime with a snarl", the Wildcats identity is too tame to deliver either. To my mind, the XFL's Los Angeles-based franchise would have been better served by the winged-sword logo unveiled in St. Louis. Paired with a name like the Los Angeles Guardians, Los Angeles Avengers, or Los Angeles Archangels it would have been a dynamic fit for a team representing the 'City of Angels'. New York Guardians: The New York Guardians sport a mark that is very well-rendered, but too polished to most effectively convey the theme its trying to capture. The Guardians' sizzle reel speaks of "sentries"and "watchdogs"... a "predator" and a "beast". I want less of the former pair from this team's logo and more of the latter pair. After all, the video also states that the team's namesake sculptures "know fear because they feed off of it". I think that theme of feeding off of fear needs to be leaned into more. With New York's gargoyles and grotesques serving as the inspiration for the brand identity of the XFL team representing the city, I want to see the primary logo centered around a more frighteningly-twisted, demonic figure, rather than simply an angry animal. As currently depicted, the Guardians' logo could just as readily serve as the primary mark for a team called the Lions. To my mind, that's not what a gargoyle/grotesque-themed team identity should be shooting for. If I were using the sculptures in the Guardians' sizzle reel as my starting point, I'd be taking inspiration from the first, fourth, and eighth carvings pictured therein. I might even look back to the original XFL's San Francisco Demons for some visual cues. That said, instead of designing a mark that resembled the tattoo art of the Demons' logo, a gargoyle/grotesque-themed logo should be rendered to look as though the demonic creature it's depicting was carved from stone. In my opinion, the ideal gargoyle/grotesque-themed logo should depict chips, scratches, pitting, and other imperfections in the centerpiece subject, as opposed to the smooth and unblemished figure shown in the New York Guardians' mark. The ultimate goal should be to render a team totem that is a fear-inducing creature of living stone. In this context, even the name Guardians seems a bit staid. I might opt for New York Beasts, New York Gargoyles, or New York Demons. St. Louis BattleHawks: So, let's address the worst part of this identity package right off the bat. The name is abysmal. Yes, I know that the BattleHawks' sizzle reel revolves around the theme of "winged warriors, preparing for flight". I've come to understand that Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation once trademarked the 'Battlehawk' name to refer to a UH-60M helicopter outfitted with a full weapons kit. Yadda, yada, yada. BattleHawks is a ham-handed mash-up of a name that sounds absolutely preposterous. I can't even fathom a reason to try and play the devil's advocate long enough to attempt to defend it. Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's turn to the logo. Frankly, I like it. It looks like the sort of insignia that one might find being used by a military unit, a religious order, or a fraternal organization. I actually think that it could work quite well as the logo for a sports franchise, provided that it's paired with the right team name, in the right market. It lends itself to the idea of a powerful angel, or a host of them - to archangels, avenging angels, or guardian angels. As I mentioned in my breakdown of the Los Angeles Wildcats' branding package, I think this logo would work quite well for a team in LA, the 'City of Angels'. Pair it with a name like the Los Angeles Guardians, Los Angeles Avengers, or Los Angeles Archangels and you'd have a dynamite identity. I suppose it could work in St. Louis, as well. After all, the city's namesake - King Louis IX - was canonized. Would it work better with the sword flipped, so that its point was resting between the wings? Positioned in that manner, the sword would better reflect the way it is held by King Louis IX in the Apotheosis of St. Louis statue in Forest Park. If one were to go to that trouble, should the cross-guard of the sword in the logo be altered to depict the slight S-curve of the cross-guard of King Louis IX's sword in the aforementioned statue? After tweaking the logo, what would the team be named in St. Louis? I mean, Louis IX's canonization made him a Saint, so would the team be dubbed the St. Louis Saints? Or, would St. Louis Angels be better? St. Louis Guardians? Would it just be simpler for the XFL's first official trade to be an exchange of the BattleHawks' logo for the Wildcats' name? The dust clears with the result being the Los Angeles Guardians and St. Louis Wildcats taking the field? You know what? Let's leave it at this... a solid logo (though better suited to another market) and a lousy name add up to a decidedly mixed brand identity in St. Louis. Seattle Dragons: When the news broke that Alpha Entertainment had registered five potential names for the Seattle-based XFL franchise with the USPTO, the one that resonated most strongly with me was Dragons. To be sure, the other four candidates - Force, Fury, Surge, and Wild - weren't particularly great names. Still, my affinity to the Dragons name was driven by more than just what I considered to be the shortcomings of the other possibilities. Though I'd never remotely given thought to Dragons as the possible name for a Seattle sports franchise up to that point in time, its potential to support a dynamic brand immediately became apparent to me. Now that the name has officially been unveiled, along with primary and word marks, I have to say that the Seattle Dragons are a pretty sharp looking outfit. The colors are the key to me. The palette of dark green, light green, blue, and orange balances ties to Seattle's historic sports design aesthetic, while simultaneously carving out space for itself. The greens and blue fit in nicely with the design traditions of teams like the Seahawks, Mariners, Sounders, Thunderbirds, Sonics, and Storm, while the orange is something that the Dragons can call their own. I'll be very interested to see what the color distribution is on the team's uniforms, as that will go a long way towards determining how successful the team's visual brand identity happens to be. As for the logo, I can certainly understand the impetus for critiques that say it bears a resemblance to the dragon in UAB's athletics identity package, or that it wouldn't be out of place in a Madden Create-A-Team suite. That said, I feel that the Seattle Dragons' mark manages to carve out its own space. Personally, I think that the UAB mark is - to its detriment - a bit more fussily-detailed than the Seattle Dragon. As for the comparison to the Madden logos, I don't find the Dragons logo to be that egregiously generic. Tampa Bay Vipers: Meh. This, to my mind, is the most underwhelming visual identity in the XFL. That's disappointing, because Vipers is a name that's more than capable of inspiring a dynamic identity package. I'll give credit to the XFL brass for thinking outside the box and opting to turn away from the more stereotypical source of inspiration for a sports team identity in the Tampa area - the region's namesake body of water and the Gulf of Mexico - and, instead, looking to the wetlands and forests of its interior. That said, the logos are lackluster. The simple letterform 'V' that was unveiled as the primary is, at best, a serviceable secondary. As for the snake-head secondary mark that appears elsewhere on the Vipers' section of the XFL website... well, frankly speaking, I've seen far better. Also problematic is the Vipers' color scheme. Personally, I'd have gone with something bolder by leaning into a vibrant neon lime (think of the Seattle Seahawks' 'Action Green', or the Orlando Thunder's 'Fluorescent Lime Green') as the Vipers' primary color, with a deep green as its secondary hue, and both white and metallic copper as tertiary colors. As is, the Vipers' visual identity strikes me as a missed opportunity.

