what's in a name?

Indianapolis Colts shirts are showing up all over Knoxville. On Friday, I saw some nice Colts sweatshirts being worn by a few of the employees at Sam's Club, where I could have bought cupcakes decorated with the Colts horseshoe atop blue and white icing. Our town doesn't have any special relationship with the Circle City. It's all about Peyton.

The News Sentinel gathered together 49 of the many local kids who were named after Peyton Manning since his days as quarterback of the Vols. Today's paper is packed full of Peyton minutiae as it has been for several days. And it's not just the newspaper. Rick Russo from WVLT is filing Peyton-centric reports from Miami. Sports collectors are hoping their Manning memorabilia will increase in value.

People with Baltimore ties still remember how the Colts abandoned them in the dark of night. Years later when Baltimore did to Cleveland what Indianapolis had done to Baltimore, somebody had the decency to insist that the team leave their name behind. Otherwise there would be Baltimore Browns instead of Baltimore Ravens. It would have been nice if Indianapolis had come up with a new name for their team and if the Colts name was made available when Baltimore got a team again. For the same reason, there really shouldn't be Cardinals in Arizona or Rams in St. Louis. The Oilers did the right thing when they became the Titans after moving from Houston to Tennessee even though the Texans didn't use the Oilers name.

There's examples in other sports too. My dad felt abandoned when the Giants left him for San Francisco. However the best case for leaving the name behind when a team moves can be summed up in two words: Utah Jazz.