Since it went so well the first time, it’s time that we name the second group of eight World Baseball Classic teams shooting for qualification in the 2017 tournament. In the first, we looked at those in the first two brackets, Sydney (which wrapped up in mid-February) and Mexicali, which starts today. Also starting up today will be the Panama City tournament with Brazil, France and Colombia competing against the host country of Panama and beginning in late September will be the Brooklyn group featuring Great Britain, Israel, Spain and Pakistan. Since it’s happening right now, we’ll start off with the Panama City group and the host country.
From the stand point of the average fan in the US, the popular name for Panama may be something along the lines of the Van Halens or maybe the Hats, but both of those are very silly names. Instead, we’ll go with the not amusing at all…
The Panama Canals
It’s not funny, but it works and allows us to move on to the other, more interesting teams.
The only European team in this group (Germany and the Czech Republic are in the Mexicali tournament), France has a long history providing ample names for their WBC national team. A personal favorite of mine would be Les Fromages de France, but we’ll avoid any food based team names for now. Instead, we’ll stick with history and go with…
The French Révolution
This is a politically safe name because that side eventually won and it will give the announcers room to make a lot of cake related jokes. In addition, they’d have to take advantage and have Wolverine and Maximus sing all the walk-up songs and who wouldn’t want that? The answer to that, of course, is everyone. No one wants that.
For Colombia, there are a lot of animal names that would fit since much of the area of the country is covered by the Amazon Rain Forest, but since more of the Amazon is in Brazil, we’ll go a different route.
The Colombia Barons
I’m not going to say what they are Barons of, we’ll just leave it alone right there.
As for Brazil, the home country of Indians catcher Yan Gomes, we will pick an animal. With so many choices, it is difficult to choose. There are giant anacondas, colorful poisonous dart and other creatures named for just one color such as green monkeys, orange iguanas and purple parrots, but the most ferocious of all are…
The Brazil Red Jaguars
They can’t just be the Jaguars because there still (who knows for how much longer) is a franchise known as that in Jacksonville (despite a lack of actual Jaguars in Jacksonville). Anyway, there is a long history in the union of Legends of the Hidden Temple and Major League Baseball going back at least to 2015, when a couple of minor league teams wore jerseys featuring the team names from the old Nickelodeon game show. Now, I can’t think of a better fitting name for Brazil, the geographic home of actual red jaguars. Wait, there’s no such thing as red jaguars or orange iguanas or silver snakes? Don’t destroy my childhood or this fantastic name for the team all Indians fans should be rooting for in this qualifying round.
Although it is much later in the year, we’ve got room here, so there’s no reason not to name those teams playing in New York in September as well. The first will be Great Britain which is one of the teams that I find annoying for not using the name of an actual country as their moniker. This is easily the weakest group of the four qualifying tournaments and even so, I expect very little from the United Kingdom. With that, I put very little thought into naming them…
The Great Britain Red Coats
This should set them up as the heels of the tournament which takes place in the US and is less offensive than naming them the English Queens.
Spain won their qualifier last year, but played poorly enough in the actual WBC that they have to prove themselves again. In respect for Ricky Gervais, we won’t name them after Spain’s national past time of bull fighting and running, but instead their impact in the Americas. Depending on what American country you are from, even greater villains than the Red Coats could be…
The Spain Conquistadors
It is a fitting name as they did conquer the qualifier last time around and are the favorites this time as well. It would also make for an intriguing match-up should both they and team Mexico advance to the real Classic in 2017.
Team Israel will be back again, looking to qualify for the first time. They could be considered the home team in the tournament, playing in New York City, but we’ll try to avoid any religious connotations beyond the Star of David that they already use as a logo. Instead, they shall be called…
The Israel Zombies
There is the actual reason I think they should be named this and some more politically correct ones that I will give you. First, zombies are in right now. Second, World War Z. While it didn’t work out too well in that scenario, if you can’t beat them, join them. There are no other options here, Israel will play as the Zombies. Besides, Brad Pitt was in that movie and also in Moneyball, so there’s an outside baseball connection as well.
The final team is Pakistan, the only new entrant in the 2016 qualifiers, replacing Thailand from 2012. For the sake of not increasing tensions that could already exist, we’ll just name them after a geographical feature.
The Pakistan Himalayas
If Denver can have a team called the Colorado Rockies, I don’t see any problem with this and if the tournament expands to include Switzerland and Chile we’ll have the Alps and the Andes playing as well. Nothing plays better defense than a mountain and there aren’t bigger ones anywhere in the world than those in the Himalayas. There are bigger Himalayas in other countries, but until those countries care enough about baseball to field a World Baseball Classic contender, Pakistan gets to claim them. Pakistan is already pretty comfortable claiming things that don’t completely belong to them.
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