Best Minor League Team Names

Yesterday I saw a guy wearing an Augusta GreenJackets shirt and it reminded me of one fact that is very well-known to baseball fans: minor league teams have the best names.  I've never really known what it's like for these small towns that most identify themselves with their minor league team, but my understanding is that they're usually a great source of civic pride.  Sometimes the team name is something significant to the town.  Sometimes they're not.  But Minor League Baseball gives us some of the unique names and logos in all of sports.  Here are some of the better ones (this is just a sampling, there are way too many good minor league team names to list them all):

Augusta GreenJackets (Giants Class A): Augusta is obviously best known as the host of the Masters, where the winner receives a green jacket (hence the golf clubs underneath "GreenJackets" on the logo).  Kudos for deciding that a "GreenJacket" was also some sort of bug for logo/mascot purposes.

Lansing Lugnuts (Blue Jays Class A): Oh, Michigan and its cars.  Their stadium used to be called Oldsmobile Stadium.  They're obviously named after the car part, and while "Lugnuts" might be a stupid name for a baseball team, I love the face that the lugnut in the logo is making.

Kannapolis Intimidators (White Sox Class A): The Intimidators play in the hometown of the late, great Dale Earnhardt, and they were renamed when the NASCAR legend bought a share of the team in 2000.  The black, white and red color scheme is the same as Earnhardt's famous black No. 3 Goodwrench Chevrolet.  After Earnhardt was killed at the 2001 Daytona 500, the Intimidators retired No. 3.

Modesto Nuts (Rockies Class A): Another team with a stupid name that makes the list because of an awesome logo.  The nuts remind me of Red and Yellow from the M&M's commercials.  Apparently they grow a lot of nuts in Modesto, which is how they came up with the name.

Corpus Christi Hooks (Padres Double A): Evidently Corpus Christi, Texas is associated with fishing.  Who knew?  The name would make absolutely no sense otherwise.

Aberdeen Ironbirds (Orioles Short-Season A): The Orioles win the award for best minor league team names across the board.  Their Double A team is the Bowie Baysox.  Their Class A teams are the Frederick Keys (named after Frederick Scott Key, the guy who wrote the national anthem) and the Delmarva Shorebirds (following the whole bird theme by using the most common bird in that area).  But I like the story behind the name "Ironbirds" the best.  Cal Ripken, Jr., owns the team, and it plays in his hometown.  The "Iron-" part comes from his "Ironman" streak of 2,632 consecutive games, and they kept the "-birds" thing going.  The airplane logo (with Ripken's No. 8 on it) is for the Army proving ground that's also in Aberdeen.

Visalia Rawhide (Diamondbacks Class A): If you're a fan of Minor League Baseball, you learn something.  The Visalia Rawhide were renamed in 2009 because they play in one of the richest agricultural regions in the world and the top dairy-producing area in the country.  (I guess they're named after cattle and not the chew-toys you give to your dog.)

Rancho Cucamonga Quakes (Dodgers Class A): If the award for "Best Minor League Team Names" doesn't go to the Orioles, it goes to the Dodgers.  They've got the Albuquerque Isotopes (Triple A), Chattanooga Lookouts (Double A), Great Lakes Loons (Class A), and Ogden Raptors (Rookie).  But "Rancho Cucamonga Quakes" has always been one of my favorites, and it's really fun to say.  They get bouns points for having a sense of humor about that whole Rancho Cucamonga being on an earthquake faultline thing (their mascot's name is "Tremor", and their ballpark is called the "Rancho Cucamonga Epicenter".)

Lehigh Valley IronPigs (Phillies Triple A): While I'm not really a fan of the name "IronPigs," I give the Phillies credit for originality.  Pig iron is used to make steel, and the Lehigh Valley region is world famous for its steel production.  They just switched the order of the words and made some sort of steel pig for the logo.

Auburn Doubledays (Nationals Short-Season A): I'm not really sure how close Auburn is to Cooperstown, but they're named after the man himself: Abner Doubleday.  Doubleday was a Civil War general before he was credited with inventing baseball, so "Abner" is wearing a uniform from the 1860s.

Las Vegas 51s (Blue Jays Triple A): Area 51 is 80 miles away from Las Vegas.  Since that's where some people think the UFO's land, their mascot is an alien.  With baseball stitches on his ginormous forehead.

Unfortunately, the Casper Ghosts are no more.  The Rockies moved the team and gave it a very boring, unoriginal name, the "Grand Junction Rockies."  The Ghosts' hats had a glow-in-the-dark logo.  If they were still around, they'd be right at the top of the list.