I had a fantasy football team dubbed the New York Gargoyles for four seasons back in the mid-to-late-'90s. It's always struck me as a no-brainer identity for a New York-based sports franchise. Frankly, I'm surprised that it's taken this long for an actual pro team to adopt it.

"Allow me to open with a token gesture of faux collegiality meant to imply that I'm open-minded to considering the opinions of others. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let me immediately make a point of telling you just why my professional experience renders my 'subjective take' as clearly more informed than your own and, thus, worthy of being regarded as fact by the general populace." Or, maybe what truly "hindered that league's ability to pull in fans" was the fact that after the repeated launch and failure - or, in many cases, outright failure to even launch - of alternative football leagues including the likes of the USFL, IFF, XFL, UFL, FXFL, and A11FL, fans have grown increasingly jaded about investing time, money, and even attention into such ventures. Gee... I wonder how the National Football League has managed the trick of "strik[ing] a balance between modern and timeless" in its team logo and uniform designs? It couldn't be the fact that the NFL - and a significant number of its franchises, particularly those that sport more "timeless" looks - launched 60-plus years ago, could it? I mean, I've heard it said that some of the NFL's teams have actually been around since... the 1920s!!!

Joe Bosack's branding work for the AAF was, hands down, the best thing the league had going for it. Frankly, if the league's executive leadership and financial solvency had been even half as strong as Joe's graphic design work, the AAF wouldn't have flamed out before completing its inaugural season.

That old Clarkson University Golden Knights athletic mark was, indeed, a Phoenix Design Works creation. It was introduced 16 years ago.

MAJOR upgrades for both Hobart and William Smith. That is some impressive work by SME Branding.

