McCaleb: Contest offers chance to name team

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Comedian Jerry Seinfeld once offered this quip about fans’ allegiance to their favorite sports teams:

“The players change. The manager changes. The ballpark changes. About the only thing that stays the same is the uniform. When you get down to it, what you’re really rooting for is the shirt.”

Better be a pretty good shirt.

Your chance to make sure that McHenry County is rooting for a great shirt comes Sunday in these very pages.

The Northwest Herald is partnering with the group that is bringing professional baseball to Woodstock in a “name-the-team” contest. Anyone not affiliated with the team or the newspaper can enter.

The winning team name will be a key factor in determining the team’s logo, color scheme and, yes, the uniforms.

McHenry/Lake Professional Baseball Group LLC was awarded a Frontier League franchise last year. The Frontier League is independent of Major League Baseball and has 12 teams in seven states across the Midwest.

After a failed attempt to locate the team on McHenry County College property off Route 14 in Crystal Lake, the team gained approval to build a stadium on 240 acres of land southeast of the intersection of Route 14 and Lake Shore Drive in Woodstock. The land is being donated by Merryman Aggregate Inc., which received the OK from the Woodstock City Council in December to mine gravel on a portion of the property.

Groundbreaking for the park, originally scheduled for this summer, has been pushed back to spring 2010, with the franchise’s debut season in 2011, when 48 professional baseball games will be played there.

There remains all kinds of grand plans for the stadium site, with a multipurpose venue that can host amateur athletic events, concerts and other community events. The site also still could become home to the McHenry County Fairgrounds.

As for the naming contest, check out Sunday’s newspaper or visit www.mchenrycounty probaseball.com, the team’s new Web site, for details. The contest runs through July 5. Team officials then will pore over the entries and select a winner.

I’m sure the decision will be difficult, because there is no shortage of creative people in McHenry County.

The fan who submits the name that gets selected will win an authentic game jersey and cap, and two season tickets for the team’s first season.

So light a candle. Turn on some music. Read some Roger Angell.

Whatever it takes to get those creative juices flowing.

And don’t forget to look for contest details in tomorrow’s paper.

• Dan McCaleb is editor of the Northwest Herald. He can be reached at 815-459-4122, or by e-mail at dmccaleb@nwherald.com.