What's In A Name?

Around The Horn was formed as the result of a merger between the Boston Tea Party and Draft Theme Worlds. From the time of the merger until the S1 Amateur Draft, ATH went by the moniker "Brave New World" while the original owners got to know one another and then went through several rounds of voting to establish a permanent world name. The merger, as well as the voting process, was all coordinated by Michael (sermonauthor) who took some time to put together a few words about the three finalists from that process as well as how the voting results shook out. Without further ado, here are those "few words" :

The whole World naming was an interesting process to watch as it unfolded. The major theme for me was surprise after surprise. Very little occurred that I expected—especially early on.

For instance, we expected three rounds:

1. Quarterfinals

2. Semis

3. Finals.

But after the first round it became apparent that going to a second round was simply unnecessary as the top three vote getters were significantly ahead in the results. The lowest, No Crying in Baseball, finished 3 votes in front of a pack that received 6 votes:

Several of the nominations were surprising in that, based on chat conversation, I expected them to be strong contenders. These included:

Enter Sandman (2 votes)

Your Killing Me Smalls (5 votes)

Equally surprising to me were some names I thought were not all that special and would die on the vine:

Bleacher Creatures (5 votes)

7th Inning Stretch (6 votes)

High & Tight (6 votes)

Fishing For Trout (6 votes)

Around The Horn (10 votes)

Yes, I did not see that last one coming. I don’t think it’s a bad name at all. I just think it lacks the pizzazz that several others possessed. I'll be curious to hear comments pro and con on this.

The lone orphan was Basket Catch which garnered exactly zero support and is currently in therapy dealing abandonment issues:

Going into the Finals I was rooting for either MONEYBRAWL which I found to be a terribly creative take on the Michael Lewis book and my No Crying In Baseball from A League of their Own.

If this were a horse race Around The Horn jumped out in the lead and never trailed the competition. Around the 3/4 mark, when No Crying had almost caught the leader, it had plenty left in the tank and sprinted across the finish line for a clear victory:

All in all I think we done good here. If we decide we don’t love the name after a few seasons it’s not written in stone. But it is a baseball name which I feel is very important. The one non-baseball nomination, Your Killing Me Smalls, had me a bit panicked when it jumped to near the top. I was relieved when it faded down the stretch. Clearly others would disagree with that assessment.

The winner of our $10 WIS Gift Card is pelot. You will have that in your account within a couple days.

I’d love to hear your comments on the results, how the process was run or anything else you have to say. I don’t know if there are comments allowed here, but if not feel free to post on world chat. (Editor's note: I'm 95% certain you can comment on this using a Google Account, but if you make your comments in World Chat there is a 100% chance people will see them.)

Thanks to all for your participation.

Michael (sermonauthor)