Ferdinand Cesarano

I'm a homer when it comes to sports. I supported the Bayhawks in MLL because they were the team closest to home, but that name sucked. A ripoff of the Seattle Seahawks branding. Well, it's true that Bayhawks as a name is inherently kind of cheesy. So is Seahawks! But the name acquired gravitas with all those championships. And the logo is outstanding. The Bayhawks were champions six times! For this league to have the ability to use that historically significant name with only positive associations, yet to choose not to use it in favour of the name of a new team that has won one championship, this is extremely hard to understand. I disagree with that. The simplified bull is much more attractive than the previous busier version. The look of the Atlas's logos is pretty good. The roundel is excellent, and the NY that makes use of the bull horns is clever (even if the connection between a bull and the Greek god Atlas is a bit of a mystery). On the other hand, a singular name is always amateurish. We had the Orlando Apollos; we could have had the New York Atlases. Also, it's worth emphasising the foolishness of leaving unused yet another great and beloved identity, that of the Lizards. And in this case, unlike that of the Bayhawks, it's a great name in its own right, as well as being an identity that acquired tremendous meaning on account of a great history.

The Jets' regular uniforms are not "extremely similar" to their throwbacks! The current uniform is the worst one in their history, while the throwback uniform is the best one. The current uniform's flaws are numerous and serious. First, the current helmet logo is absolutely nothing. It has none of the personality of the (admittedly flawed) one that it replaced, the original logo that was brought back in the late 1990s. And it has none of the style of the throwback helmet logo, the wordmark with the jet tail. Second, the current uniform includes both a black jersey and black pants. Completely inappropriate. Third, the "New York" on the front of the jersey is comical. It shouldn't be there at all; but, if it's going to be there, it should be about a quarter of the size. Finally, the swooshes that come in from the sleeve are not sleeve stripes. They're trash derived from that Denver Broncos uniform that was the superspreader event for bad design. If you want a uniform that is similar to this: ...then you would have to cite this: ...with the black outline on the numbers, the stripes, and the helmet logo, and the use of green pants with the white jersey. That's a significant downgrade from the team's best look, but it is definitely similar. Whereas, the current look is nowhere near the best look.

Yes, but then the Kats came back a few years later, in one of those cheesy Cleveland Browns deals that spits in the eye of history, and were in the league alongside the Force.

If the league now has access to the old MLL names, then it's baffling why the New York Lizards' name and excellent logo were not revived. Almost as bad is overlooking the Bayhawks. These names are synonymous with pro lacrosse, having had a Yankees / Red Sox - style rivalry in the MLL. Those complaints aside, I am pleased to see the return of a nice old UFL name, the California Redwoods.

With the Dragons not being in the league, it seems silly to do a big press event in New York. Better to do it in Philadelphia, where the league just announced the revival of the Soul.

Yeah, he's a goofball. More important, he has no journalistic responsibilities, unlike Brazil and Pratt, who work for network outlets.

Yeah, none of them are biased. Oh, stop. They are serious reporters who back up everything they report. Of course they both are angry that the team will probably move; but their reporting is undeniably credible.

Where did you see that? In every report by Brodie Brazil and Casey Pratt, and in the Oakland mayor's comments to Pratt.

The city and the team were on the verge of a deal when the team showed bad faith by blindsiding the city with an announcement of a "binding" agreement on the first Las Vegas site back in April.

I agree that Fisher is not going to sell. But his refusal to sell cannot be on account of his being a "cheapskate", as a sale would get him about $1 billion in profit as compared to his purchase price.

It's preferable to measure distance with units of distance, so I will say that I do indeed know that Rockford is about 80 or 90 miles away from Chicago, which, admittedly, is considerably more than the 40 or 50 miles that separate Santa Clara and San Francisco. Still, the point remains that naming a team after the big city in the region is unobjectionable, even if the team is located in an area that is, strictly speaking, outside the big city's recognised metropolitan area. The point is to be more attractive to advertisers, and also to have the listing look better on a TV schedule.

