Random Nonsense

Although I’m still firmly locked in hockey season, I always enjoy checking out websites for minor-league baseball leagues to check out off-season changes (e.g. new affiliations, moves, uniforms, etc).

So tonight I read that a Midwest League team in Davenport, Iowa, has wisely decided to switch its team name to the Quad City River Bandits after four years back some genius thought naming the team The Swing of The Quad Cities (as in jazz swing) would be a capital idea.

Joe Quesada, I’m looking in your direction….

The thing is that River Bandits were previously called the River Bandits for several seasons; it’s just too bad it took four years (and a sale) for team management to figure out that was the very name they should have stuck with all along.

Oh well, live and learn…

Anyhoo, in 1994 I caught a Bandits game at their stadium beside the Mississippi. It’s a very nice facility you might recall being washed out in 1993 during summer floods that hit several rivertowns including Davenport that year. Yet what sticks out in my memory most during the Bandits game I saw was that evening, the park was invaded by a Biblical swarm of mayflies. There were literally millions of the bugs flitting around any open source of light – especially the stadium’s light towers - while falling into people’s beers and sodas.

And though most fans fled the scene, including my brother and two friends who sought shelter on the park’s concourse, I wasn’t bothered by the mayflies. I actually thought the swarm was pretty cool. I’ve also seen nothing remotely like it since – including the mass cicada hatchings that strike the Chicago-area every 16 years.

So here’s to you, little bugs.

Thank God your local ballclub finally has a respectable name again.