Name the New DC Baseball Team: Contest and Results

October 22, 2004
By: Dave Zirin

Washington DC is getting a new baseball stadium the
same way a dog gets medicine at the vet: held down,
pried open, and force fed. But this medicine holds no
cure for what ails our aching city. 
Mayor Anthony Williams' $440 million publicly funded
stadium scheme is, even for this baseball fan, an
obscenity. It's like sending Dick Cheney to 'All You
Can Eat' night at Beefsteak Charlie's: just because we
are entertained doesn't mean it's not both dangerous
and grossly irresponsible. 
But that's not where the story ends. Mayor Williams,
proving once again that inflicting injury is no fun
without a sweet insult, wants the team to be named
'The Grays.' 'Grays' is neither a self-aggrandizing
nod toward the Mayor's sparkling personality nor his
favorite color. It is in Williams' words 'a tribute'
to the area's old Negro League team, the Homestead
Grays, which featured Hall of Fame legends Josh Gibson
and Buck Leonard. 
The Mayor's nostalgia for the Negro Leagues and his
touching olive branch to this majority
African-American city is somewhat dulled by his battle
plan to build this $440 million lemon in the
overwhelmingly Black South East Neighborhood of
Anacostia. He is willing to use 'fair use' legal
clauses to tear down people's homes on the proposed
stadium grounds if they won't sell out to the city.
Local rents are expected to skyrocket making it near
impossible for poor and working class Blacks to stay
in the area. Sports writer Sally Jenkins has made the
point that if the team doesn't meet its profit goals,
the only recourse will be to further tax the citizens
of DC, making working people pay for baseball games
most cannot afford. 
It's a stunning act of chutzpah unrivaled since George
W. Bush lobbied last year to win the Nobel Peace
Prize. Williams wants to attack the most historic
Black neighborhood in the city in the name of honoring
the Negro Leagues. Not since the production of the
1992 pornographic film 'Malcolm XXX' has a symbol of
African-American pride been so abused. 
Those of us repulsed by the racist land grab at play
in South East DC need to be clear that naming the team
the Grays is a slap in the face to every player who
endured the forced segregation of the Negro Leagues
with skill and dignity. Instead, we need to come up
with our own team name. Let's conjure some ideas that
let Williams and his political cronies on Capital Hill
know exactly what we think of the entire rotten
project. Surely a city with the history of Washington
DC can inspire some more appropriate choices. After
all we have been center stage for Newts, Watergates,
and more than a few Dicks. 
CONTEST RESULTS
The "Name the New DC Team" contest is over and after
dissecting more than 200 e-mails and 1,000 entries I
am twitching more than George W. on debate night. 
Entries ran the gamut from anti-war, to anti-racist,
to just damn funny. We therefore have preliminary
awards before we name the winner of his or her own
custom-made t-shirt. 
1 -- Best Anti-War Baseball Name
We received among others, the DC Shock and Awe, the
Warlords, the WMDS, the Bombers, the Pre-emptive
Strikes, the Chickenhawks, the Abu-Ghraibers, and by
far the most popular entrant, the Imperials. The
winner, more for its delicate subtlety, was from Joe
Ciarrocco: The Washington Tobacco Chewing War mongers.
2 -- Best Anti-Racist Baseball Name 
This is nice since the confederate confines of talk
radio have been hee-hawing about naming the team the
Anacostia Crack Heads, since nothing is funnier than
racism (maybe we should call the team the DC
Oxy-Contins with a puffed up Rush Limbaugh as mascot).
In this contest, people kicked up instead of down.
Names here included the Washington Greenbacks,
Blackskins, Honkies or White Crackers (to stick it to
the hometown Redskins.) Also the John Birchers, the
Whistling Dixies, the Fetchits, and the Arrogant
Fascist Bastards were put forward. But Peter Couvares
had the most uplifting entry, the Anacostia
Abolitionists -- a perfect name for the historic home
of Frederick Douglass -- which Mayor Anthony Williams
would surely raze to the ground if it meant extra
stadium parking.
3 -- Best Funny Name 
Loved the thought of the Washington Consensus, the
Lesser Evils, the Freedom Fries, the DC LeGrees, the
Ashcroftettes, the Caligulas, the Slumlords, the Horde
("named after the Mongols, the last bunch of
Barbarians to sack Baghdad" -- Steve Vinson ) the
Capital City Conspirators, and the very popular,
Washington Shitheads. The best here has to go to
MichaelCeraolo who wrote, "Call them the Washington
Irvings. Why? Because you wake up after an extended
nap and find that the crappy baseball in your town
hasn't changed."
4 -- Best Angry Name from a Candian
There are a lot of angry Canadian Baseball fans out
there pissed at losing their Expos. (This is
surprising given that there were more empty seats at
Montreal