How these 8 MLB franchises actually got their names

$200 A. Who are the Dodgers?

In Los Angeles, the Dodgers name has no logical connection. But as a legacy of the team’s days in Brooklyn, it makes perfect sense, especially if you trace the name back to its origins.

In the early 20th century, baseball was a community event and fans often commuted to the ballpark on foot. In Brooklyn, that meant dodging things along the roadway. Those things were likely to include (but not be limited to) carriages, trolleys, horse droppings, sewage, mud and, in time, those newfangled automobile things.

In 1911, as the team anticipated its move from long-time home Washington Park to a new edifice that would be called Ebbets Field, somebody (probably a newspaper headline writer) got the bright idea to rename the team, which until then was generally known as the Superbas. Perhaps the team’s play — hardly superb, given eight consecutive second-division finishes — had something to do with it.

The name didn’t stick right away. “Dodgers” lasted just two years before Superbas came back for one season in 1913, to be followed by “Robins” after manager Wilbert Robinson.

But shortly after Robinson’s departure in 1931, “Dodgers” was resurrected. It has survived nearly nine decades and 3,000 miles.