April 3, 2002
One (Vote) for the Road: '66ers' Top Choice for Team
By Dennis Latta
Journal Staff Writer
The 66ers are leading coming out of the last turn, but Isotopes are moving up on the outside and Roadrunners are on the rail.
Atoms and Dukes are hoping for a hole so they can charge from behind.
The competition for a nickname for the Pacific Coast League baseball team that will start playing in Albuquerque next year is down to five.
And a few of those five seem to have a better chance than the others.
Ken Young, managing partner of Albuquerque Baseball Inc., has lawyers looking into the availability of the five finalists, which came from many nominations submitted to a local radio station. Young will pick the nickname, and he's leading toward 66ers and Isotopes.
And Dukes would be the most expensive, hurting the chances of the name returning.
Starting in 1972, Albuquerque landed the Triple-A team for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and it was nicknamed the Dukes. The Dukes were an integral part of the sports landscape here until the franchise was sold and moved to Portland, Ore., at the end of the 2000 season.
The name Dukes went with the franchise, though the team in Portland is known as the Beavers. It would cost an estimated $10,000 to $15,000 to purchase the name back.
''Dukes are on the list, but there hasn't been that much support for them,'' Young says. ''I don't know that we'll go with Dukes.''
Isotopes have a complicated meaning in the dictionary, but that's not why the name is being considered. Last year, "The Simpsons" television show on the Fox network had a reference to the baseball team named the Isotopes from fictional Springfield moving to Albuquerque.
According to Webster's dictionary, an isotope is any two or more forms of an element having the same or very closely related chemical properties and the same atomic number but different atomic weights.
''I don't know what kind of a logo there would be for Isotopes. I think we could come up with a unique logo,'' Young says.
The name 66ers is a derivative of Route 66, which ran through the middle of Albuquerque. The Atoms come from New Mexico's history with the atomic bomb, and roadrunners are the state bird.
''The mascot doesn't have to be tied in with the name,'' Young says. ''In Norfolk (where Young runs the Triple-A team for the New York Mets) our name is the Tides, but our mascot is a big furry thing that looks like a Sesame Street character.''
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