What's In A Name? Baseball Team Names Throughout History

Every so often someone not terribly familiar with what we do walks into the showroom and breaks into a snicker upon encountering an Atlanta Crackers jersey. "Was there really a team called that?", they invariably ask. Without missing a beat, we always say "not only was there an Atlanta Crackers, there was an Atlanta Black Crackers", at which point the snicker usually turns into a guffaw.

It may seem odd for a Negro league team to call itself the "Black Crackers" but they were simply following a common practice of adapting the major or minor league team name from the same city.

This brings us to the subject of this month's blog, which is team names. In contemporary times, tens of thousands are spent by teams on consultants, focus groups and "branding" companies to develop team "identity", which often includes a new nickname. Professional baseball at all levels is a big business today, and these things are not left to chance. Although a few clubs have hung on to their traditional identities (thank you, Rochester Red Wings, Durham Bulls and Buffalo Bisons), the trend of the past two decades has leaned toward lots of cutesy animal logos and names like SeaDogs, River Cats, Hillcats, Warthogs - you get the picture. Good or bad, nicknames today are another part of the corporate branding process. One can also argue that the contrived and trendy names many minor league clubs have adopted are at least unique and preferable to the trend of the 1960s through 1980s, which was simply to adopt the parent major league club's nickname.

It was not always thus. In the beginning (the 19th century) professional baseball teams rarely had formal nicknames. Nicknames evolved when reporters, headline writers, and fans needed a shorter and more affectionate way to refer to the local nine, so team nicknames gradually developed organically. One common way to refer to a ballclub was by the color scheme on their uniforms, so we got "Red Stockings", "White Stockings", "Browns", etc. These have evolved into some of the team names that are still with us in the majors today. Another approach was to use the league name as shorthand for the team, as in "Philadelphia Americans" as an alternative for "Athletics". Baseball cards were often marked this way, "Detroit Americans" or "Pittsburgh Nationals". (This system was slightly confused by the American League Washington club taking the name "Nationals" for a time.) Or teams were simply referred to by a plural of their city name, as in "the Brooklyns". Sometimes, a simple geographic feature could spark a nickname, as was the case for the New York Highlanders, who played at Hilltop Park (who we know know as the Yankees). The important point here is that for several decades team nicknames were unofficial and and rather elastic. Most fans know the Dodgers tried on "Bridegrooms", "Superbas" and "Robins" before settling on Dodgers, and Boston's National League club was known as the "Beaneaters" and the "Bees" before they were the Braves. It took time for clubs to develop traditions and histories which were the foundation needed to give life to names that stuck. In the rare case that club owners tried to force a new nickname on fans it was not always successful, as when Philadelphia's National league club announced in 1945 that they would henceforth be named the "Bluejays". The new name didn't stick (perhaps the fact that the team neglected to take "Phillies" off the uniform didn't help).

When the Federal League came on the scene to challenge the majors in 1914, the lack of acknowledged nicknames created an identity problem for the fledgling circuit, and baseball writers struggled to come up with names that reflected the new league's name, so we ended up with the rather awkward "Brookfeds", "Buffeds" and "Chifeds". When Indianapolis' "Hoosierfeds" moved to Newark for the 1915 season, writers dubbed them the "Newfeds" (Fortunately sanity prevailed, and the alternative "Peppers" or "Peps" seems to have won out). It was not until the second and final Federal League season that "Tip-Tops" stuck for Brooklyn, "Whales" for Chicago, etc.

Getting back to the minor leagues, hundreds of cities and towns meant hundreds of names. When you read through some of the league standings over the years, you cannot help but crack a smile at the ingenuity, humor and pure fun of many of these team names (or be puzzled by some of the odder or more archaic ones). I thought I would go over some of them, and I have divided them into several categories for your reading pleasure. One could form entire leagues just based on the nickname type:

Alliteration Division: Some names just roll off the tongue. We have the Lincoln Links, Hopkinsville Hoppers, Goldboro Goldbugs, Terre Haute Terriers, and Sioux City Soos, Palestine Pals, and Crookston Crooks. This category would not be complete, of course, without the Hannibal Cannibals, who took the Illinois-Missouri League title in 1908.


Your 1934 Lincoln Links.

Industrial Division: It was common for ballclubs to acquire a nickname related to a local industry, so we got the Brockton Shoemakers, Gloversville Glovers, Bassett Furnitute Makers, Tulsa Oilers, and all manner of Fruit Pickers, Raisin Eaters and Manufacturers. However, the Findlay Natural Gassers of the Inter-State League must have been relieved when their name was changed to Oilers.

Institutional Division: Nearby institutions led to the Joliet Convicts, Leavenworth Convicts, Auburn Prisoners, Utica Asylums, and Nevada (MO) Lunatics.

