Tulsa Drillers

76

The name "Tulsa Drillers" obviously comes from the presence of the oil industry in and around Tulsa. Teams from Tulsa often have names based around that industry: several teams in several sports have called themselves the Tulsa Oilers, there used to be a junior hockey team called the Tulsa Crude, and of course you have these guys. So it's kind of interesting that the Drillers name was actually first used when the team played in Lafayette, Louisiana, and kept when the team moved to Tulsa in 1977. I have no idea why a team in Lafayette was named the Drillers. There is apparently a shopping center in Lafayette called the Oil Center, so apparently there was an oil industry there at one time, but this is all news to me.

But regardless of why the team was called the Drillers in the first place, one can easily see why they kept the name when they moved to Tulsa. Rare is the case of a team moving to a city and finding their nickname fits the new city better than it did the old one, but it happened here. (The only possible other example I can think of is when the Baltimore Bullets moved to Washington...but let's face it, the name isn't exactly inappropriate in Baltimore, now, is it?)

And then there's the logo.

On the one hand, I have to give them credit. You look at as many logos featuring some Warner Bros. cartoon reject as I have, and you start giving credit to anything that is truly different. And this, my friends, is truly — truly — different. Even among logos that feature a human being performing an occupation, I don't think any of them before have given that human being grey skin. And I'm almost positive that all of them have given that human being a head. And even if I'm wrong and there are any other headless humans in sports logos, I'm absolutely positive that none of them put a hat on top of that missing head.

So they get credit for being different. But I'm sure they lose a little bit of credit for being creepy. As if headless drillers with grey skin weren't enough, there's apparently a blue light being shone on him, which adds a fairly ghostly effect to everything. And then there's the question of what the hell is going on.

I'm not sure what Ichabod is trying to accomplish in the logo. He is indeed holding a very large drill bit (one that has pierced a light blue baseball, no less). But I don't see how he could actually turn the bit with his hands in that position, and turning the bit is generally the purpose of a drill. He looks more like he's churning butter than anything else. Churning butter is obviously more benign than using a drill, which is in many ways a menacing act if you think about it. But look at the guy: you expect him to be going something menacing. Make him do something benign and it becomes even scarier. It's sort of like the scene in the horror movie with the children in the middle of the field (under a full moon at midnight) playing Ring Around the Rosie. Kids playing Ring Around the Rosie is normally a good thing. Under a full moon in a horror movie, not so much. It's a tension builder, because you just know the crazy bastard with the machete is going to show up any second. That's what this logo does. It builds tension like a horror movie. Except that since this is a single frame, that tension is never...going...to...resolve.

In short, this logo is a great way to get inside the heads of the other team's players. They may not analyze it the way I just did, but subconsciously this logo is going to freak them out. There's just one problem: The Drillers don't actually put this logo on their uniforms. That's so stupid I don't have words for it. If you have an advantage over the other team, you use it. Put this guy on the caps, on the jersey, and on every flat surface in the stadium. Then play creaking-door and footstep sounds over the loudspeaker at random intervals. Finally, put a group of children in the outfield playing Ring Around the Rosie. You'll win every single home game, I guarantee it. Indeed, pretty soon teams will be refusing to show up for games and you'll win every home game without even having to do anything.

Of course, your fans will be too scared to show up, and you'll go broke from the lack of ticket sales, but you'll still go down in history as having the best home record in the history of baseball. So it's worth it, right?

Final Score: 76 points.
Penalties: Ers, 26 pts; Equipment, 13 pts; Colorful, 31 pts; Logo, 12 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -6 pts.