Althouse: "Let's Fix All The Bird Logos In Pro Sports."

June 28, 2019

"Let's Fix All The Bird Logos In Pro Sports."

At Deadspin.

44 comments:

mccullough said...: Deadspin got taken over by the SJWs. Used to be funny. But went The Woke route.; 6/28/19, 11:42 AM
Fernandinande said...: Negative bird stereotypes – especially those perpetuated by sports mascots – affect the reputation and self-image of every single bird and foster ongoing discrimination against birds.

Free Chickenlooper!; 6/28/19, 11:44 AM
Rocketeer said...: What a bore.; 6/28/19, 11:46 AM
gilbar said...: what the HECK makes these idiots think that the sports birds have anything to do with 'real' birds?; 6/28/19, 11:58 AM
W.B. Picklesworth said...: Hit and miss. Some of them were fine. Some were terrible. I'm looking at you Falcons and Ducks.; 6/28/19, 11:59 AM
Anne in Rockwall, TX said...: That was fun! At least for a bird collector like me. Love the new ducks logo.

Coincidentally, I finally got to collect a new duck on our lake. We now have a pair of black-bellied whistling ducks. They are gorgeous and love our cracked corn. Still waiting to hear the whistling from them, but it's only been two days.; 6/28/19, 12:00 PM
rcocean said...: Once we do that, can we fix the "Utah Jazz"?; 6/28/19, 12:00 PM
rcocean said...: The "Pelicans" is a puzzler. why would you want your team to be named after a goofy looking bird.; 6/28/19, 12:01 PM
Curious George said...: The dumbest logo is the Green Bay Packers "G". Green Bay is of course two words. It's not the Green Packers.; 6/28/19, 12:06 PM
stutefish said...: The only one that actually bugs me is the falcons logo. The wings should be up for air-braking at the moment the claws come out for striking and grasping. The wings are down when the bird is pushing through the air in flight, and the legs should be back during that activity. Wings down or legs out. Not both at the same time.; 6/28/19, 12:12 PM
The Godfather said...: Thank you, @Althouse! An issue that I really don’t care about (I was going to say that I don’t give a fig about, but I was afraid that would lead to a fruits post, and that would be too much for one day.; 6/28/19, 12:12 PM
stutefish said...: Overall, the article presents us with the following riddle:

Q. How many SJWs does it take to change a bird logo?

A. That's not funny.; 6/28/19, 12:13 PM
MadisonMan said...: Filed under: Someone had too much time on their hands.; 6/28/19, 12:14 PM
Birches said...: Some of them are better, some are definitely not. The Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals are fine as is. Ravens do over was fine as was Toronto.; 6/28/19, 12:15 PM
Fernandinande said...: Ravens

Quoth the Raven "Do you have a minute to talk about our Lord and Savior Edgar Allan Poe?"; 6/28/19, 12:22 PM
mpeirce said...: What, no mud hens?; 6/28/19, 12:36 PM
chuck said...: Eh, overegged.; 6/28/19, 12:37 PM
clint said...: That New Orleans Pelicans logo bears a striking resemblance to Cthulhu. Coincidence? I think not.

And that Northern Cardinal... the red the author uses, even in the "corrected" version is way too dark. And the bill, while definitely not yellow, is not the same color as the feathers -- it's noticeably more orange. If you're going to nitpick and "correct" the logos, you've got to get it right.; 6/28/19, 12:46 PM
Dave Begley said...: The Toronto Blue Jays have sued the Creighton Bluejays for infringing on their trademarked logo with our new logo for the Big East. The birds don't look the same at all and there is no likelihood of confusion. On top of that, back in the 80s the MLB team consented to the use of their logo by the Creighton baseball team. A frivolous lawsuit.; 6/28/19, 12:51 PM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: Annie C: "We now have a pair of black-bellied whistling ducks."

Funky looking bird, that. Occasional visitor in our pasture here in Lower Rio Grande Valley. Particularly after a heavy rain.

Another strange one we see sometimes is the Groove Billed Ani. Wide set eyes behind an oversize bill; has to turn sideways to see. Like a person not very artfully watching you out of the corner of their eye.; 6/28/19, 12:56 PM
gilbar said...: rcocean said...
Once we do that, can we fix the "Utah Jazz"?
and the LA Lakers?; 6/28/19, 1:14 PM
bagoh20 said...: What about Mickey Mouse, Porky the Pig, Daffy Duck, too? The worst is my hero, Popeye. Nobody has arms like that or would want them. It's time we learn to respect seamen. Yea, I'm talking to you, splooge stooges.; 6/28/19, 1:22 PM
Xmas said...: Best comment thread from there:

Keebl3r
6/26/19 12:38pm
Correct. The entire Falcon shape was designed to be an F. Otherwise, it would have been a very different pose.

december32nd
6/26/19 12:54pm
A guy I used to know from Atlanta explained that to me a few years ago. I then explained to him the virtues of holding onto a lead.; 6/28/19, 1:26 PM
Josephbleau said...: Popeyes had a great influence on my development. “I amsk what I amsk an that’s all that I amsk.” Popeye got his name after a tragic diving accident at sea.; 6/28/19, 1:36 PM
LakeLevel said...: gilbar: "and the LA Lakers?"

