The Great Falls Wind Sox?

The City of Great Falls (my hometown) can be a frustrating little beast. This all derives from a conversation I had with a couple friends the other day.

I grew up a fan of the Great Falls Dodgers. Great Falls being about 800 miles from any large city with a baseball team, the Los Angeles Dodgers naturally became the target of my pro baseball loyalties as the parent club of our home team. The players were never around for very long--one season, maybe two--as is the nature of A-level ball, but it gave me a thrill to know that I was seeing future Major League ballplayers: Mike Devereaux, Eric Karros, Pedro Martinez, Jose Offerman, and Raul Mondesi to name a few. I got to see players from right behind home plate that would later attract fans by the tens of thousands. Some of these players were good at the time, but it was watching them and wondering that made things exciting. I remember thinking Jose Offerman was the greatest player I'd ever seen...

But that's all beside the point. Pro baseball has been in Great Falls since 1911 and has held rookie teams for MLB clubs since the early 1960s, when the Great Falls Electrics formed. They were followed by the Giants for fourteen seasons before the Dodgers placed a club there in 1984. I was pretty ticked when they pulled out a few years ago, but fortunately they were replaced by the Great Falls White Sox.

But here's what gets me. The Great Falls Electrics was a great team name. It reflected Great Falls itself: a city surrounded by waterfalls, serving as the Diehard for the rest of the Northwest. After that, the Great Falls Giants? The Great Falls Dodgers? When the Dodgers left, I was upset, but with the advent of a new ball club I figured it was a great opportunity to choose a team name that would again be a tribute to a unique Montana city. Some friends and I tossed around plenty of names that would have been great:

The Minutemen (GF holds a large Air Force base and more ICBMs than you could shake a stick at)
The Peacemakers (Old west Montana town)
The Electrics (Old school throwback)
The Corps (as in Corps of Discovery--we name everything else after Lewis & Clark, why not the ball club?)
The Chargers
The Power

So what do they name the team? The Great Falls White Sox. Same colors, same unies...Eventually they at least changed the logo. It has the word "Sox" with a baseball blowing really hard...because Great Falls happens to be America's windiest city, yet another potential source for a good name ignored by my fellow G Funk denizens.

Here's my point. I understand that Great Falls appreciated the Chicago White Sox establishing a team immediately after LA left and that they gave the team its name as a tribute to the Chicago organization, but they could still spice it up a bit. I've been living out of the city for a number of years now, but here's my suggestion: The Great Falls Wind Sox. Think about it: Windiest city in the country as a minor league affiliate of the Windy City. It keeps the "Sox" in the name and yet is unique to Great Falls. They could change the name with practically no impact--they wouldn't have the change the uniforms or even the logo. The more I think about this idea, the more I like it. Might have to write a letter or two about this...