Chop Shop Hawkers Made a Killing Playing Name Game

Admittedly, I know nothing about baseball, or the World Series, or Minnesota, or Atlanta, except my husband.

My husband is from Atlanta. And for what I hope is the last time, he chopped me the other night. The Tomahawk Chop. Then he whooped it up a while after that.

“Stop the chop,” I said. “And that whoop is really getting on my nerves.”

So I can understand the protesters who said that the chop is demeaning and that the war whoop has got to go too.

Clyde Bellecourt, the national director of the American Indian Movement, said that Ted Turner, the owner of the Atlanta Braves, should not only stop the chop, but banish the “Braves” name.

(We’re waiting for Ted to talk chop now that the Series is over).

Jane Fonda, meantime, has already said that she will stop the chop. But what with Atlanta being the home of the Braves and Ted being at home in Atlanta, and Jane and Ted soon to set up shop, in a legally binding sense, well, Jane has wisely declined to comment on banning the Braves name.

“He could have a name-the-team contest,” Bellecourt said of the seemingly insensitive Ted.

(Jane, what would Tom have done in a situation like this?)

Anyway, you can see how all of this can get rather complicated, but this name-changing thing might not be such a bad idea.

Because we all know that left to their own devices, sports fans rarely stray very far in their search for game time accessory tips.

You got a team named after an Indian warrior and you’re going to get people showing up with tomahawks.

If your guys are the Twins, you’ll find yourself overcome with an inexplicable desire to start waving handkerchiefs in the air like some damsel in distress.

Call your team the Trojans, and you wind up with all those gawd-awful maroon ties and a compulsion to order at least one personalized license plate that announces the year of your graduating class.

I say we save our nation from further embarrassment and just start from scratch with new team names across the board.

The Fighting Irish? Designate a new driver. The Arkansas Razorbacks? Swine. The Washington Redskins? Even more politically incorrect than The Senators these days. The UC Irvine Anteaters? Zot.

Wash it all away!

Let’s think back to a gentler time for inspiration, back to when sports were just for fun--before scholarship scandals, autographs for sale, steroids, before Bo, before over-the-hill pitchers started posing in their underwear and overweight tackles started pitching beer.

Remember back to when there were no “winners and losers” but just a bunch of earnest players trying their best on the playing field and enjoying the full support of their friends, neighbors, and townsfolk, regardless of the score.

No, scratch all that. I can’t think back that far either.

But I still think there’s hope. I, for one, can see it in the youth of today. My daughter’s soccer league, for example, has rejected bellicose imagery out of hand.

For one thing, they don’t know what bellicose means.

But who can have their feelings hurt by The Little Mermaids, The Gummi Bears, The Barbies, The Bunnies, The Tiger Lilies and The Little Ponies? These are but a few.

Exploring this unmined lode of possibilities might be something for Ted to consider.

Since The Gummi Bears is already taken, how about The Kitties, Ted? The Doggies?

No. Why not be a real maverick? The Teddies! It’s cute and cuddly and in keeping with the Turner tradition, now even your baseball team will bear the Ted name.

On the other hand, I don’t mean to be too rash. There’s a lot of money tied up in professional sports.

And one should be responsive to the needs of our nation’s business community, especially in this time of economic gloom.

Which is why a plea by ARA Services, which handles concessions at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium--aka The Chop Shop--caught my eye from the start.

ARA just thought that before the nation got carried away in a haze of sensitivity, the full story should be told.

“The series has made a big, big difference in foam rubber novelties,” spokesman Terry Fallon said.

“ARA has been selling at concession stands for 20 years, and they’ve broken every record they had because of the tomahawk.”

So maybe all of this deserves some more thought.