Knoxville Smokies

123

NOTE: This review incorporates text from the previous review for the Tennessee Smokies, which was posted 2022 July 16, which in turn incorporated text from the previous review to that, which was posted 2014 April 20. This review also incorporates text from the 2014 April 20 review that got tossed for the 2022 July 16 review. I promise I'm not just phoning it in on this one. Really.

The "Smokies" name for a team near Knoxville was first used in 1925, and has been in use for most of the time since (although their was a twenty-year stretch from the early 70s to early 90s when teams used their parent team's name). The name was used for teams actually in Knoxville (and thus called the Knoxville Smokies) until the year 2000, when the Knoxville Smokies moved to nearby Kodak (about 20 miles to the east, and yes, it really does share its name with an old camera company) and renamed themselves the Tennessee Smokies. And this year, with the return of the team to Knoxville, the team has gone back to the Knoxville Smokies name.

Because the name is now a century old, it's one of those old names that we're not supposed to say is bad. It's one of those names that we're supposed to say has been around so long that it would be a shame to change it at this point. Of course, I often do things I'm not supposed to do. So I'm going to say it: this name is bad. It's just not impressive. I'm not saying the mountains themselves aren't impressive; they are (they're also quite beautiful). But that doesn't make the name any good. And there's certainly no lack of wildlife in the area to name a team after. Some people may think the name "Bears" gets overused in America, but it would be a perfect name for a team in the area of the Smokies. After all, there are bears all over the damn place in the Smokies. By the same logic, you could name the team the Wolves (or Red Wolves), Owls, Woodpeckers, Cuckoos, Hawks, Elk, Bucks, Foxes, or Bobcats.

But really, Bears seems the obvious choice — particularly since the team is affiliated with the Chicago Cubs. Apparently, the artist who drew the logo at least partially agrees with me, because they drew a bear for the logo. The bear is holding a baseball bat, but I'm not sure if he's supposed to be a baseball player or if he's about to use the bat to beat the shit out of you because you ain't from around here, are ya? The look on his face suggests the latter.

This seems unnecessary. Given its claws, I figure the bear would actually be more of a threat without the bat than with. That said, if a bear comes at me with a baseball bat I'm not going to tell the bear that. Maybe because I don't want to bear to drop a weapon that's actually increasing my chances of survival. Maybe because I don't expect the bear to understand English. But probably because I'll be too busy crapping my pants. Be that as it may, the team should listen to the artist (and me) and change the name to the Knoxville Bears. But I suffer from no illusion that they're actually going to do so. The name's a hundred years old.

NOTE: Since I'm not sure whether the bear is supposed to be a player or not, I'm giving them a half-penalty for "Equipment" and a half-penalty for "Player" (essentially averaging the penalty they'd get if the bear is a player and the penalty they'd get if it isn't).

Final Score: 123 points.
Penalties: Script, 7 pts; Scenery, 11 pts; Equipment (half-penalty), 6½ pts; Humanoid, 30 pts; Irrelevance, 39 pts; Player (half-penalty), 25½ pts; Name, 10 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -6 pts.