How these 8 MLB franchises actually got their names
$100: A. Who are the Milwaukee Brewers?
St. Louisans may take exception, but Milwaukee is associated in many peoples’ minds with two things: beer and Harley-Davidsons. Given the choice, team founder and Milwaukee native Bud Selig opted for the suds label when the franchise relocated from Seattle in 1970.
The relationship between baseball and beer goes back virtually to the game’s founding in the mid-19th century, when a brewed product was not only popular with the game’ adult male fan base but also a safer drink since the brewing process sterilized the finished product.
Milwaukee’s large German population — with its inbred affinity for beer — only enhanced the connection, which was so natural that when the Brewers sought a lead sponsor for a new stadium in 2000 they tied in with the biggest local brewery to build Miller Park.
It was worth $40 million to the Brewers and worth a 20-year commitment by Miller, that commitment only expiring after the 2020 season.
The field name was changed in 2021 to American Family Field. But the team name is likely to remain Brewers for as long as they are brewing beer in Milwaukee. Given the link between the product and the population, that is likely to be a very long time indeed.
$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.
$400 A. Who were the Cleveland Indians?
In 2022, Cleveland team management formally abandoned the Indians nickname in favor of Guardians, bowing to political pressure. But how did they get to be called “Indians” in the first place?
That question became a matter of dispute in its own right. The prevailing theory for many years was that the team was named in honor of Louis Sockalexis, a Penobscot Indian who starred with Cleveland briefly in 1897.
Sockalexis played only parts of three seasons. But, in 1897 as a rookie, he caught the eye of Cleveland fans with a .338 average and 42 RBI in just 66 games. Then he fell afoul of injuries, or personal problems, or racism, playing his last in 1899 and dying in 1913.
One year later, when Napoleon Lajoie, player-manager of the team known as the Naps in his honor, retired, local newspaper writers staged a promotion to select a new name. The focus soon fell on Sockalexis, who, having died so recently before, was hard-wired into the consciousness of the team’s veteran fan base.
The team because the Indians in his honor.
That was the story proferred for decades, at any rate. As criticism of the Indians label mounted, advocates for change questioned the veracity of the story. Specifically they wondered whether the newspaper contest was rigged, or whether there were ulterior motives.
Since it is impossible to decide the motivations behind the actions of people a century ago, you’ll have to decide for yourself on that one.
$750 A. Who are the Kansas City Royals?
For decades the city of Kansas City — a quintessentially Midwestern town — has had this weird thing with royalty. It has especially shown up in the names of their athletic teams.
The concept may flow from the American Royal, a livestock exposition held in Kansas City annually since 1899. Over time, “royal” became the binding theme.
First there was the Kansas City Monarchs of the 1920s to 1940s Negro Leagues. When Lamar Hunt moved the AFL’s Dallas Texans to Kansas City in 1961, he renamed his club the Chiefs, following on the general theme. When long-time Kansas City resident Ewing Kauffman was awarded an American League franchise in the late 1960s, he fell in line, christening his club the Royals.
The Cincinnati Royals relocated to Kansas City a few years later. Seeking to avoid trouble with the existing baseball Royals, they were renamed the Kings, a name that stuck with them when they moved to Sacramento in the mid-1980s.
The closest any KC-based team has come to violating the theme was in 1974 when the NHL expanded into Kansas City. That team was named the Scouts. But the Scouts only lasted three seasons before heading west to Denver, where they became the Colorado Avalanche.
$1,000 Q. Who are the Cincinnati Reds?
The name “Reds” is a tradition in Cincinnati dating back to the formation of the first openly professional team, which played in Cincinnati in the late 1860s.
That team, called the Reds due to their red stockings, made history in 1869 by completing an undefeated season of 57 games, all of them exhibitions against other established town teams.
That particular team did not last, but when the successor leagues were created, Cincinnati was often a target city and the “Reds” name a natural fit.
The current “Reds” date their heritage back to 1881 when they operated as an independent team. When the American Association began play in 1882, the Reds were a founding member and the first champion. The franchise moved to the National League in 1890 and has been pretty much a fixture ever since.
