Sports

Vote on the New Baseball Team's Name

Vote on one of these five names for the new minor league baseball team at Albert Field.

Vote on the names in the poll below.

After one week of submissions, Centerfield Partners LLC selected five possible names for the new minor league baseball team that will play at in 2012. 

Last week, we and received over 100 suggestions. Centerfield Partners looked over the names and agreed on the final five below based on which ideas they thought were the most marketable.

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"We received so many suggestions having to do with George Lucas, but there were issues with rights of ownership," Centerfield Partners' Mike Shapiro said. "So we came up with 'Spacemen' in recognition of Marin County's culture in regards to Lucas and open spaces."

The others names include the Cruisers, the Redwoods, the Pacifics and the Golden Gaters.

Find out what's happening in San Rafaelwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Patch readers can vote below on the names selected. Voting will close at 5 p.m. on Oct. 26.

After the name is announced, the company will put the readers who suggested the name into a drawing, where two winners will recieve four tickets to opening day, a team jersey and a special announcement on the PA system for each.

Some Patch readers became concerned about how the company decided to choose the names. Shapiro wrote this email in response:

First, all of us connected with the new San Rafael baseball team thank you for your support and willingness to participate in helping us name the team.  In undertaking any effort of this sort we no doubt run the considerable risk of offending or offering alternative suggestions that don't resonate with some people.  We were willing to go forward in this way because we thought it would stimulate interest, debate and offer us a lot of interesting alternatives.  In fact, that's just what happened and we greatly appreciate the interest all of you have offered us. Our goal was to recognize the uniqueness of San Rafael and Marin County while also wanting to select names that worked well as logo and color treatments.  We also wanted to do something that was fun and a bit off-key but also to avoid offending any groups (a very difficult balancing act).  We also wanted to avoid naming the team with the same name as other minor league teams so the Pelicans, for example (a name we all liked), didn't work for us.  Another example was the Saints or Missions, while great possible team names also have the potential to appear too favorable to one religious group or risk offense to others.  In sum, we wanted to offer alternatives that: 1) recognized a unique attribute of San Rafael (cruising 4th Street/American Graffiti), 2) the local ecology (The Redwoods and the Pacifics), 3) one of the predominant local landmarks (The Golden Gate Bridge) or 4) the connection to Star Wars, the Marin Civic Center and local baseball legend Bill "Spaceman" Lee (the Spacemen).  

In the end, it was about having some fun with this and still being respectful of local sensitivities.  If, perhaps, we failed to meet the community's expectations about the team's name we'll reexamine our choices but also we hope those of you who don't like our choices will give them another chance in light of our desire to address so many competing interests.  But please know that we really appreciate your interest and support and will try our best to make the games a great, fun experience even if the team name doesn’t work for everyone.


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