Advertisement Fletcher Mackel: Forget talking about Saints this week; Zephyrs owners have no respect for New Orleans Share Shares Copy Link Copy

Usually on Mondays, I write columns about the New Orleans Saints. But going in-depth on the black and gold seems repetitive this Monday. I’ll explain in a few sentences. Here’s a quick recap: Our city’s NFL team has won back-to-back games and is 2-3 overall. The thrilling 41-38 victory over the Carolina Panthers was the team’s first win at home this year, meaning Sean Payton’s guys avoided starting 0-3 in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome for the first time since 1995. Drew Brees is amazing, and every one of his 465 passing yards and four touchdowns against the Panthers was needed to secure victory. The reason I use the word "repetitive" is because we’ve done this all before. Brees plays a tremendous game, but the Saints defense fails to protect a big lead. How many times have we been there? Done that? While 2-3 is certainly better than 1-4 or 0-5 -- and those disappointing records were within the realm of possibility -- it seems like this year’s Saints are eerily similar to the teams in 2014 and 2015. Both of those teams finished 7-9 overall and missed the playoffs. With Brees and Payton, the Saints being embarrassingly bad is something that will never happen. But on the flip side, achieving tremendous success also seems unattainable. The Saints are just too inconsistent and have too many holes because of bad drafts and misses in free agency. Using a song title to describe the Saints current state of affairs, the team is just "Comfortably Numb" right now. So, let’s talk about baseball instead. No, not the tremendous series taking place in the American and National leagues in Major League Baseball. We’re talking minor league baseball. Seriously! It’s October and I’m writing about the New Orleans Zephyrs. I can’t believe it, either! In one month, our city’s minor league baseball team will announce a new nickname. To celebrate their 25th season in New Orleans, the Zephyrs have decided to rebrand. That includes a new name, new colors, new mascot, new everything. The idea is the brainchild of new owner Lou Schwechheimer and his longtime general manager Cookie Rojas. The Zephyrs relocated from Denver to New Orleans in 1993. In Colorado, the name was picked to honor the old Denver Zephyr train that ran daily from Denver to Chicago. Amazingly, New Orleans at one time had a famous wooden roller coaster at the Pontchartrain Beach amusement park named The Zephyr. Many of us here in New Orleans are victims of nostalgia, so we immediately loved and embraced the name when the team arrived. For more than two decades no one has had any issues with the Zephyrs name. We have a city filled with passionate, colorful, opinionated people, and we rarely agree on things when it comes to culture, but we all agreed on Zephyrs. It’s a good, solid name for a sports team. But since minor league baseball is silly and gimmicky and struggling to remain relevant, new leadership believes a new name will reinvigorate the fan base. Truth be told, I’m not in any way against renaming the franchise. I was 110 percent behind Tom Benson when he renamed New Orleans’ NBA team. Going from Hornets to Pelicans was tremendous. Hornets never fit in New Orleans. That name belonged to North Carolina, where the team originated in 1988. The Pelican is the Louisiana state bird, and the new colors are the ones featured in the flag of the city of New Orleans. The Zephyrs on the other hand have decided to insult all New Orleanians with a new name. Back in June, the Z’s announced seven names they would pick from. To use a baseball term, seven strikeouts. Here are the names: - The Cajun Crawfish - The Poboy’s - The Tailgators - The Night Owls - The King Cakes - The Baby Cakes - The Red Eyes Over the weekend, members of the Zephyrs’ advisory committee announced the three finalists from the awful, insulting list of seven: - The Baby Cakes - The Night Owls - The Tailgators I’m a seventh generation New Orleanian who has never heard or read the word Baby Cakes until Schwechheimer and Rojas released it onto the unsuspecting masses. While all of the final three names stink, "Baby Cakes" is perhaps the most revolting. Unfortunately, one source tells me Rojas is a big fan of Baby Cakes and envisions a logo with a traditional plastic Mardi Gras baby coming out of a king cake and wearing a crown. Forget cool local names like Krewe or Revelers, or even oddball local names like 18ers (New Orleans was founded in 1718) or Redfish (the Zephyrs parent club is the Marlins, and redfish is a popular entree in New Orleans) -- no, it’s Baby Cakes, Tailgators or Night Owls. I’ve begged and pleaded in several columns and on-air commentaries for Schwechheimer and Rojas to reconsider the name change. My rants have been to no avail. It’s clear now the two men have no respect for New Orleans. I know that sounds personal and mean-spirited, but it’s the truth. Schwechheimer and Rojas used to own and operate the Pawtucket Red Sox. They never changed the name of that team. Why? Because they respected those fans, that city and that team. Their actions in handling the Zephyrs name change situation shows they have no respect for New Orleans. If they had respect for us, they would listen to the thousands who have criticized and made fun of the new names. They would reconsider and work with local groups to pick a new name -- not a San Diego-based branding firm with no connection to New Orleans. In the end, I think fans will break up with the Zephyrs. Not wanting to be a part of a bad joke, fans will spend their entertainment dollars elsewhere. A popular line in many breakups is "It’s me, not you. It’s me." Well, when the breakup between New Orleanians and the Zephyrs happens, I think I speak on behalf of all locals when I say to Schwechheimer and Rojas, "It is you, it’s not me, it’s you!" Keep up with local news, weather and current events with the WDSU app here. Sign up for our email newsletters to get breaking news right in your inbox. Click here to sign up!