Kansas City Monarchs

17

If you don't know much about baseball history, you may think the Kansas City Monarchs are sneakily named after the Kansas City Royals. They're not. They're not-at-all-sneakily named after the Kansas City Monarchs. If anything, the Kansas City Royals are sneakily named after the Kansas City Monarchs.

The Kansas City Monarchs — and in case you haven't guessed yet, I'm not talking about the current Kansas City Monarchs here — were a team in baseball's Negro Leagues in the mid-Twentieth Century. And not just any Negro League team: the Monarchs were the longest-lasting Negro Leagues team, the only team to last from the formation of the first Negro league in 1920* to the folding of the last in 1961, and even a few years after that as an independent barnstorming team. They started in 1920 as one of the charter teams of the first National Negro League. They stayed in the NNL for its entire existence. When the NNL folded in 1931, the Monarchs played as independent barnstorming team, often playing against a team associated with the House of David religious commune. In 1937, the Monarchs became a charter member of the Negro American League, and they would remain with that league until it folded in 1962. (Oddly, the team moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan after the 1956 season, but continued to be called the Kansas City Monarchs). When the NAL folded, they spent a few more more years barnstorming, and finally folded in 1965. Along the way, they had a winning season every year but one, were one of the few Negro League teams to have a farm team, and played in the Negro World Series four of the eleven years in which it happened (they won twice).

In short, the Monarchs were probably the most successful team in Negro League history. So it's perhaps not surprising that when the Kansas City T-Bones of the American Association were looking to rebrand, they chose the Monarchs name. The Monarchs name is actually the property of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (located in Kansas City), but the museum is licensing the name to the team.

To say that it's a good move is an understatement. Baseball loves its history, and the Monarchs are almost certainly the best-known baseball team ever to play in Kansas City aside from the Royals and the Athletics (and I'm not sure how many people today know the Athletics spent some time in Kansas City). There was actually a minor league team that played in Kansas City from 1902 to 1954, but I'd be willing to bet money more Kansas Citians could name the Monarchs than that minor league team (it was called the Blues, by the way). So if you want a historic name, Monarchs is the obvious choice. Also, let's just be honest here and point out that damn near any name would be an improvement over T-Bones.

Today's Monarchs don't use the old team's logo, but they're definitely going for a classic look. The logo features an interlocking K and C, much like the Kansas City Blues and Kansas City Athletics had. Aside from that there's not much to the logo, but that's fine by me. It has a no-nonsense feel to it, and they thankfully avoided sticking a baseball into the logo. Also, any "monarch" symbolism they tried to put in the logo would probably run afoul of the legal team for the Royals. Given that, I think sticking with an understated, interlocking KC was probably the way to go.

By the way, I'd like to make a quick scoring note. You may see eight little things that look sort of like diamonds in the logo. If I treated those as diamonds, I'd have the give the team 156 points for it. But I looked close and noticed that the edges are curved inside, which technically makes them four-pointed stars. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

*	Technically that's not quite true. The very first was the National Colored Base Ball League, which was founded in 1887 and folded in less than a month. But for obvious reasons, when people discuss Negro League baseball they start with the founding of the National Negro League in 1920.

Final Score: 17 points.
Penalties: Obvious, 17 pts.
Bonuses: None.