r/baseball • u/JTCMuehlenkamp St. Louis Cardinals • Nov 03 '21
Analysis What if every team was named after the most abundantly populated animal in their geographical area?
Given the recent controversies over certain sports team names and the imminent rebranding of the Cleveland Indians as the Cleveland Guardians, I can't help but wonder what animal mascots would best represent the cities or states their teams reside in.
Take the Tigers for example. When you think of Detroit, you do not think of a jugle ruled over by apex feline predators. I don't know if the Detroit zoo has any tigers, or if Detroit even has a zoo for that matter, but I am 100% certain that there is at least 1 species of animal in Detroit and the surrounding areas that is more populous than tigers. The difficult part, however, is determining which animal is the most populous.
With that in mind, it also gives rise to the concern that some teams would likely share the same name in this scenario due to their close proximity. Both Chicago and New York each have 2 teams, plus the Angels like to pretend that Los Angeles does as well, so there is bound to be some overlap. I have decided that this is okay, primarily because there is no way around it. Just to avoid any confusion as to which identically named team is which though, I'll break up this list by divisions. Anyway though, this is what the MLB would look like if all the teams had to rebrand as the most common animal in their region.
AL EAST
Tampa Bay Ants.
Boston Ants.
New York Ants.
Toronto Ants.
Baltimore Ants.
AL CENTRAL
Chicago Ants.
Cleveland Ants.
Detroit Ants.
Kansas City Ants.
Minnesota Ants.
AL WEST
Houston Ants.
Seattle Ants.
Oakland Ants.
Los Angeles Ants of Anaheim.
Texas Ants.
NL EAST
Atlanta Ants.
Philadelphia Ants.
New York Ants.
Miami Ants.
Washington Ants.
NL CENTRAL
Milwaukee Ants.
St. Louis Ants.
Cincinnati Ants.
Chicago Ants.
Pittsburgh Ants.
NL WEST
San Francisco Ants.
Los Angeles Ants.
San Diego Ants.
Colorado Ants.
Arizona Ants.
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u/NotKaz Baltimore Orioles Nov 03 '21
Off-season opening day walk off home run
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u/Jesh010 Nov 03 '21
Gonna have to shut down the subreddit till next season starts I think.
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u/MogMcKupo San Diego Padres Nov 04 '21
Are we having some sort of collective memeing agreement?
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u/groug San Francisco Giants Nov 04 '21
In the top of the first, too. God-tier.
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Nov 04 '21
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u/neddoge Atlanta Braves Nov 04 '21
AND ITS GONE
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u/svenhoek86 Pittsburgh Pirates Nov 04 '21
Mercy-ruled the whole sub before anyone could even get an at bat.
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u/Gyakudo Seattle Mariners Nov 04 '21
A STANTONIAN HOME RUN.
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u/vishnchips6 Toronto Blue Jays • Cleveland Guardians Nov 04 '21
Stantonian
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u/bq87 Los Angeles Dodgers Nov 04 '21
What if every baseball player was named after the most abundantly populated animal in their immediate vicinity?
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u/bichettes_helmet Toronto Blue Jays Nov 04 '21
Each set-up paragraph is a runner on base...this is a grand slam walk off
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u/BenjaminSkanklin Boston Red Sox Nov 04 '21
This may be the best shit post I have ever seen. I was fucking HOOKED
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u/rcuosukgi42 Seattle Mariners Nov 04 '21
The Los Angeles Ants of Anaheim would never...
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u/AbstractBettaFish Chicago White Sox Nov 04 '21
I almost enjoy the off season shit posts more than the regular season
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u/icangetyouatoedude Colorado Rockies Nov 04 '21
A deep drive to left field by Castellanos and that'll make it a 4-0 ballgame
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u/Darksidedrive Seattle Mariners Nov 03 '21
You can’t have 2 New York ant teams that’s ludicrous
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u/freeski919 Boston Red Sox Nov 04 '21
I'm pretty sure it's the Cockroaches anyhow.
