Sultanes de Monterrey

68

NOTE: This review incorporates text from the previous review for the team.

Los Sultanes de Monterrey (which obviously translates to the Monterrey Sultans) are so named because Monterrey's nickname is "La Sultana del norte", or "The Sultana of the North". Why? Well, it's often hard to find explanations for why cities have the nicknames they have (I can't even figure out why my home city of Raleigh is called the "City of Oaks"...I mean, sure, it's got oak trees, but it never struck me as having more than other places), so it's hard to answer this definitively. But as best as I can determine, it goes all the way back to Moorish Spain. From what I could find, it's sort of a thing in Spain that cities that are renowned for their beauty are referred to as la Sultana del whatever, sort of like how in English-speaking countries there are numerous cities referred to as the Jewel of whatever. The practice spread to the Americas, such that Lima is la Sultana del Pacifico, Buenos Aries is la Sultana del Plata, and so forth. In Mexico Zacualtipán is la Sultana de la Sierra, Tulancingo is la Sultana del Valle, and, of course, Monterrey is la Sultana del Norte.

This strikes me as a trope that gets more trite the more it's used, but to be fair it's far from the worst example of that. The worst example, I think, would be all the cities whose nickname is that they're the such-and-so "Capital of the World". Most of those reek of desperate boosterism. Malvern, Arkansas calls itself the "Brick Capital of the World", as if anyone cares that much about bricks. Owensboro, Kentucky is the "Barbecued Mutton Capital of the World", which is such an odd thing to be the "world capital" of that it seems to me a town could win it pretty much by default. And in the truly-scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel department we have Sturgis, Michigan, the "Curtain Rod Capital of the World". Apparently this is someone's idea of the best way to promote Sturgis, Michigan. And worse, that person managed to convince others to go along with it. To be fair, it may be the most interesting thing about Sturgis, Michigan (and if you're thinking "That's where all the bikers get together", you're thinking of Sturgis, South Dakota). But if that's the most interesting thing about your town, maybe you should just keep quiet. To paraphrase an old saying, better to shut your mouth and appear to be a boring town than to open it and remove all doubt.

In any case, the baseball team in Monterrey can use the Sultanes name without worrying about conflict from the various other sultanas in Mexico because the others are all too small to have a team. There's an obvious problem with the name, of course, which is how to make a logo without resorting to stereotypes. Los Sultanes manage this by not even trying to depict a sultan. Instead, the logo is simply an MTY monogram with some mountains added on top. This is the sort of thing I would normally complain about, but under the circumstances I'll do what the civic boosters of Sturgis, Michigan should have done, and just keep my mouth shut.

Final Score: 68 points.
Penalties: Scenery, 11 pts; Letter, 24 pts; Irrelevance, 39 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -6 pts