But there have been occasional thematic modifications. Between 1882 and 1889, the team was more commonly known as the Red Stockings. Then for a few years in the mid 1950s — when the term “Reds” attained an undesirable political association — the club briefly became the Redlegs.
It reverted to simply “Reds” in 1959, and has been unchanged since.
$1,200 Q. Who were the Baltimore Orioles?
When the St. Louis Browns were purchased by a Baltimore-based syndicate, the team’s move east in time for the 1954 season became an assured thing. But what to call the new club?
Baltimore Browns? Not only did that name have no local connection, but it hearkened memories of a franchise that dominated the lower reaches of the American League standings for decades.
The obvious solution, and the one the new owners chose, was to rename the team the “Orioles.” Although no major league team had played a home game in Baltimore in a half-century, the name and city had a long and often glorious association.
Between 1894 and 1897, the Baltimore National League team — also called the Orioles — won three pennants and two Temple Cups, that era’s version of the World Series.
Then, a few years after the majors abandoned Baltimore in 1903, Jack Dunn, a former player and entrepreneur, operated a minor league franchise he also called the Orioles.
In 1913, Dunn’s Orioles took a chance on a kid out of a local orphanage named George Ruth. He saw that teammates came to calling him “Dunn’s baby,” soon shortened to “Babe.”
Ruth didn’t last long in Baltimore; he was sold to the Boston Red Sox in 1914. But Dunn’s Orioles rolled on, winning seven straight International League pennants, led by another Dunn find of Ruthian abilities, pitcher Lefty Grove.
$1,600 Q. Who were the Pittsburgh Pirates?
That was the allegation, anyway; whether the Pirates actually stole a player or merely saw one fall willingly into Pittsburgh’s orb is a matter for interpretation.
Back in the 1890s, there was a second baseman of some ability named Lou Bierbauer. In 1889, he played for the Philadelphia Athletics of the American Association. When the Players League was created in 1890, Bierbauer jumped. But that league folded after one year, the general understanding among teams in both the National League and American Association being that jumping players would be re-assigned to their old teams.
But for legal reasons, of course, that understanding could not be reduced to writing, so it amounted to nothing more than a gentleman’s agreement.
Bierbauer, who had never signed a contract with Philadelphia binding him beyond 1889, didn’t follow the script. Instead, he signed with the National League team then known as the Pittsburgh Allegheneys.
The Athletics, who badly wanted Bierbauer back within their umbrella, accused Pittsburgh of piracy in the signing of the player in violation of the general understanding.
The Alleghenys’ response basically boiled down to “tough toenails.” In fact far from running from the term “Pirates,” team management embraced it, informally adopting it for the 1891 season. Bierbauer stuck with Pittsburgh through 1896, and so did the nickname of “Pirates.”
$2,000 Q. Who are the Atlanta Braves?
The logical assumption is that the Braves’ nickname is an allusion to the traits of native warriors. Almost nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, the name traces back to 1912 when a man named Charles Gaffney purchased the Boston National League franchise. Over the past decade, the franchise had been known by various names of steadily decreasing quality: Beaneaters, then Doves, then Rustlers.
The last two alluded to the team owner, a fellow named Dovey followed by a fellow named Russell.
Nobody proposed calling Gaffney’s new team “The Gaffs,” which would have been pretty hilarious. At the time, however, Gaffney was best known for his connection to the New York City-based Democratic organization, Tammany Hall. He was a Tammany-backed alderman in New York.
If you were tied to Tammany Hall in those days, you were colloquially known as one of the Tammany Braves. Thus it was an easy transition, if a political slap, to allude to Gaffney’s newly purchased team as the Braves.
Gaffney went farther than that. In 1912, he immediately adopted an Indian headdress — the widely recognized symbol of a Tammany Hall politician — for his “Braves.” The team continued to use the Tammany logo until 1920, several years after Gaffney had sold the team.
Differing, non-Tammany versions of a Braves logo have periodically resurfaced, notably in the 1930s and 1950s, before falling permanently out of favor in the early 1990s.
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