International and Ethnic Division features the Paris Parisians, Dublin Irish, London Cockneys, Rome Romans, Troy Trojans, Cairo Egyptians, Shreveport Creoles, Baton Rouge Cajuns, Edmonton Eskimos, Coronado Arabs, Shenandoah Hungarian Rioters, and, we regret to mention, the Canton Chinks of the Illinois-Missouri League. To make matters worse, Canon City, Colorado's Rocky Mountain League club was called the Swastikas, and their uniform featured the symbol on the jersey sleeve, but this was 1912 - many years before the swastika was adopted by the Nazis.

Edmonton Eskimos, Western Canada League champs, 1955

Religion anyone? We bring you the Battle Creek Adventists, St. Paul Saints, Selma Christians, Enid Evangelists, Natchez Pilgrims, Palmyra Mormons, Salt Lake City Elders, Battle Creek Adventists, and Charlotte Presbyterians.

We've done religion, now how about politics? In addition to the dozens of teams named "Senators", we also have the Marion Presidents, Guthrie Legislators, Albany Governors, and Topeka Populists. The Decatur Commies played during the McCarthy era, and was beer available in the ballpark when the Des Moines Prohibitionists took the field? One wonders.

Historical Division: Paris Bourbonites of Kentucky played in the Blue Grass League, and it really must have been a battle when the York White Roses faced the Lancaster Red Roses in Inter-State League action.

The 1950 Hopkinsville KITTY League club had a dual nickname, as they were known as the Hoptown Hoppers.

Criminality Division: Omaha Kidnappers, Asheville Moonshiners, Lowell Highwaymen, and Corsicana Desperadoes.

Teams we feel sorry for: It's doubtful the Kirksville Osteopaths struck fear into the hearts of their opponents, and pity the poor player who had to listen to the taunts of enemy fans as a member of the San Jose Florists, Hopewell Powderpuffs, or Salem Fairies.

We could form an NFL division from these teams: Bears (Mobile), Packers (Dubuque), Lions (Lodi), Patriots (Gettysburg), Seahawks (Port Arthur), Cowboys (Tucson), Colts (Orlando), Raiders (Cedar Rapids), Bengals (Columbus), Eagles (Dallas), Browns (Valdosta), and Jets (Ponca City).

In the Oxymoron Division the Columbus (GA) Confederate Yankees must have been very confused, as were the above-mentioned Atlanta Black Crackers.

There was all manner of royalty in the minors: The Bisbee-Douglas Copper Kings toiled in southeastern Arizona. The Ottumwa Coal Palace Kings took the Illinois-Iowa league crown in 1890. The Brenham Kaisers fittingly played during World War I in 1914-15, at least before the Middle Texas League folded.

Long before the Washington Senators moved to Minnesota, it was common for teams shared by two cities to be called "Twins", as in Fargo-Morehead (ND-MN), Dunn-Erwin (NC), and Sherman-Denison (TX). Leakesville-Spray-Draper, NC was of course the "Triplets". But Johnstown-Amsterdam-Gloverville, NY addressed this same challenge by calling themselves the "Hyphens".

Lastly, there are historic team names we just love that don't fit into any category: The Lima Bean Eaters, Zanesville Flood Sufferers, Memphis Fever Germs, Kearney Kapitalists, and Regina Bonepilers, to name just a few.

Our Flannel Of The Month for June has nothing to do with the subject matter of the blog, but it's a beauty nonetheless: Tony Lazzeri's 1925 Salt Lake Bees home jersey, with a glorious bee manually embroidered on the chest. Available for $129 for a limited time.

Cosmo Como Cotelle - EFF's Player of the Century

One of the wonders of baseball is how much can be gleaned from its statistics. Players of different eras can be contrasted and compared. Old arguments can be settled, and new ones begun. Bill James, for example, has made an entire career of the study of baseball statistics.

In my line of work, I see a lot of statistics from lesser-known teams and players. The Negro leagues, for example, were notoriously poor at record keeping, so even won-and-loss records can be suspect. Many records in the lower minors were also spotty, and a few dedicated researchers have painstakingly reconstructed some of these records only in relatively recent times.

Sometimes very little real information can be gleaned. A ballplayer's entire career can be reduced to one sentence in a reference book. More questions are raised than answered. Other times just by looking at seemingly bland lines of text, a story begins to emerge, though the totality of that story remains shrouded in mystery. Such is the case of one Cosmo Como Cotelle. Born in 1904 in St. James Parish, LA, on the Cajun Coast, Cotelle played 21 seasons for 21 different clubs in minor league baseball. He had a lifetime .323 average, hit over .300 in eighteen of those seasons, and yet never played a single major league game.

Cosmo Cotelle's lifetime statistics

Despite his impressive statistics and lengthy career, little beyond the dry numbers on the page seems to be known about Cotelle. I could not locate a single photograph of Cosmo, or any mention of him besides his career stats and a brief listing on a few of the many rosters he was on. When we look at his career as a chronological table of data, the mind wants to fill in the blanks of the story. For example, it seems Cotelle started out as a left-handed pitcher, compiling a middling 7-8 record his rookie season for the Rock Island Islanders of the Mississippi Valley League. The fact that the 21-year old hit .336 that season and only pitched seven games the following year with Marshalltown probably means that his bat was more noticed than his arm, and the fledgling southpaw hurler was converted to an outfielder.

