A jacket can mean many things, depending on the region and context in which it is used.
It can also mean masturbation.
The Rancho Cucamonga Quakes were unaware of the word’s second meaning when they chose the nickname Jackets for this season’s Minor League Baseball Fun Cup.
The Dodgers’ minor league affiliate has decided to stick with Jackets as its name during its three Cup events this season – but only after a few tense hours following the announcement of its name Thursday morning.
On Friday, Grant Riddle, executive vice president and general manager of the Quakes, told The Times in a telephone interview: “We hit the ground running at 10 o’clock and we’re very excited.” “We’ve been working on this for two years, we’ve gone through an exhaustive process, all of that. And then we started getting some comments that we didn’t understand.”
According to the MiLB website, the Copa de la Diversión is a series of events spread throughout the season that celebrate the culture and values of the team’s local Latino communities. Part of that celebration is participating teams adopting fun new identities that reflect that part of their fan bases.
“We had fun with it, but we kind of wanted to reengage and energize our fan base,” Riddle said. “We’ve been looking for something, maybe a little more unique to activate our local Latin fan base. “We’ve been working on it for a couple of years.”
The idea for a mariachi theme emerged, inspired in part by the popularity of mariachi performances at Dodger games and in part by the fond memories of Dodger relief pitcher and Rancho Cucamonga resident Joe Kelly wearing a mariachi jacket to the White House after Los Angeles’ victory in the 2020 World Series.
“We’ve been fortunate enough to have him pitch in a couple of rehab appearances with us,” Riddle said of Kelly, “and the fan reaction clearly showed that Joe is a fan favorite in this area. And he just a very, very nice man.”
Mariachi was already the name of another team, so the Quakes began to consider other options.
“And then it occurred to us: What was Kelly wearing to the White House? She was wearing a mariachi jacket. Alright, what if we stick with the literal translation of the jacket? Jackets! We knew there were a couple of options, but she drew us to Jackets because of the Q, you know? Everything in Quakeland – our t-shirt, our cap – is Q. We had a lot of fun with the letter Q. We thought, that’s it, that has to be the one.
Dodgers pitcher Joe Kelly wears a mariachi jacket at the team’s reception at the White House on July 2, 2021, in Washington.
(Julio Cortez / Associated Press)
“So that was vetoed through Major League Baseball, we engaged our local Hispanic-Latino community regarding the concept. We mailed a mariachi group. Our staff, the families, we have a lot of cultural participation. And everyone said, ‘This is going to be amazing! “
Riddle added that the Kelly family also approved the choice of name and the use of Kelly’s image as part of the logo.
And during all that time, Riddle said, the team never heard anything about the slang definition of jackets.
But people on social media were quick to point out Thursday morning, causing the Quakes to pull all of their announcements about the name from social media for a few hours while they went through an expedited version of the vetting process again.
“We immediately worry: Have we made an irreversible mistake?” Riddle said. “We immediately contacted those groups… and quickly realized that none of them were aware of it. So that wasn’t his first immediate thought. And just the idea that obviously [la definición del argot] exists, but our intention was none other than the literal translation. We’re not trying to have fun with this.
“And I think after a quick reflection, we came to the conclusion that this is too important a story to turn around, and we followed through and felt good about it. Language is dynamic and there can be words that mean two different things. … And the slang is not what it means to us nor is it what it will ever mean to us here in this community and at the ballpark.”
The team will wear their Jackets uniforms on April 13 (replica jersey giveaway night), May 16 (food and drink night) and July 19 (Joe Kelly doll giveaway night).
2024-03-18 19:11:03
#Jackets #Dodgers #minor #league #team