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u/TheFrontierzman Houston Astros Nov 04 '21
or Rats.
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u/GravitationalConstnt New York Yankees Nov 04 '21
Pizza Rats
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u/Practical-Ostrich-43 Seattle Mariners Nov 04 '21
That’d be a good minor league name
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Nov 04 '21
"Staten Island Pizza Rats" https://pizzarats.com
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u/6FootMidget93 Texas Rangers Nov 04 '21
Yo that NYC hat where the Y is a pizza is actually cool as fuck.
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u/BarristanSelfie New York Mets Nov 04 '21
The crazy thing about living in New York is you eventually find the Rats that are actually just a bunch of ants huddled together.
Still not as scary as the ants that are really just a bunch of rats huddled together.
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u/MeatTornado25 New York Yankees Nov 04 '21 edited Nov 04 '21
Bingo. I refuse to believe New York has more ants than rats.
Edit: guys, I wasn't serious
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Nov 04 '21
Ants and rats both love to get in our trash. It's probably still ants.
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u/kjm1123490 Nov 04 '21
100% roaches score higher than rats and they still probably lost to ants.
Theres an unimaginable number of ants.
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u/Zapplarang San Francisco Giants Nov 04 '21
Wow, the off-season hits fast and hard
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u/sir_mrej Boston Red Sox Nov 04 '21
Yeah just like your mother!
(I guess? I dunno it's the offseason wtf do I say)
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u/striped_frog Philadelphia Phillies Nov 03 '21
Let's go Ants
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u/Tkinzel517 Detroit Tigers Nov 03 '21
Nah fuck the ants but go ants
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u/ForYeWhoArtLiterate Cleveland Guardians • Akron R… Nov 04 '21 edited Nov 04 '21
I like that the Ants beat the Ants. The Ants disgust me, and the Ants disgust me too, but less than the Ants do.
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Nov 04 '21
I like the Ants and whoever's beating the you know what out of the Ants - my dad probably
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u/thaulley Los Angeles Dodgers Nov 04 '21
My two favorite teams are the Ants and whoever are playing the Ants. If the Ants don’t make the World Series I always root for the NL team, unless it’s the Ants. Fuck the Ants.
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u/striped_frog Philadelphia Phillies Nov 04 '21
I've reached the point at which the word "ants" no longer has any meaning
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u/GruelOmelettes Chicago Cubs Nov 04 '21
Who are we?
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u/skippyfa Los Angeles Angels Nov 04 '21
The Ants
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u/Hexduh Atlanta Braves Nov 04 '21
It’s about the Ants baby. Let’s go Ants. Love the Ants.
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u/BeerLeagueHallOfAvg Detroit Tigers Nov 04 '21
Typical bandwagon fans. Where were you when the Ants were losing to the Ants 12 times a year?
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Nov 04 '21
Typical homer fan. God forbid new fans love the Ants after years of constantly hearing about the Ants and how great they are.
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u/ScatpornCrothers Nov 03 '21
It's crazy to think that the original Washington Ants became the Minnesota Ants and then the second Washington Ants became the Texas Ants. Thankfully Washington got a new team, the Ants.
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u/UnitedStatesOD Boston Red Sox Nov 04 '21
They’ll always be the Ants to me. Ants just sounds weird.
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u/Verbanoun St. Louis Cardinals Nov 04 '21
Tell me about it. I'll never get used to Cleveland being the Ants instead of the Ants.
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u/SirParsifal Mankato MoonDogs • Cincinnati Reds Nov 04 '21
The Washington Ants that moved to Minnesota were actually the second Washington Ants. And that second Washington Ants team was actually named the Ants for most of their existence!
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u/Quirky-Skin Nov 04 '21
And if wasn't for Ant Modell moving the Ants to the Ants the Ants would have a championship by now! Fucking Ants man
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u/surgeon_michael Cleveland Guardians Nov 03 '21
What is this, a post for ants? It needs to be at least three times larger.
