Boston Herald: The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are considering a change in the team's name.

TAMPA, Florida.  New Tampa Bay Devil Rays' owner Stuart Sternberg hit a nerve when he announced Friday that he planned to change the team's name, the first such change in the name of an MLB team that wasn't also changing cities since the Houston Colt .45s became the Astros in 1961.

The name "Devil Rays" is "associated with losing," said Britt Beemer, chairman of American Research Group, a pro sports marketing research group, a sentiment echoed by Mark Ferguson, owner of Ferg's Sports Bar & Grill near the team's ballpark.  "There's too much negativity around 'devil'," he said.

In a sort of domino-theory of sports team names, fans across the country rushed to phones and computers to urge local owners to change the names of their perennial losers.  Cable and phone providers noted the highest volume of queries from the following regions:

Phoenix:  There aren't many Cardinals in Arizona, and the football Cardinals have the worst won-loss percentage in NFL history.  "Gila Monsters, Road Runners--anything but 'Cardinals'," said long-suffering fan Andy Bakersfield.  The Cardinals abandoned Chicago and St. Louis before they moved to Phoenix, and no one was ever sorry to see them go.

Kansas City:  There's nothing royal about the Royals, and until major league baseball adopts true revenue-sharing, there never will be.  The name "Royal" comes from the name of annual livestock show when 3,000 head of cattle, sheep, goats and hogs come into a major metropolitan area, fouling the air in upscale sidewalk cafes in the Country Club Plaza area.  "I was trying to impress a girl from out of town with my knowledge of French films," said would-be urban sophisticate Evan Wilensky of Overland Park, Kansas, "when the wind shifted and an odor like the farts of a 1,000 sows wafted over our vanilla lattes.  All I could say was 'It wasn't me,' but it was too late.  And I can't get the smell out of my beret."

Chicago:  "The 'Black' part of 'Blackhawks' is too negative," claims hockey nut Jerry LoPresti, a Blackhawks season ticket holder for seven dismal years.  "If they were just the 'Hawks', maybe they'd move to Atlanta."

Copyright 2006, Con Chapman