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Baseball

ziggy on 2004-09-30T03:08:47

So the Montréal Expos are being relocated to Washington DC next season. It's a fitting move, and a fitting time. The Washington Senators left DC 33 years ago, and won the world series 70 years ago. When the Senators left, the word was Washington was First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League. And the Expos are roughly 0-240 this season.

But there's one key piece of information no one is talking about: What shall we call this relocated team?

The Washington Senators moved to become the Texas Rangers. Theoretically, the new team could be called the Senators, sorta like how the Cleveland Browns aren't really the Cleveland Browns, they're a new team with the same name.

Name Ownership

Purdy on 2004-09-30T12:35:52

From one report I heard, Texas Rangers own the rights to the "Washington Senators" name. Not that they wouldn't pass it back, but just a little hurdle to clear to use that name.

Re:Name Ownership

ziggy on 2004-09-30T13:06:13

All the more interesting. Since the media are reaching for every last straw of information to spend even more time covering the "Expos moving to DC Next Season" non-story, someone found this tidbit. The original Washington Senators (one of the earliest clubs to play the game) moved to become the Minnesota Twins in the 1960s. Washington then got an expansion team, also called the Washington Senators, that stayed in DC ~10 years before becoming the Texas Rangers. So this could be the third team called the Washington Senators. (Confused yet?)

Re:Name Ownership

jmm on 2004-09-30T13:50:01

Are senators not limited to a maximum of two terms of office, or is that only the president?

Maybe they should call the new team the Washington Presidents. (Or, the way presidential media reporting goes, the Washinton Expose.)

Re:Name Ownership

ziggy on 2004-09-30T14:20:09

Are senators not limited to a maximum of two terms of office, or is that only the president?


Senators have no term limits.

Re:Name Ownership

vsergu on 2004-09-30T15:03:58

Since DC residents are the only US citizens who pay federal income tax but have no senators, the name Senators is inappropriate. Some people have suggested the Washington Grays, after the old Negro League team.

Re:Name Ownership

jdporter on 2004-09-30T15:16:21

Sounds all the more appropriate to me, then. This way, they'll have Senators.

Re:Name Ownership

merijnb on 2004-10-01T10:21:01

What about the "Washington Interns"?

Re:Name Ownership

pudge on 2004-10-07T01:45:06

The owner of the Senators who sold the team to interests in Texas was the treasurer of the Democratic party. A couple decade laters, they were owned by the son of the Republican Governor of Texas, who is now the presiding President when a team returns to Washington ...

Ottawa

pudge on 2004-10-07T01:38:57

Also note how there is an Ottawa Senators, but it is not the same as the previous Ottawa Senators. So there's precedent not just for the act of taking an old name for a new franchise, but there's precedent for taking THAT old name for a new franchise. :-)

Re:Ottawa

ziggy on 2004-10-07T05:22:46

Right, but there's still the Ottawa Senators and the Ottawa Senators, just like there were the Washington Senators and the Washington Senators (and the Cleveland Browns and the Cleveland Browns). But having a new team called the Washington Senators that is neither the Washington Senators nor the Washington Senators sounds like an Abbot and Costello bit. Sort of like the Roughriders and the Roughriders in the CFL, or naming every football team in Australia "Bruce".

Let's just forget about it and just call them the Washington Patriots, shall we? ;-)