Here’s my take on the El Paso Triple A Baseball Team Naming Fiasco, henceforth, Namegate. (Here’s the story in the El Paso Times. Make sure you read the hundreds of comments.)
Mountain Star already decided on a name: Sun Dogs. To make it seem inclusive, they picked four other names and let El Pasoans vote on it. To ensure that Sun Dogs was selected, they picked four of the lamest names that were suggested.
Is it a coincidence that the other four names were in alphabetical order, from the first four letters of the alphabet? They were probably in a hurry, and didn’t go through the whole list to pick bad names. They probably didn’t have to.
That’s just what it looks like from 5,000 miles away.