Community Led Pressure Gives Birth to Sun Dogs
Ray D. Enzé, NLN baseball blogger
December 26, 2034: Aurora, Colorado – The Borealis are not exactly known for their desperate need for change – in fact, they could rightfully be described as abhorring change. During the clubs’s 28-years of existance, the only change since day 1 of the PEBA has been the addition of their Short A club at Mokule’ia in 2008, their Rookie League club at Montserrat in 2030 – both League mandated additions, and the slight modifications to the Aurora uniform after the 2011 season – removing the logo on the breast while adding ‘Aurora’ across the chest, and replacing ‘AB’ on cap with a more stylish ‘A’.
Well, that’s about to change. While Aurora’s minor league system is loaded with the creatively named ‘Balloonists’ (AA Gatineau), ‘Rapidos Blancos’ (A San Luis Rio Colorado), ‘Oceanic’ (SA Mokule’ia) and the recently added ‘Mystique’ (R Montserrat), the AAA team in Thornton, just up the road from Aurora, was stuck with the moniker ‘FasTrax’. No one left in the organization remembers how that name came to pass – and even fan clubs and internet searches revealed nothing as to the origin of the FasTrax name.
One supposes it was a nod to the transit system in the region – after all, the PEBA has other ‘transit’ related names – we have the London Underground, and there was once the Montreal Metro -not to mention out own Balloonists. However, FasTrax came about, a national poll conducted this spring by Northern Lights News, found FasTrax to be the least popular name in the entire PEBA hierarchy.
And fans in the greater Denver Metro area have been complaining for years. One recent Letter to the Editor in the Denver Post read”
“When will the Borealis do something about the AAA team name? I had a friend from the San Francisco Bay Area visting and they wanted to know why we named our team after the payment system the Bay Area uses to cross bridges and toll roads?”
Another – cleary a more recent fan, who wasn’t privy to the team’s long playoff history, was more blunt:
“FasTrax? Fast to the bottom of the GBB! More like FastWreck”
So the glacial-like pace of change in the Organization finally reached the finish line and announced today that there will be a re-branding of the Thornton FasTrax – sort of. Introducing the Thornton Sun Dogs!
Now, you may be asking yourself, what is a Sundog? Well, for one, it is an atmospheric phenomenon, and thus it nicely keeps in line with the ‘aurora borealis’. But for a moretechnical description, let’s try this one”
A sundog is a concentrated patch of sunlight occasionally seen about 22° to the left or right of the Sun. Sundogs often form in pairs on either side of our daytime star when sunlight refracts through icy clouds containing hexagonal platecrystals aligned with their large, flat faces parallel to the ground. Technically known as parhelia (singular parhelion) they are often white but sometimes quite colorful, looking like detached pieces of rainbow, with red on the inside, toward the Sun, and blue on the outside.
So when you see the sun on those cold, icy days, with those odd lines astride it – that’s a sundog. Why are they called such? Nobody knows – but they are there, and they are Aurora’s ‘new’ AAA team.
As I said, a re-brand – sort of, as the team will retain the blue, red and white color scheme, with the name slanted upwards across the chest – half red and half white, as before, except a red ‘Sun’ and white ‘Dogs, with the white shoulders – an homage to the ‘sundog’ concept and the similar white shoulders the Borealis carry. The cap will sport the same split ‘T’ as before, but instead of half red and half white, it will be red with white edges on the cross bar – another tip of the cap to a ‘sundog’.
From a distance, this will look like the same old Thornton squad – did I mention that this is from the team that abhors change? But the fans apparently are loving the new look, nonetheless, as in the brief amount of time they’ve been available, they’ve been flying off the shelves. One of the first comments left on the website was:
“This is the best thing Aurora has done since the ‘aurora borealis’ jersey’s they came out with for the 20th anniversary!”
Seeing it’s the only new thing since sliced bread on The Front Range, perhaps so.
