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Aberdeen IronBirds*
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Down East Wood Ducks
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Empire State Greys*
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Eugene Emeralds
Evansville Otters*
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Idaho Falls Chukars
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Inland Empire 66ers of San
   Bernardino

Iowa Cubs
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Jersey Shore BlueClaws*
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Jupiter Hammerheads
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Lake Elsinore Storm
Lake Erie Crushers
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Lehigh Valley IronPigs
Leones de Yucatán
Lexington Counter Clocks
Lincoln Saltdogs*
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Spire City Ghost Hounds*
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Sussex County Miners*
Syracuse Mets
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Visalia Rawhide
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York Revolution
Lakewood BlueClaws 189

Notice: All logos on this page are included within the parameters of 17 U.S.C. § 107, which states that the reproduction of a copyrighted work for purposes of criticism and/or comment is not an infringement of copyright. No challenge to the copyrights of these logos is intended by their inclusion here.
Posted 2017 June 25

This name seems really odd to me.

The problem is not necessarily that a team in New Jersey is named after an animal mostly associated with the Chesapeake Bay. Those associations nonwithstanding, blue crabs have a range which extends along much of the Atlantic coast of the United States, and that includes New Jersey. So a team on the coast of New Jersey being named the BlueClaws makes sense.

Note that I said on the coast of New Jersey.

Lakewood isn't on the coast.

Oh, it's not far from the coast. You could be sitting in a parked car at the point in Lakewood which is farthest inland, and you could put the car in gear and be at the shore in less than half an hour. But still: not on the coast is not on the coast. There are several lakes in Lakewood (with a name like Lakewood, you'd hope there would be), but I don't know if the crabs make it into the lakes. I must confess I didn't spend too much time checking that. I started out by finding one name of one of the lakes (Lake Shenandoah) and tried to find out via Google whether there were any crabs in it. What I got was links to three separate news stories about three separate incidents where three separate bodies were found in Lake Shenandoah, one of which specifically stated that the body was that of a homicide victim. At this point I decided not to pursue the matter much further, and didn't even bother to find out the names of the other lakes in town.

There's another issue with the name. Lakewood, you see, has a higher percentage of Jewish residents than just about anywhere else in the country — fifty-nine percent. And a fairly large chunk of them are Orthodox. So what is the baseball team named after? A shellfish. And sure, I know that naming a team after an animal isn't necessarily an endorsement of using that animal as a foodstuff. But the bible says the reason you shouldn't eat shellfish is because they are "detestable to you". Who, I ask you, names a sports team after something that is "detestable"?

What? Pittsburgh Pirates, you say? Okay, but who else?

Oakland Raiders? Well, yeah, but that's just a variant on— all right, sure, it counts, but still, it's basically the same thing as—

Tampa Bay Buccan— look, can we knock it off with the synonyms for pirates? I get it. What I'm— what I'm trying to say— no, I don't want to hear one damn word about Bradenton, can I finish my damn sentence already? Thank you. Okay, so when it comes to sports teams named after groups of people we sometimes choose detestable people. But— yes, like Yankees. Wow, you're clever. But as I was saying or at least am trying to say, when we name teams after animals we're not doing it because they're detestable. There may be teams named after powerful things like snakes that scare us and also happen to be detestable, but not teams named after things with no distinguishing characteristic other than being detestable. Can we at least agree on that?

Sigh. You're right. The University of California at Santa Cruz does call its sports teams the Banana Slugs. You win. I retract my point.

Final Score: 189 points.
Penalties: Software, 27 pts; Compound, 34 pts; Humanoid, 30 pts; Cartoon, 47 pts; Player, 51 pts.
Bonuses: None.


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