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El Paso Times: Top 5 names for El Paso Triple-A baseball team announced

June 20, 2013

Flash forward almost a year.

The warm spring breeze romps gently through the new Downtown stadium. Excitement builds, a growing groundswell of enthusiasm spreading through the new facility as the announcer clicks the "on" button and begins something new: "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the starting lineup for YOUR El Pasooooooooo -- Aardvarks."

Say what?

Well, maybe YOUR El Paso Buckaroos?

Would you believe El Paso Chihuahuas? Does that strike fear and fun in your heart? How about El Paso Desert Gators? Or El Paso Sun Dogs?

That is the future, strictly a glimpse into a fun new world of Triple-A baseball. But one of those names will come true. Those are the five finalists for the new team's nickname announced Thursday by the MountainStar Sports Group -- Aardvarks, Buckaroos, Chihuahuas, Desert Gators, Sun Dogs.

Fans may vote on the nickname -- once each day -- now through midnight June 27.

"It was not easy to determine this list of finalist name ideas from the thousands of names submitted by El Paso Triple-A fans," said Alan Ledford, president of MountainStar Sports Group. "The quality and thoughtfulness behind the names submitted was truly remarkable. El Pasoans really gave serious thought and consideration to the history, culture and unique attributes of their hometown when submitting names, and we were all impressed with the creativity."

And the team's new general manager, Brad Taylor, said, "This is extremely encouraging. More than 5,600 people participated. The previous high for a Triple-A team name is around 3,000."

"While we knew El Pasoans would rally behind their team and want to get involved with the team's name selection, we never anticipated this tremendous level of response," Ledford said. "We nearly doubled the unofficial standing record for Triple-A team names submitted. Now, more than ever, we are confident that El Paso is excited for and ready to enjoy their Triple-A baseball team."

And the team's new general manager, Brad Taylor, said, "This is extremely encouraging. More than 5,600 people participated. The previous high for a Triple-A team name is around 3,000."

However, much of the reaction has been negative. Here are just a few of the more than 1,500 comments on the El Paso Times' website and Facebook page.

"Horrible picks," said Jaime Moya.

"Are you kidding me," wrote Monica Bruns.

"Horrible choices!!!" offered Benito Rivera.

"Is this a joke?" Dove Marie wanted to know.

And Barry Karch wrote, "All the names are terrible. Can we start over?"

El Paso native and UTEP graduate Sam García said, "I'm largely unimpressed with this list and a little disappointed that these five in particular are the finalists. I realize the atmosphere in Minor League Baseball is supposed to be a little more fun and a little wackier than MLB (Major League Baseball), but this kind of comes off as a poor attempt at comedy."

The city had a long run as the El Paso Sun Kings in the 1960s with their Double-A Texas League team. They were the Sun Dodgers for one year, in 1972, when the team was affiliated with the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 1973, Jim Paul named the team the Diablos -- a name that has stuck.

"It was just me," Paul said of naming his team four decades ago. "I jotted down five names and I wanted something very identifiable in El Paso. I could care less about the Southwest region. When I was a little kid and I would get in trouble, I was the little diablito. When there was mischief, someone would say, 'Who did that?' and someone else would say, 'The diablitos did it.'

"I wanted something no one else had. I guess back in 1973, the model was probably the Toledo Mud Hens. I wanted to reflect our culture. We, as El Pasoans, are different -- different society, different culture, different mental makeup, just different. When you heard Diablos, you knew it was nothing Polish and you knew it was nothing coming out of Brooklyn."

When asked whether he had a favorite among the finalists, Paul laughed and said, "Not really. Every Chihuahua I've seen just shakes all the time. If they had something in Spanish for Aardvark, it would be OK, I guess, except you couldn't find one on our continent. I guess if I had to pick, I'd choose the Sun Dogs, that way you could work it into a hot-dog night ... you could have the Chile Cheese Sun Dog Night or the Jalapeño Sun Dog Night or the Regular Hot Sun Dog with Mustard Night."

The opinions will continue to roll in, and Taylor said this is what they expected.

"That's the beauty of this," Taylor said. "Everyone has an opinion and we respect that. It's great, it's genuine and passionate, because people care. We just ask them to be patient and trust the process. These are all names submitted by El Pasoans."

An aardvark is a fun, quirky name -- an animal indigenous to southern Africa that eats termites. Oregon Episcopal High School in Portland, Ore., changed its nickname to the Aardvarks. The nickname was also a close loser in a vote for a UT-Arlington nickname contest in the 1960s -- losing to Mavericks.

Buckaroo is a cowboy from the Great Basin and California region, and the term is actually an anglicization of the Spanish word "vaquero."

Chihuahua could be used as the tiny dog or the desert. The Tijuana soccer team is unofficially known as the Tijuana Chihuahuas.

Sun Dogs is a scientific term that has been translated from Greek to "beside the sun." Obviously, a team nickname would incorporate a real dog. The Arizona Sundogs are a hockey team in the Central Hockey League.

The Desert Gators name is a tribute to the alligators -- once as many as seven -- that inhabited the pond in San Jacinto Plaza during the 1950s and 1960s.

There is a Desert Gators Club in the Phoenix area. It is not a sports team, but an alumni group for the University of Florida Gator sports teams.

The criteria for narrowing the list to these five names was "popularity based on public entries and voting, creativity, how well the name represents El Paso and family friendliness." Each of the five finalists was submitted by multiple individuals during the entry process.

Fans may vote once a day at elpasotriplea.com/vote for the next week and, while the public voting will be a significant part of the process, MountainStar Sports Group will make the final decision -- with Minor League Baseball approval.

But ...

"It will be one of those five names," Taylor said.

Flash forward once more.

And so as the sun sets on El Paso's brand new baseball stadium, as the warm spring breeze filters through the ballpark, as the smell of peanuts and popcorn and hot dogs wafts through the stadium, as the excitement builds, the announcer will click that "on" button and boom, "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the starting lineup for YOUR El Pasooooooooo ..."

Bill Knight may be reached at [email protected]; 546-6171. Follow him on Twitter @BillKnightept

Fans may vote on the team name once a day at elpasotriplea.com/vote for the next week.