Author Archive | Mark A. Rayner

Sometimes it’s a bit embarrassing, living here in London, Ontario.

In the last week, we’ve got the dubious honor of being the first city to forcibly remove the tents of the Occupy protests here in town. (There’s been relatively little outcry.) And now, we’ve got a new baseball team causing problems.

Yay, right? Well, it turns out they’ve decided to call themselves the London Rippers. The president of the club has made the weak excuse that it’s about “ripping” a ball’s cover off, because they hit so hard, but all you have to do is look at their logo, and it’s pretty clear the name is a reference to Jack the Ripper. Everyone’s upset about it, and the mayor has even asked the owner to change the name. (This is the same genius that had the peaceful Occupy protesters removed from Victoria Park in a late-night raid.)

The thing is, the Rippers is not even the worst name the new baseball team came up with. Here’s a short list of the names they rejected:

• The London Bridges
• The London Hoodlums
• The London Fog
• The London Droogs
• The London (The Other One) Westminster Abbeys
• The London Intestinal Blockages
• The London Big Bens
• The London Aggressive Cancers
• The London Buzz-Bombs
• The London Hackneys
• The London Arterial Spurts
• The London Bat Buffers
• The London Ball Bobbies
• The London Hitlers

I’m sure our research-monkeys have missed a few, so feel free to add others in the comments.

Alltop used to play for the Lincoln Unabombers.