Louisville Bats

44

I've got a friend who has a terminal case of cantstopmakingpunsitis. He's the sort of person where you could post to Facebook that your grandmother just died of emphysema and there's a decent chance he'd comment "It wasn't unexpected, she'd been coffin for weeks!" I'm not entirely certain if it's a joke when I say his tendency is a "terminal case"; he's so bad I could easily see him getting himself killed with one of his puns if he says it at just the wrong time. Because of him and a few other friends who aren't as bad as him but aren't much better, I'm always tired of hearing puns. I'm not sure precisely what my tolerance level for puns may be, but whatever it is that level is always being exceeded.

Nonetheless, sometimes a piece of wordplay has just the right combination of being clever but not strained, and I can appreciate it. For example, there's a sour beer out there called "Tarte Nouveau", and I rather like the name (it helps that the beer also tastes pretty good). I appreciate the double meaning of the Miles Davis album titles Miles Ahead and "Miles in the Sky. And then there's this team name. Naming a baseball team the Bats seems such a straightforward, unforced sort of wordplay that I'm surprised it doesn't get done more often.

And in this instance it's not just a double meaning but a triple meaning. After all, what's the most famous manufacturer of baseball bats in the world? Here's a hint: It wasn't a Rawlings that Carrie Underwood took to both headlights in "Before He Cheats". Indeed, given copyright issues "Louisville Bats" is probably as close as the team could legally get to calling itself the Louisville Sluggers. (The Bats, incidentally, play at Louisville Slugger Field, because it would be a cosmic injustice if the naming rights to a baseball stadium in Louisville, Kentucky belonged to any other company.)

The logo isn't quite so no-nonsense, but it's close. Okay, so technically you've got a bat (the mammal) holding a bat (the piece of sports equipment) in front of a boring old BIC.* But if you squint just a little it's easy to see this as a bat (the mammal) flying across the moon. The way the baseball's stitching is placed also hints at a crescent moon, thus adding to the double meaning of the baseball. In short, I totally forgive them for the baseball in the background. The only real issue I see is the size of the bat in relation to the size of the bat. If that's a regulation-size bat that the bat is carrying, then said bat has a wingspan of approximately four feet. There are bats that big, but not in America. Furthermore, a bat that size almost certainly couldn't lift a baseball bat, which weighs about almost as much as the largest bats in the world.

I wish they'd remove the baseball bat, and put the bat in front of an actual moon instead of a baseball. But these are fairly minor quibbles. It's a great name, and a good logo.

* Baseball In Circle.

Final Score: 4 points.
Penalties: Reference, 10 pts; Wordplay, 23 pts; Equipment (egregious), 27 pts.
Bonuses: Name, -10 pts; Local, -6 pts.