Visalia Rawhide

40

You can find the weirdest stuff on municipal websites, particularly on the pages that try to tell the city's history. The "History of Visalia" page of the City of Visalia's website includes this gem:

During the Civil War, many of citizens of Visalia couldn't decide whether Visalia should stand on the side of the North or the South, so they simply had a Mini Civil War of their own on Main Street. No one really knows the outcome of the war, but apparently it was concluded to the satisfaction of the participants and life returned to normal.

This raises some obvious questions:

One: Why bother? In 1860 the town had a population of 548. It was roughly one seventh of a percent of California's population. Did they think their support would sway whether California would join the Confederacy? California didn't even send any regiments to fight in the Civil War, largely because in those pre-railroad days travel between California and the rest of the country was so arduous that the war would have ended before any troops could get there.

Two: How, precisely, does one have a "Mini Civil War"? And how did they decide they were going to do such a thing? Was there a discussion at a city council meeting that led to it? Was there a series of letters to the editor which culminated in a friendly agreement to settle the matter on Main Street at 2 p.m. one Saturday afternoon? Let's be honest here: what probably happened is that some loudmouth Confederate sympathizer and some loudmouth Union sympathizer got into a fight in some saloon, they were told to take it outside, they did, and a bunch of other people who were just as drunk as the first two joined in for the hell of it. As for the outcome that the city claims no one really knows, it was probably that they all just passed out and woke up several hours later unable to remember how it was that they ended up passed out in the middle of the street.

Three: Do they re-enact this thing? I generally find the idea of war re-enacting kind of silly, but re-enacting this wouldn't be kind of silly so much as it would be the silliest thing you ever saw. It just might be entertaining to watch.

But enough about the "Mini Civil War". Let's turn our attention to the team and... aw, hell. Is there really much to say here? The team is named the Rawhide because there's a fair number of ranches in the surrounding countryside. The logo is just the team name written in script with a vaguely western-looking font and a whip for the "R". It's nothing special. Surely they can do better. I mean, a city that can turn a bar room brawl that spills out into the street into a "Mini Civil War" is clearly a city that has some creativity going on. Maybe they should apply some of that creativity to the baseball team, because they haven't applied much to it so far.

Final Score: 40 points.
Penalties: Singular, 15 pts; Script, 7 pts; Letter, 24 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -6 pts.