Columnist Ron Kantowski: Don’t count on ‘51s’ tag disappearing

Thursday, Jan. 11, 2001 | 10:32 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's column appears Thursday. His inside notes column appears Tuesday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

With the exception of former Channel 3 sports anchor Colin Cowherd, who called from Portland (where he's now covering exciting college football) to say he actually likes the new nickname of Las Vegas' triple-A baseball franchise, everyone agrees that "51s" is an awful monicker for the team formerly known as the Stars.

Now can we all get on with our lives?

This hubbub over the Stars' new identity simply won't cease or desist. It has been three weeks since the team changed its name from something ordinary to something ordinarily ridiculous. Yet this week I heard another member of the local media state he would never refer to Las Vegas' triple-A baseball franchise by its new name and rumblings that a group of Stars -- er 51s -- season-ticket holders may be organizing a campaign to change the name again, or at least back to "Stars."

According to a source, these season-ticket holders plan to renounce them unless the name is changed. Which probably will set the Stars -- er 51s -- back at least a couple of hundred dollars.

Because like the waist-high strike zone, the name isn't gonna change.

While those who hold pinstripes near and dear continued to beef about the new name, there was a Scorecard item in this week's Sports Illustrated about it. And during a free -- er, benefit -- celebrity golf outing this week, Miami Steve Van Zandt, who plays lead guitar in Bruce Springsteen's band and Tony Soprano's foot soldier Silvio Dante in the smash HBO series "The Sopranos," waxed philosophical on the Stars' new nickname for a local TV soundbite.

As that was happening, three officials at Mandalay Entertainment Inc., the Stars' -- er, 51s' -- majority owner, separated their shoulders trying to pat themselves on the back.

To the Stars' -- er, 51s' -- brass, this must be like Monday Night Football signing Dennis Miller to be the third man in the booth. As fight promoter Bob Arum may or may not have said, "There is no such thing as bad publicity."

Regardless of what has written in the press release, I will always believe the new name was adopted not to promote a secret installation where the government allegedly dissects little green men, but to promote the sale of T-shirts plastered with little green men logos.

Basically, the Stars' -- er 51s' -- new affiliation with the Los Angeles Dodgers gave the franchise the perfect excuse to change its name and print more money. The shrewder move would have been to adopt the parent club's famous monicker and call attention to the fact that you are the top farm club for the Los Angeles Dodgers, one of baseball's most marketable properties. I mean, even Elton John's heard of the Dodgers, and he's um, a ... piano player.

But then my source of income has never been augmented by T-shirt sales at ballgames.

The thing about the nickname -- any nickname -- is that it will grow on you. Within a year, or maybe even by the all-star break, "Las Vegas 51s" will sound every bit as normal and appropriate as Utah Jazz or Los Angeles Lakers or Houston Colt .45s. (OK, disregard the .45s).

And one day if Elton John takes to the stage at the MGM Grand dressed in a sequined baseball uniform featuring a little green man as part of the logo, just remember who told you so.