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When Miami opens its new ballpark in two years, the Florida Marlins will be no more, replaced by the Miami Marlins.
The California Angels, of course, are history, and really wanted LA in their name; they wanted it bad enough to be forced into adding the absurd "of Anaheim", something they wanted no part of just to get that "LA".
Baseball, more than any other sport, is about association between city and team.
So conceding the obvious "Minnesota Twins", how would you folks like the notion of the Phoenix Diamondbacks, Denver Rockies, Dallas Rangers.
For that matter, how about a return to the Phoenix Cardinals and Boston Patriots, even if the NFL is not MLB? Back to the San Francisco Warriors in the NBA?
How about it? Metro areas are far more represented by the cities at their core than they are by states (Tennessee, Texas, Colorado, etc.) or regions (New England, Carolina).
The Minnesota Twins started the trend because they are the Twin Cities and Twins were part of the name.
There is no reason to do the same elsewhere. If we can have the Dallas Cowboys, we can have the Dallas Rangers and Fort Worth people will continue to go to baseball games as they do for football.
Many teams would rather have the broader state association ... the only reason the marlins are changing their name is because it's mandated in part of their stadium financing
In baseball you still have the Texas Rangers even though other baseball teams play in the state. I can understand taking the state name if you are the only team in your state for that sport like the Utah Jazz.
Many teams would rather have the broader state association ... the only reason the marlins are changing their name is because it's mandated in part of their stadium financing
a lot of the primary cities in such cases see the naming as a slap in the face. Certainly that has been true in Phoenix, Denver, and Miami. It seems to them to indicate "secondary market" and it is the reason why you'd never have anything with a name like the Illinois Cubs or California Dodgers.
It could also be a genesis from when teams were created ..... teams aren't accessible only to local neighborhoods, a weak radio signal and the local beat writers.
The angles are interesting because they started out at the LA Angels and then switched to the CA Angels after a few years .... I'm not sure what prompted the change
It was around the same time that the Twins moved from Washington and took on the MN name (from what I can tell they were the 1st team to use a state identity and this was in the early 60s).
The Rangers followed suit when a team from Washington moved there in the 70s.
Florida and Colorado were in the same expansion class .... then Arizona followed the same
It's more of a modern thing as it's moved from the neighborhoods and cities to being more of an easily accessible game ..... people buy merchandise now, everyone has TVs, cars rule the road and it's not daunting to drive 100 miles to go catch a game (which are now at night) ...... sports are a lot more accessible than they ever have been
Also, carrying the AZ name isn't a slap in the face in any of those 3 cities you mentioned (i've lived in 2 of them) .... really people don't care ...... I know many marlins fans who are upset about the name change and prefer the Florida name, but realize that it is a change that needs to be done because miami put up the money to build a stadium and keep the team while the state screwed them over time and again
The only time I see locals get rankled a little about names is when they carry the name of one city but play in a neighboring city that has it's own identity
Florida Marlins was ok when we only had one MLB team in the whole state of Florida. Now that we have the Tampa Bay Rays, it is only fair for the Marlins to change their name to Miami Marlins. If only Orlando had an MLB team....I even came up with a name, the Orlando Boosters!
So conceding the obvious "Minnesota Twins", how would you folks like the notion of the Phoenix Diamondbacks, Denver Rockies, Dallas Rangers.
"Colorado Rockies" are an actual thing that the team was named after. There are no Rockies in Denver.
"Texas Rangers" are also named after an actual thing. The "Texas Rangers" are a state police force. There is no such thing as Dallas Rangers.
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