Excccccelent News

The Twins Geek (John Bonnes) pointed me and the rest of his readers in the direction of this article at Sports Central, comparing Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad to that tent-fingered embodiment of animated evil, Montgomery Burns. “Who else could represent everything Pohlad stands for?,” writes Ryan Noonan. “Mr. Burns is an old, bald, filthy-rich business tycoon who seems to take pleasure in other people’s misery. He lives in a cavernous mansion by himself and would probably sell his mother if it meant he could make $2 on the deal. Except for maybe the cavernous mansion, if that doesn’t describe Pohlad, I don’t know what does.” Excccccellent.

But so long as I’m riffing on the Simpsons, even that news isn’t quite as excellent as the fact that my favorite show has inspired the naming of a minor-league franchise. The AAA team which will play in Albuquerque next season will be called the Isotopes, taking its name from an episode in which the Duff Beer Corporation, owners of the Springfield Isotopes, schemes to move the team to Albuquerque until Homer foils his plan.

Real-life Albuqueque was left without a franchise following the 2000 season, when the Los Angeles Dodgers ended their long working agreement with the city’s team, the Dukes. The Pacific Coast League franchise moved to Portland, becoming the Beavers, but they still hold the legal rights to the name “Dukes.” Meanwhile, the PCL’s Calgary Cannons are moving to Albuquerque, and while traditionalists wanted to resurrect the Dukes name (even given the estimated $15,000 cost of buying back the rights), imagination–and perhaps a whiff of the green stuff–has won out. The ‘Topes have secured the rights to trademark the name, though they haven’t worked out anything with Fox regarding the use of Simpsons characters.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers’ new working agreement is with a Las Vegas franchise called the 51s, after Area 51, the top-secret military facility associated with UFO tales and conspiracy theories. The 51s even have one of those alien heads (a schwa, as I believe it’s called) as their cap logo. Given that Fox owns the Dodgers, this is all starting to make sense. New teams, new uniforms, new marketing opportunities… the truth is out there.