Kansas City T-Bones

151

When Michael Vick was first sent to a nearby prison to serve (not enough) time for cruelty to animals, the T-Bones decided to have a "Welcome to the Neighborhood" night. The two teams would wear jerseys that looked like prison uniforms (traditional black and white stripes for the home team, contemporary orange for the visitors). The teams would be brought out in shackles, and released from them to play the game. The relief pitchers would be brought out in a paddy wagon. More seriously and more importantly, local animal shelters were invited to the event to showcase animals in need of adoption.

Of course the I Am Offended! Brigade had to show up and explain how terrible it was to do such a thing because it was an affront to Michael Vick's dignity. Huh? In case you missed it, the man was breeding dogs for blood sport. His dignity deserved to be affronted. Richard McIntire, a spokesperson for the NAACP, made the mind-bogglingly stupid statement "In this case it's a shame when others choose to make folly of another's misfortune." Mr. McIntire, let me explain something to you. When a person ends up in the hospital because he wrecked his motorcycle, that is misfortune. When a person loses thousands of dollars because he was the victim of a con artist, that is misfortune. When a person ends up in federal prison because he knowingly and willingly committed a federal offense which resulted in the death of numerous dogs, that is not misfortune. That is just deserts.

Unfortunately, the I Am Offended! Brigade did succeed in keeping, poor, misunderstood little Ron Mexico from having his feelings hurt: the Vick-related events were cancelled, and only the animal welfare-related events actually took place. The animal welfare-related events were the important part, of course, so I can only complain so much. But for the record, let me state that the people who railed against the T-Bones' original plans need to get a clue, get a life, and get a piece of duct tape which they should then place over their closed mouth.

Anyway, the fact that the T-Bones planned such an event means I really want to like them, and really want to be nice to them. There's just one problem, which is that no matter how much I like a team, I am morally bound by my oath as a self-appointed critic to rag on a logo this bad. For that matter, I am morally bound to rag on a name this bad. I may even be morally bound to use all-caps to scream WHAT DRUGS WERE THESE PEOPLE TAKING WHEN THEY THOUGHT OF THIS RIDICULOUS NAME, ANYWAY? After all, this team is named after food. In fact, technically they're not even named after food. No, they're named after what's left after you're done eating. No one in their right mind would name a team the Kansas City Table Scraps, but in essence, that's what this team has done.

I can understand the thinking process that went into this. The cattle industry is important in that part of the country, so they wanted to go with a cattle-themed name. But the obvious choice of "Bulls" had been done to death. There are also, in various sports, teams currently or formerly called the Cowboys, the Brahmas, the Stampede, the Mavericks, the Renegades, the Rustlers, and the Steers. Some of these are rare enough that you could reuse them without embarrassment, but some people like to do something that's never been done before. I think that way lies madness, but I can understand the desire. And if you want to use a name that truly has never been used before, your options are fairly limited. Apparently, these people wanted to do something different. You see the result. Like I said: That way lies madness.

So picture this: You've gone and named your team after something that goes on a dinner plate. What do you do for the logo? Well, if you can at all help it, you don't actually draw the dish on the plate. That just begs for newspapers in opposing teams' cities to make bad jokes about how their local teams (i.e., your opponents) are "eating the competition right up". No, you don't want to encourage that. Much better to draw the animal that the meal used to be. And this is what the T-Bones did. But they did it rather poorly. The most obvious problem is that the bull has hooves, and still somehow manages to be holding a bat. This isn't because they didn't want to anthropomorphize the bull; the arms are clearly the arms of a human — a human on steroids who smears Rogaine all over his arms on a daily basis, but a human nonetheless. Worse, they draw your attention to the hooves by giving the bull a white splotch of fur on his chest. And then there's the nose, which is so big that each nostril appears to be as big as one of his eyes. But they weren't done there. They also gave the bull a brand on its, er, arm. It is inexplicably lighter than the surrounding fur, despite the fact that brands are black. The brand is a T, of course, and even better they've made it in the approximate shape of an actual T-bone. The "T" in the team's name is shaped the same way, while the word "Bones" is in standard baseball script. Then, to cap the whole thing off, they have the bull poking out of a hole surrounded by burgundy and tan circles. I can't help but think of old Warner Brothers cartoons every time I look at the circles.

In short, no matter how much I want to like this team, no matter how nice I want to be to this team, I really have to judge them very harshly. And that's not their misfortune. It's just deserts.

Final Score: 151 points.
Penalties: Script, 7 pts; Humanoid, 30 pts; Cartoon, 47 pts; Player, 51 pts; Name, 10 pts; Logo, 12 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -6 pts.