To be fair, the USFL calls Detroit "Philadelphia", Canton, OH "Pittsburgh" and "New Jersey", Memphis "Houston" and Birmingham "New Orleans". So... When I started to read this post, I thought that it was going to be the acknowledgement that the NFL calls Santa Clara "San Francisco", calls East Rutherford "New York", and calls Arlington "Dallas", and that it may soon be calling Naperville "Chicago". It also used to call Pontiac "Detroit", as did the NBA, which, additionally, called Richfield "Cleveland", and which at one time seemed poised to call Camden "Philadelphia". And Major League Baseball calls Anaheim "Los Angeles". Which is to say that there's nothing wrong with this. A major city has a sphere of influence that encompasses many neighbouring municipalities, so naming a team that is based in one of those smaller municipalities after the region's primary city is sensible. Please note that I am not necessarily claiming that the new AFL is not cheesy. But if it's cheesy, the reason that it's cheesy is not its naming practices.

That Atlanta logo would be an excellent letter logo if not for the gradient and especially the obtrusive shadows. Faux-3D ruins that logo, just as it ruins every single other logo of which it is a part (another example being the annoying bevelling on the Grand Rapids team's wordmark). I can't do anything about the gradient, but here's the obvious improvement that comes from removing the shadow.

The Nets really should have kept that design. The change of uniform and logo upon the move was a huge downgrade.

You're welcome! I went looking for those interviews knowing that I had heard them before, but not remembering exactly what project they were part of. I was very glad to have found them again. The weird thing is that I happened upon another example yesterday while I was not looking for it. I was just doing what I normally do, which is to listen to old-time radio. In the commercial for Jell-O that opens Jack Benny's radio show of October 24, 1937, the announcer Don Wilson (born 1900) mentions the creation of the product "back in the year 1904", a year which he says as "nineteen four". I share this not to belabour the point, but merely to address the possible suspicion that that form of expression was limited to the sporting world, rather than being the general norm.

Sorry, a language comment. It's "shoo-in", an expression that comes from horse racing. OK, carry on.

They didn't.

If this is the case, it's all the more reason that the combined league should retain the USFL name.

The Atlanta Legends' look was the best of a strong lot.

That's right, players from the aughts interviewed decades later. They'd say years in the form "nineteen two" or else in the form "nineteen hundred (and) two". But never "nineteen oh two"; that's strictly a latter-day construction. Sorry for the double post, but I just found some of these interviews that I had recalled hearing before. In the interview by Lawrence Ritter of "Wahoo" Sam Crawford (the holder of the all-time career record for triples) from the mid-1960s for the book Glory of Their Times, Crawford refers to the year 1907 as "nineteen seven". In Ritter's interview with Smoky Joe Wood, Ritter himself (born in 1922) refers to the year 1908 as "ninteen eight". In Ritter's interview with Hans Lobert, an infielder in the National League from 1903 to 1917, Ritter asks "What were the parks like in nineteen three, four, five?" This practice was the norm for people born in the mid-19th century and the early 20th century. The norm changed to "ninteen oh (whatever)" probably for people born in the late 1930s or early 1940s.

We wore an onion on our belts, which was the style at the time.

That fantasy alignment is good, except for the Eastern Division. To fix it, return the Gladiators to New Jersey, and replace the Columbus Destroyers with the New York Dragons.

Right! Thanks for pointing out those additional examples. (And thanks also for the spelling correction.)

Yes, indeed. The names New York Sentinels and California Redwoods in particular are good ones. The latter employs the practice of using for a team an existing name of something else, such as was done with the names Baltimore Orioles, Texas Rangers, Chicago Fire, Colorado Rockies, and Florida Panthers.

That's right, players from the aughts interviewed decades later. They'd say years in the form "nineteen two" or else in the form "nineteen hundred (and) two". But never "nineteen oh two"; that's strictly a latter-day construction.