What do we call them the LA Dry Lake Beds?

Some of those people are trying to change the name of Lake Calhoun (one of the lakes that the lakers were named after) to the original Dakota name "Bde Maka Ska" (pronounce that you suckers). The Dakota word for lake is Ble. That seems right, the LA Ble.; 6/28/19, 1:37 PM
tcrosse said...: How about a logo named The Bird? It could be named Flip the Bird. Imagine the market for a version of those big foam We're Number One gloves.; 6/28/19, 1:49 PM
n.n said...: went The Woke route

Woke and sleepy.; 6/28/19, 1:53 PM
tim maguire said...: DoubleYou Tee Eff?

Did someone get paid for that?; 6/28/19, 2:05 PM
traditionalguy said...: Birds are fascinating because they are not under man's control. They just put up with the Homo Sapiens newcomers and try to ignore us.

Atlanta uses several strange birds for team naming but we also have the best baseball name. We took it out of the last measure Star Spangled Banner," ...the home of the Braves."; 6/28/19, 2:30 PM
loudogblog said...: The thing about logos is that they're usually judged by whether they work or not. If they work, the organization takes a victory lap. If they don't work, they will be dissected and can become the subject of public ridicule.; 6/28/19, 2:40 PM
n.n said...: Dodos. Diverse dodos.; 6/28/19, 2:47 PM
Rosalyn C. said...: I thought the project was great, too. I noticed the more accurate the depictions the more fierce looking the birds were. Isn't that the whole point in nature? But maybe you can't get too scary for a logo so they go with the cartoon version. You know, people with bird phobias might get triggered. I really liked the updated cardinals, pelicans, and the ducks.; 6/28/19, 2:51 PM
Anne in Rockwall, TX said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/28/19, 2:55 PM
Gahrie said...: Atlanta uses several strange birds for team naming but we also have the best baseball name. We took it out of the last measure Star Spangled Banner," ...the home of the Braves."

Well...Boston did...; 6/28/19, 3:02 PM
Rory said...: Pittsburgh's basketball team in the late 60s, the Pipers, wanted a new name and held a contest. They chose the name "Pioneers" and gave the fan who submitted the name $5000. During the announcement of the new name, a reporter asked if they had cleared the it with Point Park College. Point Park, right in downtown Pittsburgh, had used Pioneers as its team names for decades.

Now, the Pipers were not going to pay Point Park for the name. More problematic, they also weren't going to pay another $5000 to a fan who had suggested any other name during the course of the contest. This eliminated thousands of potential names, and all of the good ones.

A resourceful team executive got his kid's Big Book of Animals and searched for a plausible animal that hadn't been submitted in the contest. He flipped past aardvarks and armadillos, baboons and bonobos. Finally, in the C's, he found a very big animal that soared. Perfect for basketball.

And that's how the Pittsburgh Condors got their name.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_Condors; 6/28/19, 3:17 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Birds are the best sports mascots, don't you think.

The various small mammals are good too.

The large mammals (bears, lions)... not so much.

The human being ones are middling — Pirates, Boilermakers.

The worst are the abstractions and non-living things — Heat, Jazz. Especially bad when they're not plural nouns.

Am I leaving anything out — fish, I guess. Marlins, Muskies. Also, I think there are some mollusks and arthropods.; 6/28/19, 4:13 PM
tim in vermont said...: “and the new home .. of the.. Braves.”

:^P; 6/28/19, 4:13 PM
tim in vermont said...: Not one cardinal with a yellow beak?

https://www.audubon.org/news/why-northern-cardinal-yellow; 6/28/19, 4:14 PM
readering said...: Partial to bulldogs. Not in danger of wandering far on the sideline.; 6/28/19, 4:37 PM
rcocean said...: Worst team sports names are clothing: Red Sox, White Sox.
Next Worst Weather/Abstractions: Heat, Suns, Thunder, Jazz, Magic, Wizards
Or Generic/unimaginative names: Giants, Nets, Hawks, Titans, Bears, Warriors; 6/28/19, 5:20 PM
rcocean said...: Best: Redskins, Patriots, Braves, Timberwolves, Knicks, Celtics, Raiders, Steelers, 49ers, Buccaneers, Yankees, Indians, Brewers, Mariners, Diamondbacks, Marlins.; 6/28/19, 5:24 PM
Howard said...: Banana Slugs; 6/28/19, 6:49 PM
Phil 314 said...: Looks like the grammar nazi has branched out into ornithology; 6/28/19, 7:24 PM
donald said...: It was woke at birth. Sports for dick head dweebs who don’t play sports.

By the way, I umpired with a guy today who said he was not only in the Oakland organization as a pitcher, but that he made it to the show. Not only that (Right after I said that I know Steve Bedrosian really well, as in I showed him his name in my phone), but that he pitched three times in the earthquake World Series. In 1986. He was in a room with high school coaches and professional scouts. I damned near called Steve right then and there. That woulda been sweet.; 6/28/19, 8:24 PM