Some weird activist group started up a trending topic yesterday....with the death of former Braves great, Hank Aaron. His nickname during his career....'Hammer' of course.
Since Braves is considered bad form, the subject group suggested that the Atlanta team rename itself....the Atlanta Hammers.
Odds of this happening? Ten years ago, I would have said 1-percent chance. Today, I'd say it's near 40-percent.
The thing about this as the name and symbol of the team? Well....if you go and type 'hammer' into google....you tend to get a symbol of a hammer and sickle (the Communist brand).
The symbiology through history of the hammer? It's supposed to mean sacrificial efforts were made....affecting society and culture. You gave up something of value and signficance....to get something that you thought was of more value (usually it wasn't).
The Braves name? This goes back to the 1870s, when some Cincinnati baseball folks packed up and left for the east coast. Arriving in Boston, they found interest in a team, but this ran through several decades of varying economic success and different names being used.
At some point in 1898....the team caught on fire and had a 102-47 record....which if you did the statistical average, it's one of the impossible records possible.
The team fell apart in 1901, when the league agreed to a second Boston team in the local area. Fan support dropped by a substantial amount.
From a period of 1900 to 1913....the changing names soon-to-be-the-Braves team was crap. At some point in 1912....the name 'Braves' started up and by 1914....the luck of the team had changed, in an odd way.
The 1914 season has the Braves in last place at the end of the first 22 games. Somewhere around the halfway point of 1914....they were around 26 wins and 40 losses. Then some crazy action occurred, and the team wrapped up the season at the top of the National League. It's one of those stories talked about on a rare basis, and no one jumps into the season....where the Braves go onto the World Series and defeat the A's.
From that point on....they were the Boston Braves.
Babe Ruth, a member of the Braves? No one mentions this much, but in 1935....the Yankees traded Ruth away. Ruth came to the Braves and played a brief 28 games, then retired from baseball (not even making it to the mid-way point). That season for the Braves? One of the worst of all time, with only 38 total wins at the end of the season.
If this goes to a name-change...to the Hammers? I suspect it'll be around for three or four seasons, and the players will mostly all agree that Hammers doesn't work and everyone is using the stupid hammer-and-sickle symbiology for fake team t-shirts.
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