Members of the Davenport Blue Sox in a photo op with sponsor Iowana Farms Milk Co. Cosmo Cotelle hit .407 as a member of the 1933 Blue Sox (leading the Missouri Valley League), but he is strangely missing in the above team photo. Maybe he thought being photographed in uniform drinking from a milk bottle was undignified?

The fact that Cotelle spent 21 years playing for as many teams is also interesting. Starting in Class D, he quickly moved up and down the minor league levels, and through different major league organizations, with startling frequency. Up from Marshalltown to Danville, then Houston, then back to Danville (all in the Cardinals organization). Still with St. Louis, he got as far as Rochester before being acquired by Hartford, a Brooklyn affiliate, in 1932. His best season proved to be 1933, when he hit .407 for Davenport, scored 106 runs, and stole 31 bases. The majors must have seemed very close. (Cotelle was involved in a controversy while with Davenport. Because he never had his contract notarized, he was able to sign as a free agent with another team for a $500 bonus for the 1934 season. The Blue Sox' management was not happy to lose his services because of this technicality).

After lingering at the top levels of the minors through the early and mid 30s, he hit a peak at age 31 in 1936 when (by now with the New York Giants organization) he hit .309 for the Memphis Chicks and was promoted to AA Indianapolis, where he seems to have been a disappointment, as he ended up back down at A-level Albany the next two seasons, and then started a gradual decline as he aged, landing at Class C Erie in 1941 after passing through five more major league organizations in dizzying succession. His age seems to have been the reason there is not a big gap in his stats during the war, as he was probably too old by this time to serve. The vacancies created by the temporary disappearance of so many players in wartime also probably explains why Cotelle was promoted back up to the higher levels of the minors in the twilight years of his career. But his peripatetic ways continued, as he played for six different teams his last six seasons, ending with Scranton (where he hit .314 at the age of 40), and finally Louisville, in 1945.

It must have occurred to Cotelle that with thousands of players due to return to organized ball in 1946, the chances for a 40-year old minor league outfielder were pretty slim, but Cotelle was not quite finished with baseball just yet. He joined the El Paso Texans of the Mexican National League in 1946, hitting .347 at the ripe old age of 41 before finally hanging up his spikes. (The Texans were managed by Andy Cohen. A teammate on the '33 Blue Sox was pitcher Irving Cohen. Hey, we Cohens notice this stuff, as there has been a serious shortage of Cohens in the baseball profession.)

So it remains something of a mystery. How could a player of Cotelle's obvious offensive ability never breath the rarified air of a major league ballpark? What must have gone through his mind each time he would get close to the big leagues - in Rochester, Indianapolis, Louisville - only for his hopes to be dashed yet again? This part may not be as mysterious as it sounds. There were only 16 major league teams during Cotelle's era, and therefore only about 400 roster positions in all of major league baseball during his era. These jobs were not yielded easily. The minors were full of players who could hit, yet lacked that certain something that took them the rest of the way. Perhaps major league scouts were dismissive of Cotelle because of his diminutive 5' 5" stature. Or was it Cotelle's temperament? Twenty teams in as many seasons suggest that perhaps he wore out his welcome more than once. There is some evidence to support this theory. Cotelle was fined for assault for attacking a fan in Davenport in 1933, and in 1939 while playing for the Albany Senators he reportedly set the outfield on fire. "The lighting was bad and I couldn't see", was his explanation.

So we tip our hat (our 1933 Davenport Blue Sox hat!) to Cosmo Cotelle. Maybe not one of baseball's legends, but we can think of no player who more typifies the journeyman ballplayer of the mid-20th Century. The kind of player whose legacy only exists in a few fading memories, in some correspondence in a file, or in the cold black and white of a sheet of baseball statistics.

Cosmo Como Cotelle amassed a .323 lifetime average and 2,730 hits in his long career. We do not know what kind of life he lead from 1946 when he gave up his baseball dreams, to his death in Chicago on Christmas Day in 1975.

If you know more about Cosmo Cotelle (or better yet, have a photograph of him) please let us know. We will reward you with a free 1933 Davenport Blue Sox cap.

Our Flannel of the Month is Cosmo Cotelle's 1945 Scranton Miners jersey. It has the World War II Stars & Stripes patch on the left sleeve and number on back, and is available for the special $99 Flannel of the Month price for a limited time. We also have Cosmo Cotelle's 1933 Davenport Blue Sox cap in stock. And of course, if you want any jersey from Cosmo's 21 different teams, you know who to ask).

This just in: Our readers are the best! Received three photos of Cotelle this morning. Best one is from Bud Holland. Cosmo is shown second from left in bottom row: