Baseball Teams

Baseball season is coming to its natural conclusion as we hit September. The minors and semi-pro leagues are already calling it quits. Well, scanning through my Bloglines files I discovered one I save from last December from Mental Floss called 8 Thoroughly Misleading Baseball Team Names. Two of my favorites:

First is one from my old home state that has a special place in Pennsylvania history. The team, the Altoona Curves, is not named for a curve ball but for a truly remarkable engineering accomplishment just west of town. It is known as The Horseshoe Curve and was the way the railroads figured out to get trains up the steep face of the Allegheny Plateau to head west to Pittsburgh. I have been there a number of times, and ridden Amtrak over it more times.

(Railroaders' Memorial Museum)

The second team is from my Mom's home "town" of Brooklyn New York.

The super-structure at the bottom of the Brooklyn Cyclone's logo gives a good hint as to its meaning. Anyone familiar with Roller Coasters knows that one of the great old Roller Coasters was, of course, The Cyclone at Coney Island.

(Coney Island-Nickel Empire)

To the best of my knowledge I only rode The Cyclone once, when I was actually too young to have ridden it. It was a frightening experience. It took me another 30 years to ride one again- and I have never been back to Coney Island to ride it.

I guess this is what happens when you have a news burnout.