New North Alabama minor league team reveals spacey name options

When the Double-A Mobile BayBears relocate to Madison, Alabama, for the 2020 season, the franchise will take on a new nickname. We know now that the moniker will be one of the 10 listed below, which were among more than 3,300 suggestions submitted to a name-the-team contest.

The name options focus largely on the city’s ties to the aerospace industry—the area plays host to the Army’s Redstone Arsenal and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The finalists are listed below, with explanations coming from the team itself:

Army Ants
Sound off! The Army’s Redstone Arsenal serves as a center for missile and national defense programs and employs more than 40,000 members of our community.

Comet Jockeys
“Rocket City” was put on the map for its cutting-edge aerospace development. Comet Jockeys is a celebration of our brave astronauts who explore outer space.

GloWorms
GloWorms are rare tiny bioluminescent creatures that call the caves at Dismals Canyon in North Alabama home, one of few places in North America!

Lunartics
We are home to some of the wildest mad scientists facing today’s challenges in space and technology. You’d have to be a “Lunartic” to do that!

Moon Possums
A scavenger at heart, these local critters are known for hanging around and having a good time with their family – just like going to ballgame!

Puffy Head Bird Legs
No joke! It’s lingo coined by our astronauts for body fluid moving from feet to head in outer space due to the lack of gravity!

Space Chimps
A tribute to Miss Baker, one of the first animals safely launched into space. She is buried on the grounds at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.

Space Sloths
A nod to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the Space Sloths is up there with classic Minor League Baseball names like IronPigs, Flying Squirrels, Chihuahuas and Jumbo Shrimp.

ThunderSharks
Mix the powerful thunder of North Alabama’s storms with the ultra-strong, sleek determination of the shark and you end up with the personality of our community: willing to attack any problem. Visiting teams won’t mess with our ThunderSharks.

Trash Pandas
(Slang for raccoon) Our community is known for engineering, and no creature in our galaxy is as smart, creative, determined and ingenious a problem solver – dedicated to the challenge at hand – as our local raccoons!

In addition to voting on a nickname, fans will pick a geographic identifier from three options: Madison, North Alabama, and Rocket City. The team is working with Brandiose to develop the identity. You can cast your vote here through August 16.