A little bit of backstory: the Atlanta Braves are one of the few organizations in baseball that owns the majority of their minor league affiliates. It’s why all the teams they own are called “Braves;” the Danville Braves, Rome Braves, Mississippi Braves and Gwinnett Braves. At one point, they stressed the importance of naming all their teams Braves, so that they could really reinforce brand awareness and strengthen their identity to all parts of the Southeast in which they resided in.
This was a stark difference to the vast majority of the rest of Minor League Baseball, who had team names that were often more whimsical and often identifiable to their specific towns/regions, like the Montgomery Biscuits, Modesto Nuts, Las Vegas 51s, Buffalo Bisons and Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp just to name a few. It was almost a rite of passage for young players to work their way up the ranks, through teams with less than prestigious names, before they had the chances to hope to play for one of the 30 Major League Baseball franchises.
Personally, I’ve always felt the Braves were an organization of squares, to name all their minor league franchises Braves, in such a calculated and serious-business manner. Like their 18-year old rookies in Danville might be able to close their eyes and imagine that they’re in a 35,000 attendance ballpark in Atlanta and suddenly translate playing like a major leaguer in their rinky-dink park that maybe 35 people are actually at. Or that their fans will automatically love the Atlanta Braves solely because their favorite players in Jackson, Mississippi were ultimately traded to the White Sox or Diamondbacks.
Anyway, what prompted this post was this news that I saw that the Gwinnett Braves are taking suggestions for new names for them to use in starting in 2018. The Atlanta Braves are finally opening up to the idea of naming one of their Jesus affiliates something other than “the Braves.”
