On its own, the word zephyr does not exactly instill fear. It refers to a gentle wind, rolling in from the west and rustling the daffodils (or whatever) as it heads east. That said, the city of Denver sits just to the east of the Rockies, and the wind that
Category: Minor League Baseball
Fresno Grizzlies celebrate taco trucks with amazing uniforms
Central California is the self-proclaimed birthplace of the taco truck, and to celebrate that local history, the Fresno Grizzlies, Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros, will take to the field as the Fresno Tacos for one game this summer. For four years, the Fresno Grizzlies’ Taco Truck Throwdown has been
Quite a Yarn: The Story Behind the Lowell Spinners
It’s a safe guess that the Lowell Spinners, a short-season class-A Red Sox affiliate in the New York-Penn League, are the only sports team whose identity is based on yarn. In the early 1800s, the city of Lowell, Massachusetts, rose to prominence as the cradle of the Industrial Revolution. The foundation
This Team Bites: The Story Behind the Savannah Sand Gnats
A lot of sports teams choose to represent themselves with fierce, intimidating creatures: Tigers, Diamondbacks, Sharks, Chihuahuas, etc. But none of these sounds quite so awful as the swarming, biting insects that infest coastal Georgia twice a year. Sand gnats, colloquially referred to as biting midges, punkies, sand flies, sand
Hartford Yard Goats Unveil Logos, Colour Scheme
Perhaps it was more than just a coincidence the Hartford Yard Goats chose to unveil their logos at the former home arena of the Hartford Whalers. It’s a green, blue, silver, and gold goat chomping on a baseball bat which will grace the caps of Connecticut’s newest pro baseball team;
What a Ride: The Story Behind the Brooklyn Cyclones
More than four decades after the Dodgers broke the hearts of Brooklyn’s baseball fans by moving to Los Angeles, the sport returned to the borough in the form of a short-season class A Mets affiliate located on Coney Island—with a rickety old roller coaster called the Cyclone looming just beyond
Leading the Charge: The Story Behind the Frisco RoughRiders
On July 1, 1898—117 years ago this Wednesday—the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry charged alongside other military regiments (most notably the Buffalo Soldiers) into the bloody Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba, helping to deliver a decisive blow in the Spanish-American War. With Spanish troops retreating and ultimately leaving Cuba shortly
Grizzlies-River Cats rivalry hits right in the logo
The Fresno Grizzlies and Sacramento River Cats, both Triple-A Pacific Coast League teams from California, do not like each other. That rivalry is coming to a head this weekend with the Grizzlies hosting “Grumpy Cat Night” to kick off a series against the RiverCats. The Grizzlies have been pulling the River
That Nashville Sound: The Story Behind the Nickname
Nashville, Tennessee, had been home to a rich music scene since the late 1800s, but it was the debut of two clear-channel radio stations in the 1920s that cemented the city’s reputation as Music City, USA. WSM and WLAC launched in 1925 and 1926 respectively, drawing performers who hoped to find their own stylings
Here there be the story behind the Dayton Dragons
Dayton, Ohio, is inextricably linked with the history of aviation. The city was home to Orville (who was born there) and Wilbur Wright, who are credited with inventing manned flight. (They weren’t the first to build a machine that could fly, but they were the first to invent a machine
RoughRiders Full House Night will be “spectacularly awful”
Last winter, when the double-A Frisco RoughRiders started planning their “Salute to Full House” theme night for this Friday, June 12, no one knew anything about the forthcoming and much-ballyhooed Full House spinoff on Netflix. That was just a stroke of luck—or maybe the result of some sort of sixth sense from
Doing the Twist: The Story Behind the Omaha Storm Chasers
There are a lot of sports teams named after severe weather or natural disasters—Avalanche, Hurricanes, Quakes, Storm, Thunder, etc. But very few teams are named for the people who actually head out into the world in intentional pursuit of extreme weather events. The term storm chasing is most commonly associated with