A Triad baseball team has a new name tied to its host city's industrial past - the Burlington Sock Puppets.
The name is a reflection of how hard it has become over the last several years to pick a new moniker for a minor-level team.
No longer are we satisfied with common names that populate the major sports teams in big cities. Now, locals want their team to reflect the uniqueness of their city. And that's not easy to do.
Just look at the Winston-Salem Dash. The name reflects the punctuation between the twin cities, despite the fact that it's actually a hyphen. But does anyone want to root for a hyphen?
The minor leagues went through some changes last year. One of them was that the Appalachian League, in which the Burlington team plays, is now a summer college team instead of a minor-league team affiliated with the Kansas City Royals. That's why the team formerly known as the Burlington Royals needed a new name.
Baseball team names and knitwear have a long history of course — just think of the hosiery-themed Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox.
The Sock Puppets nickname is steeped in the city's history. Burlington became a textile and knitting industry powerhouse in the 20th century.