New Britain Rock Cats

162

New Britain, for those of you who are wondering (and I certainly was before I looked it up), is about ten miles southwest of Hartford, Connecticut. Hartford does not have a baseball team. This is always a bit of an odd situation when it comes time to name the team. Do you name the team after the big city that the team is near but not in, like the Washington Redskins? Do you choose some regional moniker like the Texas Rangers? Or do you proudly use the name of the city you're in, like the Anaheim Ang er, Ducks?

Generally speaking, I prefer it when the team picks the name of the nearest big city, but if they use the city they're actually in, it doesn't bother me (I generally don't like the regional names, however). This is particularly true in minor league sports, where the expectation of being in a major metropolitan area doesn't exist. It would have been easy for them to pick some outlandish moniker like "Central Connecticut" or "Greater Hartford County" or "Capital Region". They simply went with "New Britain", and I appreciate that.

The choice of "Rock Cats" is a bit more puzzling. One would expect, with a name like that, for there to be a lot of rocks in the area. As best as I can tell, that's not the case. According to everyone's favorite unreliable source, "New Britain's terrain is mostly made up of soft, rolling hills and young Connecticut forest." Soft hills? "Soft" and "rock" are not words that typically have a close relation to one another unless you're talking about Karen Carpenter or Air Supply. I'm guessing the terrain here isn't very rocky. It could be a reference to rock music, but there's nothing in the logo to indicate that (for which I'm thankful, since that would probably wind up being a cat swinging an electric guitar like a baseball bat, or something similar). So I really have no idea where this name comes from.

Maybe the cats are made of rock? It's possible; the cat in the logo is grey. That proves nothing, but it doesn't disprove anything, either. In addition to the color, it would also explain the sharp angles on the cat; animals usually lack those sorts of angles. It does not, however, explain the arms. The arms look like...well, I'm going to keep this review G-rated and say they look like the heads of two squids. That's not really what they look like, of course. But between you looking at the pictures and me saying they look like the heads of two squids, you can probably guess what I'm hinting at. I just don't feel the need to say it in case there are any impressionable children reading this. (Note to parents: If you have an impressionable child reading this, make him or her stop. I try to keep it clean, but sometimes it's just not possible for me to make my point without using the word "fuck" and you never know which review that might happen in. Wait until the kid is old enough to have heard these words in school...which, in my estimation, is somewhere around second grade.)

The cat is either holding his arms in a classic "hide the ball so the batter can't see how you're holding it and thus figure out what pitch you're about to throw" stance, or he's just resting on the nameplate. It's kind of hard to tell. Truth be told, no real pitcher would hold his arms in that exact position for his "hide the ball" pitch, but on the other hand, no real baseball player would keep his glove on while resting, either. So I guess the most accurate thing to say about the position he's in is that he's in a position that no real person would ever be in. I'd call that poor drawing, but I own a cat. Trust me, cats sit in weird positions all the time. Watch a cat wash himself sometime. That cat will probably contort himself into positions you thought weren't possible. The cat will then hiss at you and take a swipe at you, because can't he have some freaking privacy while he's bathing himself? What the hell is wrong with you, anyway? Does he look at you while you take a shower? No! Let him have some dignity! And if you reach for that cameras he swears to god you are a dead man! Do you hear him? A dead man!

(Note how I only used the word "freaking" in that last paragraph instead of "fucking". See, I'm keeping it kid-friendly.)

In any case, the cat is not in one of the two most clichéd poses (throwing a pitch or in a batter's stance) in baseball logos. Also, he looks kind of like Tom from the old Tom and Jerry cartoons, which I've always loved. For these reasons, I almost (but not quite) like this logo, despite it being JACKAL.* It is, if this statement makes any sense, a unique cliché. If other teams would mix their clichés up a little bit instead of being so cliché about their clichés, they wouldn't bother me as much. My blood pressure just might be lower. I'd be a healthier person. And in my estimation, (forgive me parents, I have to say it this time) that would be just fucking awesome.

* Just Another Crappy Kartoon Amimal Logo

Final Score: 162 points.
Penalties: Compound, 34 pts; Humanoid, 30 pts; Cartoon, 47 pts; Player, 51 pts.
Bonuses: None