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Drooling on the Pillow

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Day of the Jackal Rub 

The New Jersey Jackals announced yesterday that the
Academy of Massage Therapy in Englewood will be its
official massage therapy provider this season.

Okay. It turns out the above, via Baristanet, is not a joke. I'm a Newark Bears guy, myself, and I've always wondered about the name of the Little Falls team. Jackals don't strike me as baseballmorphic figures. There's a hockey team in Elmira called the Jackals, but with a town named Elmira you want a fierce sounding animal to represent you.

Jackals live in Asia and Africa. Of course, the same could be said of Lions and Tigers but jackals exist in the American lexicon as epithets more than icons. The fact is, they're small and kind of cute. They're referred to as opportunistic omnivores, i.e. scavengers, and are, among quadrupeds, parked near the sub-basement of the food chain.

Of course New Jersey doesn't have a lot of scary indigenous fauna. We've got bears, but that's taken. Squirrels, raccoons, chipmunks and 'possums. Deer. Birds work for baseball, but I can't think of a one with a New Jersey cachet. Forget amphibians and mollusks. Fish could work, but not so well for Little Falls. The Stripers. The Blues. I don't know.

Historically, Little Falls is known for carpet manufacturing and brownstone quarrying. The Carpetbaggers is as bad as the Jackals and the Quarrymen are just a has-been Brit band. I'm sure they were tempted to go with a Sopranos link and I commend them for resisting. The world doesn't need another Bada Bing joke. Interestingly enough, though, Badabing is the name of a Dutch football team. I kid you not.

Okay, I'll let the Jackal thing slide. But I've got to hope the fact that they are a baseball team with an Official Massage Therapy Provider dooms them in the Northeast League this year. The Baseball Gods do not approve.
Posted by: Sluggo / 11:28 AM
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