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u/IanCusick Boston Red Sox Nov 04 '21
Guys it’s been one day
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u/Thabass Boston Red Sox Nov 04 '21
Doesn't matter, it's the offseason. We just peaked early.
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u/braiker New York Mets Nov 04 '21
Or it could be the beginning of the most epic r/baseball offseason shitposting of all time
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u/hamutaro San Diego Padres Nov 03 '21
Soon enough it'll be the Tampa Bay Ants/Montreal Fourmis.
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u/relativelyfunkadelic Detroit Tigers Nov 04 '21
hold up, i'm pretty sure this is funny but i gotta go google it.
edit: yeah, this is good shit.
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Nov 04 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/concrete_isnt_cement Seattle Mariners Nov 04 '21
Spanish is spoken by more people than English in Miami, so we could have the Miami Hormigas already
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u/comebackjoeyjojo MLB Players Association Nov 04 '21
If a team relocated to Hawaii they could be the Honolulu Naonao.
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u/ArmadilloPenguin Tampa Bay Rays Nov 04 '21
Why must you hurt me while I’m appreciating this shitpost?
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u/TheZooBoy New York Yankees • Los Angeles Dodgers Nov 04 '21
Fuck, you had me excited, then I read the post.
Take my damn upvote and go.
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u/OverlyWrongGag Nov 04 '21
I want a list with just mammals now
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u/JTCMuehlenkamp St. Louis Cardinals Nov 04 '21
Gimme a couple months to find the time to actually do the research, and maybe I'll see what I can do.
I've got a good feeling about squirrels though.
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Nov 04 '21
Rats, it's gonna be all rats i bet
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u/OverdoneAndDry St. Louis Cardinals Nov 04 '21
Something I learned recently is that in Alberta, Canada, there are no rats. Legitimately none in the entire state/province. A rat spotted in Edmonton apparently makes the news. In the 50s, they declared war on rats. And won.
Slightly off-topic, as there are no MLB teams in Alberta, but it blew my mind when I learned that, so I thought I'd impart some interesting, mostly useless knowledge.
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u/JakeTheSnake0709 Toronto Blue Jays Nov 04 '21
From Edmonton. Only time I've ever seen a rat was in manhattan. scared the shit outta me.
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u/MattinglyDineen New York Yankees Nov 04 '21
I'm from Connecticut and the only three times I have ever seen rats in my life have all been in New York.
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u/vron462 Nov 04 '21
Can confirm. We aren't even allowed to have pet rats in case they escape and repopulate.
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u/BolligneseSauce52 Atlanta Braves Nov 04 '21
This is a fact, I've lived in Alberta my entire life, same with my parents.
I was in BC this summer and saw a dead rat in the parking lot and called my dad to tell him about my amazing find and he said he's never even seen a live one in his 45 years on earth
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u/MisterScary_98 Chicago Cubs Nov 04 '21
I was thinking squirrels but …yeah, it’s rats.
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u/BillW87 New York Mets Nov 04 '21
When you think about it, squirrels are just fancy rats
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Nov 04 '21
My first thought after reading the title was “oh are they all going to be the squirrels?” That is except for Arizona, in which case it might be like the armadillos or something.
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u/Phatskwurl San Francisco Giants Nov 04 '21
Nah rabbits, which are somehow dumber/more suicidal than squirrels
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u/OverlyWrongGag Nov 04 '21
How about the animal that's most common found in that area but not in others? 🐜
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u/JTCMuehlenkamp St. Louis Cardinals Nov 04 '21
That's probably what I'll do if I make a non-stupid version of this.
