Lehigh Valley unveils IronPigs

A year and a half from now, a strange sound will echo through the Lehigh Valley in eastern Pennsylvania. With the roar of the crowd heralding its arrival, a slow, steady drum beat and one ominous chord will pierce the cool April air just before Minor League Baseball announces its presence in Allentown.

I am IronPig.

The lyrics are slightly different than those sung in Black Sabbath's 1970 heavy metal classics, Iron Man and War Pigs, but affiliated baseball plans on returning to Allentown in April 2008, as the Lehigh Valley IronPigs.

The new name is part of the transition process for the new Philadelphia Phillies' Triple-A affiliate, which will spend the 2007 season in Canada as the Ottawa Lynx before making the trek south for the 2008 International League season.

The announcement was made during a Monday press conference during which general manager Kurt Landes introduced a giant imitation steel I-beam with the new name printed on the side. Landes explained that like the steel-making process, coming up with the new name was a long and arduous task.

"We announced the naming contest on Oct. 4 and gave the fans plenty of opportunities to hand in ideas for what the new team would be called," Landes said. "We got about 3,500 names and after sifting those out, we came up with eight different names that had some kind of tie to the region and would be fun. Those eight names were put on the website and around 10,000 people voted, with the overwhelming majority voting for the IronPigs."

IronPigs might sound like an interesting name for a Minor League team -- but what exactly does it mean, and who could have thought up of something like that?

IronPigs is actually the reversed form of the term "pig iron," one of the main components in the steel-making process, which is one of the biggest industries in the Lehigh Valley region. And how ironic was it that a man named Ron Steele submitted the winning name?

Steele, a 31-year-old circuit layout designer at Agere Systems in Allentown, heard of the contest when it was announced the new ballpark would be built on land that was his company's former headquarters. Steele was looking around for ideas, researching the area's history for a good name when he stumbled on pig iron.

"A few days after they announced the contest, I was just looking around, trying to find something that was different and had a local tie-in," Steele said. "Steel has always been a huge industry here, so when I found out that steel is made from pig iron, I flipped the words around and sent it in. This past Saturday, someone from the [Allentown] Morning Call called me up asking for some comments, saying that they were 99 percent sure that my entry was the winning name.

"The next morning, I see in the paper that the new team is the IronPigs. Then at work, they made an announcement to everyone and some of my friends made a bit of a ruckus. I'm happy that I won, but I can't wait to see what the logos are going to look like."

According to Landes, the public will have wait a little bit for the new IronPigs' logos and uniforms. Plan B Branding is currently working on the design -- just "throwing mud up on the wall and see what sticks," as Landes put it -- and expects to unveil the designs by late January or early February.

"This name gives us a lot of room for creative ideas," Landes said. "A pig gives us a lot of flexibility as far as mascots, logos and our overall marketing strategy. It could be an aggressive pig or a more friendly, cartoon-ish pig for the kids. We really can go 'hog-wild' with ideas here.

"IronPigs is a great marriage between the history of the area and the principles of Minor League Baseball, which are fun and community involvement."

As a reward for his winning name, Steele will receive VIP game tickets, memorabilia and will throw out the ceremonial first pitch. Steele admits that the most throwing he has done lately has been in a few local softball leagues, so he promises to get his arm in shape for the 2008 home opener. As for any kind of entrance music, Steele said he hasn't thought about that part just yet.

"When I saw that there were songs called Iron Man and War Pigs, I thought it was pretty funny," Steele said. "Who knows what that will come to. It might make for some neat visuals."