Frisco RoughRiders

149

You've probably heard "Frisco" as a nickname for San Francisco, California at some point in your life, so you may be wondering if Frisco, Texas' name has anything to do with San Francisco. The answer is yes, sort of, but just barely. Back in 1902, a railroad named the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway was building a line through the area that would become Frisco. I'll pause the story right there for a moment. Why, you may ask, does a railway from St. Louis to San Francisco need to go through Texas? Wouldn't a straight line from St. Louis to San Francisco go through Kansas, two states north of Texas? Why yes, yes it would. But I didn't say anything about a railway from St. Louis to San Francisco. I was talking about a railroad named the St. Louis-San Francisco railroad. It never actually went anywhere near California; I'm not sure whether that was even in the plans. In reality it had two main lines, one of which went from St. Louis to Oklahoma City while the other went from Kansas City to Birmingham, Alabama. It had about a half dozen smaller lines as well, one of which went to Dallas. And a water stop along the railroad turned into a town, and that town needed a name; because the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway was informally known as "The Frisco", the town chose the name Frisco. So the town is named after a railroad which in turn is named after a city that said railroad never came within a thousand miles of.

So that explains the "Frisco" part. But whence "RoughRiders"? And does it have anything to do with the Canadian Football League's Saskatchewan Roughriders or Ottawa Rough Riders? Again, the answer is yes, sort of, but just barely. Multiple explanations have been given for both the Roughriders name and the Rough Riders name, but in both cases one of the explanations is that the name came from Teddy Roosevelt's regiment in the Spanish-American War, with the occasional claim (again, for both teams) that the regiment included some Canadians who returned to Canada after the war and possibly played for the team. The RoughRiders are indisputably named after Teddy's regiment, although that team only dates to 2003 so it's safe to say no one in the regiment ever played for them.

Wikipedia, incidentally, says that the RoughRiders name was chosen in part to adhere to the tradition of the Texas Rangers (the RoughRiders' parent team). For the record, the other Rangers affiliates are named the Express, Indians, Wood Ducks, and Crawdads, so I'm not entirely certain what tradition they're talking about.

Of course, if you look at the logo you don't need me to tell you the RoughRiders take their name from the 26th President of the United States. Their logo features a caricature of Teddy with a big smile on his face and holding a baseball bat in such a way that implies either that he's just hit a home run or that he's about to pound the shit out of a gopher that just poked its head out of the ground. Except that I don't think he's actually doing either, because he's apparently walking while doing it. It's almost impossible to hit a home run while walking, and I'm not sure that pounding gophers while walking is that easy, either. And yes, I'm fully aware that "pounding gophers" sounds like a euphemism for something.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't say something about the stadium where the RoughRiders play. Dr. Pepper Ballpark is just a bit on the bonkers side. The bullpens are up in the stands, for example. You can actually sit such that the field is in front of you and one of the bullpens is behind you. Also, there's a pool just beyond right field. I don't mean a decorative pool. I mean a pool you can swim in. If you go to Google Maps you can see where someone took a photosphere from just beside the pool; there appears to be about a dozen or so people in the pool, another dozen or two sitting in chairs around the pool, and if you turn to the field you can see the teams lined up along the baselines as if the game's about to start.

Bullpens in the stands? A place to swim while watching the game? There's no telling what else this place has that I didn't notice. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me to find out there's a place for pounding gophers. Whatever that is.

Final Score: 149 points.
Penalties: Software, 27 pts; Alliteration, 5 pts; Script, 7 pts; Cartoon, 47 pts; Player, 51 pts; Logo, 12 pts.
Bonuses: None.