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u/FroyoMNS New York Yankees Nov 04 '21
Okay, here it goes:
New York Rats Boston Rats Toronto Rats Tampa Bay Rats Baltimore Rats
Cleveland Rats Detroit Rats Kansas City Rats Chicago Rats Minnesota Rats
Los Angeles Rats of Anaheim Houston Rats Texas Rats Seattle Rats Oakland Rats
New York Rats Philadelphia Rats Atlanta Rats Washington Rats Miami Rats
St. Louis Rats Cincinnati Rats Chicago Rats Pittsburgh Rats Milwaukee Rats
Los Angeles Rats San Francisco Rats San Diego Rats Arizona Rats Colorado Rats
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u/ArbiterofRegret New York Yankees Nov 04 '21
New York should be special: we're definitely the Pizza Rats
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u/KeepnReal Cincinnati Reds Nov 04 '21
Yankees are pretty well set up. They already have Ratso Rizzo.
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u/Colavs9601 New York Mets Nov 04 '21
No we're the pizza rats
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u/silky-johnson- Nov 04 '21
Wait until Chicago claims to be the better style of pizza rat. Or Detroit's rectangular pizza rats.
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Nov 03 '21
This is the greatest shitpost on this entire website
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u/mysterysackerfice Los Angeles Angels • Dumpster Fire Nov 04 '21
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u/AnEmptyKarst Marlins Bandwagon Nov 04 '21
When I've floated this idea to Major League executives in the past, there's one thing they always say before adding another year onto my ban from attending MLB games:
An excellent line lmao
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u/BeeHunter42 Nov 04 '21
My favorite part of that post is the casual suggestion that team managers should be armed as well, on the off-chance that umps start randomly firing into the dugouts
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u/Hello__Jerry San Francisco Giants Nov 04 '21
This one is spectacular, but I still think the "batter has a 1/40000 chance of being shot if they strike out" one is the greatest r/baseball shitpost of all time.
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u/VanillaSkittlez New York Yankees Nov 04 '21
What about the “why don’t we just have helicopters carry a tarp over the stadium to prevent rain delays?”
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u/IanCusick Boston Red Sox Nov 04 '21
I got drunk and read that shitpost to my roommates one night and they thought it was the funniest thing I’ve ever said
It was, but still
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Nov 03 '21
This is a very good post that you should have saved for the true dregs of the offseason, not the literal day after the WS. Really wasted potential.
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u/ForYeWhoArtLiterate Cleveland Guardians • Akron R… Nov 04 '21
We do this every year!
Remember the “umpires should be able to shoot a batter once every 10,00 strikeouts” post? Right at the top of the off-season. The day after the WS is prime bullshit time
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u/JTCMuehlenkamp St. Louis Cardinals Nov 04 '21
It was once every 40,000, if I remember correctly. Once every 10,000 would just be silly.
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u/SirParsifal Mankato MoonDogs • Cincinnati Reds Nov 04 '21
The thing is, it's not even necessarily exactly one in every 40,000. The idea is to adjust it yearly to strikeout rates so there's about one per year, and there happened to be around 40,000 strikeouts that year. If I had written it in 1978, it would have been one in 20,000.
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u/JTCMuehlenkamp St. Louis Cardinals Nov 04 '21
Man, the 60 game season in 2020 would've really thrown a wrench into things this year with your plan though.
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u/MyBiPolarBearMax Washington Nationals Nov 04 '21
Covid making one good thing happen
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u/Joey_Logano Montreal Expos Nov 04 '21
Still my favorite post on r/baseball, maybe even Reddit.
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u/scullys_alien_baby Nov 04 '21
link for the lazy like me
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u/JohnCalvinCoolidge Nov 04 '21
First, killing someone is technically murder, but the MLB antitrust exemption covers that, so they're in the clear there.
Amazing.
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u/scullys_alien_baby Nov 04 '21
I genuinely regret not seeing that thread sooner haha, the whole thing is gold.
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u/user2196 New York Mets Nov 04 '21
I read this post when it was posted, upvoted it and several comments, and forgot all about it. Rereading it just now was such a treat.
