Charleston Dirty Birds

146

In case you can't figure it out on your own, the Charleston Dirty Birds get their name from the idea of a "canary in a coal mine". This strikes me as an odd thing to name a team after for a couple of reasons. First of all, the (admittedly few) people from West Virginia that I've known were a bit touchy about the fact that a lot of people seem to think that the state is nothing but one big coal mine; they've been quite eager to let people know that there's more to the state than that. So what does this baseball team do? It names itself after coal mines. Maybe this is the difference between people who are from West Virginia but no longer live there and people who are in West Virginia. But the other reason it's odd is that they're naming the team after something whose job is to die before you do. Sure, there's nobility in sacrifice, but it's not like the canary performs this task willingly, or even knows it's doing it. It's not so much a martyr as it is a patsy.

But nonetheless, they chose to name themselves after canaries in coal mines. So why not just call the team the Charleston Canaries? It's a nice, simple image. It has alliteration (written if not spoken) going for it. And it's got history on its side: there's no shortage of baseball teams, both major league and minor league, being named after birds, including canaries. Charleston Canaries would be a simple (if unremarkable) name. Charleston Dirty Birds is just silly.

Of course, that's why the team went with that name. We live in an era where teams are trying to outdo each other with the silliest name imaginable. Sod Poodles. Trash Pandas. Rumble Ponies. From this perspective, the only problem with Dirty Birds is that it isn't ridiculous enough. The logo is cut from the same cloth: a silly, cartoony songbird covered in soot and trying (unsuccessfully) to look tough.

It's clear that the Sod Poodles/Rumble Ponies/et cetera model is what they're going for. And frankly, if this is the best worst they can do, they should just give up and get a normal name. Maybe go with the obvious and call themselves the Canaries. Or just get away from the whole coal mine thing. After all, there's more to West Virginia than just coal mines, right? The people I know from there assured me there is.

But now that I think about it, they never actually specified what else there is to West Virginia. Just sayin'.

Final Score: 146 points.
Penalties: Compound 34 pts; Humanoid, 30 pts; Colorful, 31 pts; Cartoon, 47 pts; Name, 10 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -6 pts.