Dayton Dragons

-17

Mythological creatures tend to make cool team nicknames. Whether it's football's Tennessee Titans, hockey's Odessa Jackalopes or Grand Rapids Griffins, or these guys, the names just work. Granted, there are a couple of exceptions (you wouldn't want to name your team the Squonks), but all in all the rule works. But in spite of this, outside of a few well-worn examples (Thunderbirds, Devils, Giants) very few mythological creatures get enlisted for this purpose. And there are so many possibilities: Minotaurs. Manticores. Trolls. And these are just the reasonably well-known examples. The Scottish have a monster called the Lavellan, which is described as a large, poisonous rodent living in rivers. Sure, it sounds weird, but tell me that isn't a better name than the Charleston RiverDogs.

In short, the name works. The logo's pretty solid, too. It includes, quite simply, the head of a dragon. The dragon looks reasonably well drawn, too. I'd describe it as a "realistic" drawing were it not for the obvious irony of calling a dragon realistic. The only problem I have with it is that there's something oddly human-looking about the eyes. I'd hit them with the "humanoid" penalty, but I can't exactly say dragon eyes don't look like that, now, can I? That's the thing about mythological creatures: you can basically draw them however the hell you like. Give the dragon human hands if you want. Can you tell me dragons don't have human hands? If you try, I'm going to ask you to prove it by showing me a photograph (not a drawing, thank you very much) of one, and you will inevitably fail.

For this reason, dragons can be drawn any number of colors, and the designer chose green for this one. I'm not sure why that color was chosen, but it's as good as any other. Maybe it's a reference to the field being named after a bank. See, the Dragons play at a field called Fifth Third Field in Dayton, and I add the "in Dayton" to distinguish it from the Fifth Third Field in Toledo, which is where the Toledo Mud Hens of the International League play. Apparently Fifth Third Bank bought the naming rights to both stadiums, and decided to give them the exact same name. The two fields are, for the record, less than two and a half hours away from each other. I was going to complain about this until I learned that there's also a Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park, Michigan, and a Fifth Third Arena in Cincinnati. Now I'm more inclined to complain about the fact that these guys are spending way too much money on naming rights. I've seen no indication that Fifth Third Bank is in need of a bailout, but if it gets to the point that they need one, we'll know why.

Mind you, even if there was only one Fifth Third Field it would still be a silly name, because "Fifth Third Bank" is one of the silliest names for a bank I've ever heard. It was apparently formed from the merger of the Third National Bank of Cincinnati and Fifth National Bank of Cincinnati. I'm not sure that either of these is any better. Who names a bank "Fifth National Bank" in the first place? Okay, so maybe it was a big deal to have "National Bank" in your name back then, but surely someone could have come up with something a little better than "Fifth National Bank", right? Wrong, apparently. And this wasn't the only one. New York City also had a Fifth National Bank. For that matter, New York City once had a Tenth National Bank. Personally, I would refuse to put my money in a "Tenth National Bank of New York" just out of sheer principal. And I'd have been wise to. I found them by doing a Google search on "Tenth National Bank", and one of the first things that came up was a link to a New York Times article that included the sentence "In other words, the offense of the Tenth National Bank cannot be punished under existing statutes." See? This is what happens when you bank with people who are so determined to have the word "National" in the name of their bank but can't find a better name than "Tenth National": You wind up giving your money to a bunch of corrupt people who can commit evil without breaking the law. It's like going to a casino, but without the free buffet. And granted, the article was from 1872, but still. Anything that was already corrupt 137 years ago is probably still corrupt today. Look at Congress if you don't believe me.

Not that bank names are much better now. Banks have gotten over their fixation with being a "National" bank even if it means putting any old number before it, but now they have a fixation with being "First" even if it means picking any old thing to be First of. Just here in North Carolina, we have or until recently had First Bank, First Carolina State Bank, First Charter Bank, First Citizens Bank and Trust, First Commerce Bank, First Community Bank, First Federal Savings Bank, First Flight Federal Credit Union, First National Bank of North Carolina, First National Bank of Shelby, First National Bank of the South, First South Bank, First Trust Bank, First Union National Bank, Beach First Bank, Carolina First, and Mountain First Bank and Trust. That more "First" banks than New York City had "National" banks, although like I said some of those fall into the category of "until recently had".

One of the "until recently" banks I listed is First Charter Bank. First Charter was bought out by...wait for it...Fifth Third Bank. Personally, I think it's a shame that they didn't take the opportunity to change the name to Fifth Third First Bank. That would actually be a cool name. I'm not sure why this works. Fifth Bank? Stupid name. Third Bank? Stupid name. First Bank? Medicore name at best. Fifth Third First Bank? Cool name.

This is the exact opposite of how it works with sports teams, incidentally. Titans? Cool name. Griffins? Cool name. Dragons? Cool name. But Titan Griffin Dragons? Absolutely retarded name.

Fortunately, Dayton's baseball team didn't do anything that stupid. They stuck with just one. Dragons. Cool name.

Final Score: -17 points.
Penalties: Alliteration, 5 pts..
Bonuses: Name, -10 pts; Logo, -12 pts.