Presenting SJ.com's new favorite collegiate wood-bat league team!

I can't wait until the play-by-play guy has to recap the inning by saying the Sock Puppets strand a pair. (Although in reality, wouldn't one of them get lost in the dryer?)

And SOMEBODY needs to be nicknamed the Dynamite, so we can hear the epic "Boom goes the Dynamite."

 

Not even the dumbest name in North Carolina.

The Down East Wood Ducks - DEWD - has them all beat. Even this effort coming out of Burlington.

 

I would have bought so much Boom Squirrels merchandise.

 

Hank Greenwald told a story once about how he was listening to a Pirates- Houston Colts game once and, coming out of commercial, Bob Prince recapped the game situation by noting "there are 45 men on second and third base."

 

Oh, I see you've heard about Johnson City.

 

Speaking of which, the dearth of professional sports in SENC is puzzling. They stop and Kinston and Fayetteville. Everything is either I-40 corridor or Charlotte area.*
Going to see the Wilmington Hammerheads used to be fun. They are gone. Surely Wilmington or Jacksonville could support something.
Granted, and we are certainly guilty, when you're on island time, there are a lot more evening distractions than going to a ballgame, but I would like that option.

Kannapolis Intimidators were great. FU TE.

 

So far the names include:
Bristol State Liners
Kingsport Axmen
Johnson City Doughboys
Elizabethton River Riders
Greeneville Fly Boys
Burlington Sock Puppetts
Pulaski River Turtles

Still waiting on Bluefield, Danville, Princeton

 

Not wood bats, but a former coach of mine spent a couple of seasons managing the Rockies Double-A Hartford team -- the Yard Goats. What the hell is a Yard Goat?

 

I don't know, but I am pretty fond of yardbird.

 

If they really wanted to have fun they'd call themselves the Furies.

 

Elizabethton (which was the Twins forever and a day) is famous as the starting point for the Overmountain Men expedition of the Revolutionary War as well as scene of one of the bloodiest textile strikes of the 30s. They could have gotten more creative here.

 

Railroad slang for a switcher engine, which moves cars, other engines, etc. in the rail yard. I thought the name was stupid when I first heard of it, but it ties into the city’s railroad history.