Not only do the PawSox have another 15 home games to play over the 3 weeks and 5 days remaining in the 2019 International League regular season, but they have the entirety of their 2020 IL home slate to contest at McCoy Stadium. The franchise isn't scheduled to play a game in its new market of Worcester, Massachusetts until 2021,

Atlanta Rampage or Atlanta Silverbacks - The first name simply sounds good to me. For some reason, in my mind's eye, I see the logo package for it revolving around images of a charging rhinoceros. As for the second suggestion, it is a tip of the hat to Zoo Atlanta's simian ambassador for nearly 40 years, Willie B. Though Willie has passed on, his legacy lives in Zoo Atlanta's world-renowned gorilla program, as well as his many offspring who call the zoo home. Cincinnati Centaurs or Cincinnati Steamboats - The first suggestion - like your own Cincinnati Dragons - draws upon a powerful figure of myth and fable with which to brand itself, though the Centaurs identity is both more unique amongst North American pro and college teams and also provides for a pleasingly alliterative name. As for the second suggestion, it calls to mind Cincinnati's position as an American port city during the era of steam-driven paddlewheel transportation. Cleveland Guardians - Named for the iconic "Guardians of Traffic" sculptures adorning Cleveland's Hope Memorial Bridge (formerly the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge.) Colorado Cutthroats or Denver Dinos - The first recognizes the Greenback Cutthroat Trout, the official state fish of Colorado. The second is a nod to the fact that Colorado was the site of the very first Stegosaurus fossil finds (hence, the creature being the official state fossil), discovered in 1876. Indiana Thunderbolts or Indiana Warbirds - Both names salute the official state aircraft of Indiana, the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt (a "warbird" is a vintage military aircraft, particularly from the World War II era). Kansas City Stampede - A tribute to the importance of the livestock industry in Kansas City, particularly during the 80-year heyday of the Kansas City Stockyards. Las Vegas Vipers or Las Vegas Venom - The former refers to the Horned, Mojave, and Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnakes that call the area home, while the latter expands the field of Southern Nevada's namesake poisonous pests to include scorpions, as well as desert recluse and black widow spiders. No shortage of imagery to draw from when designing a logo. Memphis Pharaohs - Memphis shares its name with that of an ancient Egyptian capital city (hence the decision to build the former arena originally dubbed the Great American Pyramid). Pittsburgh Vulcans - Vulcan was the god of the forge and metalworking in Roman mythology, making him a fitting namesake for a team representing the longtime center of the American steelmaking industry. Portland Stags or Portland Cutthroats - The former name recognizes both Oregon's abundant wildlife and the famous sign atop the structure at 70 NW Couch Street in Portland that has featured the depiction of a leaping white stag - originally promoting White Stag Sportswear - since 1957. The latter name (should you opt not to use it for a Denver-based franchise) is that of a gamefish much prized by local anglers.  San Francisco Sea Wolves or San Francisco Stellers - Both names recognize sea creatures. The first is a colloquialism for the killer whale/orca; the second is the largest species of sea lion.

