Chesapeake Baysox

173

The Chesapeake Baysox play in Bowie, Maryland (and Bowie rhymes with Louie and not Joey, by the way...the Baysox even named their mascot Louie to drive this point home to any visiting fans), and originally picked the name Bowie Baysox. The Bowie part was obvious, and the BaySox was because Bowie is located on the Chesapeake Bay, except that it isn't. Okay, sure, it's close to the Chesapeake Bay, but so is two thirds of the state of Maryland. The county Bowie is located in doesn't touch the Bay. So trying to associate the city with the Chesapeake Bay is a bit of a reach.

Which is, of course, why the team changed their name from Bowie Baysox to Chesapeake Baysox.

From what I've been able to find, the reason the team gives for the name change is the general concept of more regional names, combined with the fact that because of the Baysox' unusual status and location (they're an Orioles affiliate that play just outside of D.C.; they are in fact closer to the eastern corner of D.C. than to the Bay) they were actually drawing more fans from the area to the northeast of Bowie (i.e., toward Baltimore) than they do from Bowie itself. Okay, I guess, but this misses the point that they were already drawing fans from that area. It seems clear to me that they didn't need to change their name to draw these fans in because they already had them. And they lost the alliteration in the process.

Of course, once the team ceased using Bowie as its locative, they needed to replace the logo with a big B in it. Well, not really, since the team is still called the Baysox (in fact their cap insignia still has a B), but they still decided to change the logo as well. And let me tell you, the new logo leans so heavily into state pride that it would make your average Texan think the team is overdoing it. Most obviously, there's the Maryland flag in the logo. Now, I happen to think Maryland's flag looks awesome, but it's still a bit of an odd thing to put in the team's logo, particularly when it doesn't really match the Baysox' color scheme.

The flag is being waved by a blue crab, because like I said they're leaning in super hard to the whole state pride thing (it should come as no surprise to you that the blue crab is the official state crustacean). And for the record, the blue crab's coloration is actually pretty accurate. Despite the name, blue crabs are typically a teal green (albeit a darker shade than in the logo), with the tips of its claws often being somewhere between red and orange. The main problem with the crab is the eyes. Now, I know some of you are thinking that no, the biggest problem with the crab is that the name of the team is Baysox and crabs have nothing to do with socks. But putting socks into the logo would look really stupid (look at Boston's logo if you doubt this) so I'm going to let that slide.

The "flagpole" is a baseball bat, because we apparently needed to get a gratuitous baseball reference in there somehow and that presumably seemed like a good way to go about it. But given the whole "state pride out the yin yang" thing, it's a little surprising. Maryland, you see, is unique among states in that it actually has an official flagpole. No, seriously. See how the flagpole in the picture to the right has a bottony cross atop it? That's the official state flagpole. Any Maryland flag is supposed to be on a flagpole with that on top of it. As with the national flag code there's no real penalty for violating the Maryland state flag code, and a lot of private businesses just use any old flagpole (government buildings are apparently pretty good about doing it right), so it's not like the team's going to get in any trouble for this. But like I said, this logo is going overboard with the state pride. I'm a little surprised they missed this detail.

All things considered, I'm a little surprised they didn't find a way to cram a few other state symbols into the logo, like a Chesapeake Bay Retriever, black-eyed susan, or bottle of rye whiskey (rye whiskey is the official state spirit) into the logo. Especially that last one. Come on: Regardless of whether you think the logo currently looks cool, don't you think it would look cooler if the crab was holding a bottle of rye in its other claw? "Hi, I'm a blue crab, and I'm a badass because I have a Maryland flag in one claw and a bottle of rye in the other. Hell, yeah!"

I really should hate this logo because of how busy it is, but having lived in Maryland as a kid I have a bit of a soft spot for it. I'm not going to go so far as to say it's a good logo, but nor will I say I dislike it on a personal level. But the name? Ugh. I always thought Bowie Baysox was a goofy name, and if it had any redeeming feature it was the alliteration. Now the name doesn't even have that. But the time when they were changing from Bowie to Chesapeake was the best opportunity for them to get rid of the Baysox nickname and they didn't, so I guess we're stuck with it.

Final Score: 173 points.
Penalties: Region, 8 pts; Sox (egregious), 41 pts; Script, 7 pts; Equipment, 13 pts; Humanoid (the eyes), 30 pts; Colorful, 31 pts; Irrelevance, 39 pts; Name, 10 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -6 pts.