St. Paul Saints

65

NOTE: This review incorporates text from the previous review for the Saints, which was posted 2012 June 21. And I mean a lot of text. See, the Saints just replaced one script logo with another, so there's not a lot of point in writing a new review. So aside from a tweak here and there, this is basically the same review.

If you know much about either baseball or about sports team promotions, then you've probably heard of Bill Veeck. Bill Veeck (his last name is pronounced with a short "e", by the way...his autobiography was titled Veeck — as in Wreck) was one of the great characters in a sport full of characters. We're talking about a man who, when he got a wooden leg to put in place of the leg he had had amputated as a result of a war wound, dug a hole in the wooden leg to use as an ashtray. You've heard the story about the team that signed a midget to play a game because the pitcher would be unable to pitch strikes to him, right? That's a true story, and it was Veeck's doing. It was his idea to plant ivy on the walls at Wrigley Field. He and his son Mike were behind "Disco Demolition Night", which over forty years later is still the cause of the most recent forfeit in the American League.

Bill's son Mike, incidentally, was once the St. Paul Saints' principal owner and is still the team's president. There haven't been any mass burnings of disco records, but Mike has still come up with plenty of bizarre ideas. Game balls are delivered to the umpire by a pig..not a person dressed in a pig mascot costume, but an actual pig. After the 2002 MLB All-Star Game ended in a tie, the Saints gave out "Bug Selig ties" (i.e., neckties with Bud Selig's likeness on them) as a promotional item. They "honored" Michael Vick's arrest by giving out rubber dog toys to fans. After Senator Larry Craig was arrested for soliciting sex in a bathroom at Minneapolis-Saint Paul Airport, the Saints had a promotion giving away "bobble-foot" dolls which featured two feet visible under the door of a bathroom stall. You get the idea. And none of these are Veeck's most outlandish promotion (that would probably be "Vascectomy Night", which was planned but ultimately cancelled by the Charleston Riverdogs, another team Veeck has a stake in).

I mention this all because it's a hell of a lot more interesting than the Saints logo, which is nothing more than the word "Saints" written in baseball script with "St. Paul" written on the underline. But you know what? I don't care. If a boring logo is the price you have to pay to get promotions like the ones Mike Veeck comes up with, then it's a price any fun-loving baseball fan ought to be willing to pay.

Final Score: 65 points.
Penalties: Wordplay, 23 pts; Alliteration (egregious), 11 pts; Script, 7 pts; Letter, 24 pts;
Bonuses: None.