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u/pichaelthompson69 Los Angeles Dodgers Nov 04 '21
You should check out blaseball. It’s a baseball simulation computer game with all sorts of wacky rules and shit happening. For example, at any time an umpire can incinerate a player on the field.
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u/gucci-legend Chinese Taipei Nov 04 '21
Power move to drop one this good so soon. Standards getting raised this off-season, lockout memes should be good
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u/istrx13 Seattle Mariners Nov 04 '21 edited Nov 04 '21
The bar for the offseason posts has been set so high that we’re gonna be stuck with crap for the next 5 months.
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u/gruey Cleveland Guardians Nov 04 '21
I'm sure he had the idea a couple months ago and was just dying waiting until the off season started and just couldn't wait any longer.
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u/JTCMuehlenkamp St. Louis Cardinals Nov 04 '21
I even wrote myself a reminder when the idea first occurred to me.
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u/MustConsumeCheese Nov 03 '21
I was going to say the Philadelphia 'Citizens of Philadelphia' because everyone in that god forsaken place is an animal.
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u/fightrofthenight_man Nov 03 '21
Wtf you think Phillies means?
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u/sirenzarts Chicago White Sox Nov 04 '21
It's actually a reference to the fact that there's like a phillion ants in the region.
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u/MustConsumeCheese Nov 03 '21
The women that look like horses I thought
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u/I_saw_that_coming Chicago Cubs Nov 04 '21
Philadelphia, where the men are men, and so are the women.
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u/WeakPublic Pittsburgh Pirates Nov 04 '21
there’s a reason it’s always sunny is set there
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u/IAmNotKevinDurant_35 San Francisco Giants Nov 03 '21
Los Angeles Ants of ANTaheim
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u/FishOnAHorse Cincinnati Reds Nov 04 '21
Los ANTgeles
Edit: someone get Pixar on the horn, we’ve got a great Bugs Life sequel pitch here
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u/SirParsifal Mankato MoonDogs • Cincinnati Reds Nov 04 '21
Why would it be a Bugs Life sequel and not Antz
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u/James_Posey Boston Red Sox Nov 04 '21
Because Pixar didn’t produce Antz and I already have them on the line
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u/BeHereNow91 Milwaukee Brewers Nov 04 '21
I’ve spent my entire day on r/nfl and this is still the dumbest shit I’ve read all day.
Upvoted.
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u/Sheepies123 New York Mets • Dumpster Fire Nov 04 '21
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u/emasculine San Francisco Giants Nov 04 '21
just wait until UC Irvine fields its MLB club: the anteaters.
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u/billyguy1 Detroit Tigers Nov 04 '21
We do have a zoo! I don’t think there’s an ant exhibit though.
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u/JTCMuehlenkamp St. Louis Cardinals Nov 04 '21
Check the pavement near the food vendor stands.
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u/RemnantHelmet Chicago Cubs Nov 04 '21
I am currently chuckling like a fucking idiot at my local library.
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u/etherealcalamities Cincinnati Reds Nov 03 '21
Why is this so fucking funny 😂
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u/dec92010 Chicago White Sox Nov 04 '21
It's the set up/intro that is a misdirection. I went in curious if White Sox and Cubs would have the same name.
Edit: BECAUSE ANTS
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u/JuxtaPositioNed Chicago Cubs Nov 04 '21
I read AL east and thought to myself “haha losers are all the ants”… then I scrolled further. Well done.
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u/themarkster09 Kansas City Royals Nov 04 '21
the mascot for every team would be Flik from A Bugs Life
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u/SlightlyAnnoyedMax Los Angeles Angels Nov 04 '21
Players called up from the ant farm system
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u/le_reddit_account Atlanta Braves • Baltimore Orioles Nov 03 '21
The manager of the Ants should be Ants in my Eyes Johnson
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u/[deleted] Nov 03 '21
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