Gary SouthShore RailCats

238

I was originally going to write a little bit about the town of Gary before discussing the name and logo, but frankly it's too depressing. About the only positive thing that I can find to say about Gary is that it's doing better than Detroit. Since my aim here is to be funny and not melancholy, I'm going to leave it at that. But if you do feel like being in a melancholy mood, feel free to go read the Wikipedia page on Gary. If that's not depressing enough, read it again while listening to "Did She Jump or Was She Pushed" by Richard and Linda Thompson. If that isn't depressing enough for you, then I'm afraid I can't help you, but you almost certainly do need help.

Fortunately, there's no dearth of stuff to talk about with the name and logo.

Let's start with the name, and we'll take it word by word. "Gary" is hard to argue with; it's where the team plays. Then you get "SouthShore". There are two problems with this. The first is that the team has already told us they're in Gary, so I don't know why they need to add "SouthShore". The second problem is that I'm not sure that Gary really is on the south shore. But I always get confused by this. If you're on the East Coast, then to go from land to water you move east. But then there's the Western Shore of Maryland, where you also move east to go from land to water. But then you've got the Eastern Shore of Maryland, which is everything east of the Chesapeake Bay, which means that you can go east or west to move from land to sea. Same for the Eastern Shore of Virginia, except you can also go south. And even, in some parts, north. What I'm saying, I guess, is that I really have no idea. You should savor this moment, dear reader: I freely admit I am clueless. This doesn't happen often. The admitting part, I mean.

In any case, the name "South Shore" apparently doesn't come from the shore anyway. It comes from a commuter train that runs through Gary. That line (called the "South Shore Line"), which goes through the South Shore area of Chicago (to get from land to water in the South Shore area, you go east. The more I think about all this the less sense it makes). Apparently when you're sitting at the stadium in Gary, you can see the tracks for the South Shore line from your seat. Presumably, you will occasionally get to watch a train headed for Chicago. You will almost certainly think wistfully to yourself, "I should get on that train and get out of Gary," because like I said, the only positive thing Gary has going for it is that it isn't Detroit.

The last word in the name is, of course, "RailCats". Again, we have a reference to the South Shore Line. Look, it's one thing when I decide to harp on how shitty things in Gary are. I'm just a smartass from the East Coast who's never even been to Gary. It's quite another when a team located in Gary decides to harp on it. And that's what this name does. It says that even the people who own this team think the most noteworthy thing about Gary is the train to take you to Chicago. The name seems specially designed to say, "You could be leaving this shithole if you wanted." It stops just short of adding, "But if you're dumb enough to stick around, why not come watch a baseball game?" I'm amazed anyone shows up for the games. Given the crime rate in Gary, I'm amazed nobody's torched the stadium.

And speaking of violent crime, take a look at the cat in the logo. Is he, in fact, swinging a baseball bat? It doesn't really look like a baseball bat, for starters; I'm not aware of any I-shaped bats. It's also hard to tell if he's getting ready to swing it horizontally or stab it downward; it looks mostly like the latter, except then the positioning of his left hand is awkward. And then we've got to account for the baseball which looks like it shot out the back end of the whatever-it-is-the-cat-is-holding and somehow managed to change direction and move forward. I don't know what the hell that cat is holding, but it seems to be impressive technology. Part baseball bat, part sword, part I-beam, part smart missile launcher. That's pretty versatile. Does anyone in Gary make one of those things? If so, they should start marketing them better. There's got to be a market for that sort of thing, and a bigger market would mean more industry for Gary. And Gary could use some new industry almost as much as Detroit.

Final Score: 238 points.
Penalties: Region (Egregious), 17 pts; Software (Egregious), 55 pts; Compound, 34 pts; Humanoid, 30 pt; Cartoon, 47 pts; Player, 51 pts; Name, 10 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -6 pts.