No, the Dodgers - by themselves - can't block the Angels from relocating to anywhere within the territory that the two franchises share. When I last checked, Major League Baseball Rule 52; Attachment 52 defined the shared territory of the Angels and Dodgers as being comprised of "Los Angeles, Orange, and Ventura Counties in California". Now, I do know that at the time of the Angels' establishment as a Major League Baseball franchise, MLB rules dictated that a team setting-up shop in a territory belonging to a club in the other league had to play in a ballpark that was located at least five air miles from that of the existing club's facility, unless the two teams agreed otherwise. Obviously, the Angels and Dodgers hammered out such an agreement, as their respective home ballparks in 1961 - LA's Wrigley Field and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum - were, at best, located 2 miles away from one another. For the 1962 season, LA's Wrigley Field would have been about 6 miles, as the crow flies, from the newly-opened Dodgers Stadium. Would MLB prefer that any hypothetical future Los Angeles-based home for the Angels be at least five air miles from Dodger Stadium? While that remains to be seen, any downtown LA location would fall well short of a five-mile minimum distance from Dodgers Stadium. One interesting side-note to this discussion is that the Angels and Dodgers can, per MLB and MiLB territorial rules, block any affiliated minor league franchise from operating anywhere within their shared Los Angeles/Orange/Ventura County territory. To date, the only MiLB teams that have played within said territory since the Dodgers and Angels arrived in Southern California - obviously, with the permission of the two Major League clubs - have been the Ventura County Gulls (1986) and the Lancaster JetHawks (1996-present) of the California League. However, four years ago, the Dodgers began exploring the possibility of shifting their Class A-Advanced farm team operation from Rancho Cucamonga to the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. The plan was for Peter Guber (a member of the Dodgers ownership group and part-owner of their Triple A affiliate in Oklahoma City) to partner with his friend Peter Lowy (then the CEO of shopping center development/management company Westfield Corporation) on bringing a California League team to the southwestern corner of the San Fernando Valley. Westfield Corporation was just about to open the Village at Westfield Topanga, a major extension and reimagining of the existing Westfield Topanga shopping center. The resulting facility was the deathblow for the Westfield Promenade, an aging and obsolete mall that had been struggling for the better part of a decade. Lowy had been brainstorming what to do with the land on which the Promenade was located. What if Westfield were to pay to demolish the Promenade and construct a 7,000-seat minor league ballpark on its site, Guber were to secure a California League franchise, and the Dodgers were to run the day-to-day operations? Westfield owned the land on which the stadium was to be built and was willing to foot-the-bill to construct the stadium. Between spaces at the Village at Westfield Topanga and land that would exist around the stadium, ample parking already existed. The project wasn't looking for a dime of public funding. Lowy put Westfield architects to work designing a stadium, Guber cleared the idea with Dodgers brass and began lining up financial partners, Dodgers president Stan Kasten broached the subject with MiLB president Pat O'Conner, and Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti was brought into the loop. All the parties loved the idea, so it was floated by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. Manfred also thought it was a winning idea. It just needed one final approval... that of Arte Moreno, owner of the Angels. The Dodgers pitched their plan to the Angels. They pointed out that the proposed Woodland Hills ballpark site was a 57-mile drive from Angels Stadium, 19 miles more distant than the trip from Anaheim to the stadium of the Dodgers' current California League affiliate in Rancho Cucamonga. They offered a variety of incentives, including the opportunity to host more of the games in the annual Angels-Dodgers pre-season Freeway Series. The Angels weren't biting. They did have a question for the Dodgers: if the Angels someday wished to move a minor league affiliate into the shared Los Angeles/Orange/Ventura County territory of the big league teams, would the Dodgers grant them permission to do so? The Dodgers wanted to know, might such a move be into the City of Los Angeles? The Angels conceded that could be a possibility. The Dodgers said they couldn't envision ever granting the Angels permission to operate a minor league team within the City of Los Angeles. The Angels refused to sign-off on the plan to allow a Dodgers farm team to set-up shop in Woodland Hills.

You know who I see being inspired by Stu Sternberg's truly visionary two-market, bi-national, split-season proposal? Arte Moreno. Hell, if Tampa Bay-Montréal works for the Rays, imagine how the Angels would thrive splitting their season between Anaheim and Edmonton! After all, 12 of the Trappers' 24 seasons were spent as the Halos' top farm team. And to prove that he's really thinking outside-the-box, Arte could take things further and opt to have the Angel-Trappers play the Edmonton half of the schedule against Pacific Coast League teams. The club might not contend for the AL West crown, but the PCL Pacific Northern Division should be within reach, right?

Well, in any event. Las Vegas won't be the first city to land franchises in the leagues we now regard as major professional in rapid-fire succession. After all, if you're only going to regard American Football League franchises as joining the ranks of top-tier pro sports when the full AFL merger with the NFL took place, then... Buffalo Bills / NFL / 1970 Buffalo Braves / NBA / 1970 Buffalo Sabres / NHL / 1970 BOOM!!! Three franchises in three of the so-called "Big Four" North American pro sports leagues in one fell swoop. Similarly... San Diego Rockets / NBA / 1967 San Diego Padres / MLB / 1969 San Diego Chargers / NFL / 1970 (That's three years to land three franchises in the "Big Four".) Kansas City Royals / MLB / 1969 Kansas City Chiefs / NFL / 1970 Kansas City-Omaha Kings / NBA / 1972 Kansas City Scouts / NHL / 1974 (Five years to land teams in all of the "Big Four" leagues.) Denver Broncos / NFL / 1970 Denver Nuggets / NBA / 1976 Colorado Rockies / NHL / 1976 (Six years to land three teams amongst the "Big Four".)

