I feel redemption

You may remember my ill fated campaign to name the local State College baseball team a couple of years ago. I nominated Sliders and my idea made the cutoff from 5000 suggestions that the team received. I was pumped and started encouraging my friends to vote for Sliders in the contest. I thought I had a pretty good chance of advancing to the final round when the list was to be shortened and a re-vote held.

Not everyone saw it that way however. A writer for the local paper (not a sports reporter by the way) published the following column where he ridiculed ALL the names on the ballot. He choose my nominee for the headline of his colunn “Race for local baseball team name slow going — a turtle!” (note: Sliders is a breed of turtles – the ones that you find in pet stores are typically Slider turtles).

When the time came for the finalists to be announced, I was devastated. Not only didn’t I make the finals but NONE of the semifinalists did. The ball club threw out all seven names and came up with five new ones. What the?

Eventually, the name Spikes won out. While I thought the name was ok, I was still a firm believer that Sliders was equally good.

Now comes my redemption. Slippery Rock PA has just announced the name of their new minor league baseball team. You guessed it – the Slippery Rock Sliders. Sliders was the winning selection picked from 92 unique entries.

Here’s their logo:

I have ordered a Slider hat from their official supplier and will be wearing it proudly around town.