Charleston RiverDogs

81

As longtime readers know, sometimes I like to largely ignore the name and logo I'm ostensibly reviewing and write about something else instead, and one of my favorite topics in such cases is the history of the city where the team is located. Given that this is the second review in as many weeks where the team has a "River ______" name and a lame JACKAL* as its logo, I thought this would be a good week to do it. Besides, Charleston is one of the oldest cities in America (it was founded in 1670), so I figured I could have some fun with it.

Then I read the history of Charleston.

The history of Charleston is depressing as hell.

How depressing? Well, a full explanation would be too much like providing the actual history which I've decided I no longer want to write, but here it is in ten words or less: "genocide, slave trade, lose a war, Jim Crow, natural disasters". And that doesn't cover all the bad things, but I ran out of words.

So let's just talk about the name and logo. We'll start with the name. As it turns out, the name "RiverDogs" isn't made up by the team. It was made up by sailors. Obviously Charleston had a port (it played a major role in the "slave trade" part of the city's history that I no longer want to write about), so sailors play a prominent role in a lot of Charleston history. And Charleston's port, like most ports, was infested with rats. Apparently the rats in Charleston were so big that the sailors took to calling them "river dogs". I'm not sure if they went any farther with that analogy (Did they keep these rats as pets? Did the dockyard have guard rats?), but that was the name they gave them. And that's where the team name comes from. It's not a great name, but a city as old as Charleston should have a name that somehow relates to its history, and when you're dealing with a history like Charleston's, wry comments about Rodents of Unusual Size are about the best you can do.

And then there's the logo. You will note that, despite the team actually being named after rats, the logo features a dog. The thinking behind that, I'm sure, is similar to the thinking that led to deciding to pick a historical name and then just going with sailors' having a facetious name for vermin. There's such a thing as too much accuracy. The dog is a little to cutesy for my tastes, but I'll forgive them. And I will definitely give them credit for the wrought-iron effect in the logo. That's a cool effect. It probably even has some relation to the city, but I'm not going to bother finding out. Sorry, Charleston, but I'm not doing any more research about you. I'm bummed out enough as it is.

* Just Another Crappy Kartoon Animal Logo

Final Score: 81 points.
Penalties: Software, 27 pts; Equipment, 13 pts; Cartoon, 47 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -6 pts.