Technically speaking, it took Dallas seven years to get three teams. Dallas Cowboys / National Football League / 1960-present Dallas Chaparrals / American Basketball Association / 1967-1970, 1971-1973 Dallas Tornado / United Soccer Association-North American Soccer League / 1967-1981 You really shouldn't dismiss the Chaparrals and Tornado. The Chaps spent 5 campaigns (six, when you count their 1970-71 season split between Dallas, Fort Worth, and Lubbock) in a league that lasted 9 seasons and forced a merger with the NBA. As for the Tornado, they played 15 seasons competing at what was the top tier of professional soccer in the United States and Canada at the time. We now return you to discussion of Major League Baseball's asinine Tampa Bay-Montréal 2-city "solution", already in progress.

Cue Major League Baseball's next 2-city solution: the Oakland-Mexico City A's-tecs.

Why stop at Tampa and Montreal? Let's throw Charlotte, Las Vegas, Mexico City, Nashville, Portland, and Vancouver into the mix. After all, imagine how sought after tickets would be if a Major League Baseball team's 81-game home schedule was divided amongst eight home markets? Think about the ticket scarcity when your team is only in town for ten* "home" games a season! I give you... The Bingo Sternberg Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings!!! * Whichever market sells out its guaranteed ten game regular-season ticket inventory the quickest is awarded the opportunity... to foist the 81st "home" date of the season onto one of the other seven cities.

The true comedy in that bit - at least for those familiar with Southern California geography - is that the three communities were never linked by the same passenger rail line. Also, over the course of The Jack Benny Program's history - both on radio and television - Benny, Blanc, and the show's creative team hit upon the idea of gradually extending the pause that the train conductor would insert between the beginning and ending of the name Cucamonga. If memory serves, the record was set on the television version of the show, with a full five or six minutes of dialogue taking place amongst various cast-members between Blanc's initially intoning, "Train now leaving on Track 5 for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cuc..." and eventually bellowing, "... amonga!!!" By the way, it's Azusa... with an S.

Which one takes the place of Brentwood and which takes the place of Van Nuys? Or don't you take into account nuances like population, land area, demographics and the such when you elect to hold forth about the City of Los Angeles and its sphere of influence over other communities in Southern California? I mean... "Orange County may well have its own vibe, but so does Malibu. So does Brentwood. So does Santa Monica. So does does Van Nuys, gods help them." "And as OC (mercifully) browns..." "If it wasn’t so close to LA, Anaheim would be Bakersfield." Do you have any idea how smug, condescending, and dismissive these tossed-off assessments sound? Honestly... "browns"? "When I lived there... " Oh, now I get it. You put in your time in Southern California and now believe yourself to be some sort of cultural anthropologist with a special insight into what makes the entirety of the region tick... as only someone ensconced in New York can. It might be time to retire "Gothamite" and adopt the handle "Alvy Singer".

Brentwood and Van Nuys aren't smaller cities orbiting a larger one. They're neighborhoods in a large city.

Anaheim is an independent municipality in Orange County that ranges anywhere from 2-1/2 to 27 times as populous as the City of Los Angeles neighborhoods (Brentwood and Van Nuys) and LA County independent cities (Malibu and Santa Monica) that you lump it in with here. Anaheim ranges anywhere from 2-1/2 times to 6 times as large in total land area as the neighborhoods and cities you cite. Look, Anaheim may not be New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, or Phoenix, but it isn't Malibu, Brentwood, Santa Monica, or Van Nuys, either. Hell, if we're all in on naming Anaheim's MLB team the Los Angeles Angels, why not dub Oakland's MLB team the San Francisco A's? After all, San Francisco's more populous than Oakland, it's the Bay Area municipality with the higher profile, and the Athletics' ballpark is closer to downtown San Francisco than the Angels' is to downtown Los Angeles.

The Clearwater Beach Dog appears to be the more well-kept canine cousin of the San Diego Surf Dawg.