A word on the Rocket City Trash Pandas

We’ll have a minor league baseball team affiliated with the Angels playing in Madison beginning in 2020. In Mobile, they were the BayBears.

Here, they will be the Rocket City Trash Pandas.

“Trash panda” is slang for raccoon. The term got a lot of vernacular traction in the Guardians of the Galaxy films. And, I suppose it makes sense enough. We have a lot of raccoons. Raccoons are smart and resourceful, just as rocket scientists are. And the name lends itself well to merchandising, which seems to have been an important factor.

The name seems more popular than not. Ostensibly it won open voting, so you’d suppose that’d be true. However, the people who don’t like it really don’t like it. A lot of the grumbling seems to center around people looking down on Alabama as a result of this name, feeding stereotypes, and so forth.

That is absurd.

People who are inclined to dislike Alabama are going to do so no matter what this baseball team is called. It matters not one whit. Or do you really think a potential employer would think “yeah, we were going to build our new headquarters there, but the local ball team has a stupid name”?

See how silly?

Anyone looking for positives in Alabama will find them. Anyone looking down his/her nose at Alabama for rednecks, racists, outhouses, or whatever else unflattering is going to find those too. And you know what? Let them smirk. Let them judge. Most importantly, let them stay in their “better” wherever-they-ares. Let them believe they’re better—from there.

If you don’t like the name, then fine. But have a better reason than “what will everyone think?”

A word on the Rocket City Trash Pandas

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