‘Swing and a miss’: Long Beach’s pro baseball team announced its name(s), locals had opinions
People took to social media to ask why the team held a naming competition if the vote wouldn’t be honored. The team responded saying the vote was 'one of many factors' in the decision.
After months of build up and two rounds of community voting, Long Beach’s new professional baseball team announced its name: the Long Beach Coast, but also the Long Beach Regulators?
If you’re confused, you’re not alone.
The organization explained that the official team name is the Coast but that each week it will play one of its games as its “alter ego,” the Regulators. The team will have alternate uniforms for those games, they confirmed in their Instagram stories.
From the moment the news was announced during Mayor Rex Richardson’s annual State of the City address Tuesday, the response has been lukewarm at best.
“Rather than showing up with a name, they asked Long Beach to choose,” Richardson said ahead of the announcement, noting the team's months-long “name competition” in which people submitted ideas.
Those ideas were narrowed down to six finalists, which were then voted on by the community. After more than 5,000 community votes were cast in person and online, the final three names — the Coast, the Parrots and the Regulators — were announced in October, and then went through another round of community voting.
(It should be noted that the comment section of every post related to the team name was flooded with demands that it be the Regulators in honor of Long Beach rap legend and team co-owner Warren G.)
During his event, Richardson had three hats sitting on a table, each with branding for the three finalists. One by one, he showed them off, saying the name: the Parrots and the Coast were met with yells of “no!” while the crowd responded to Regulators with raucous applause and cheers.
The lights dimmed and a video announcement was played. After hearing the team would be both the Coast and Regulators, the audience mustered some lackluster clapping — hardly the rally cry for the Regulators moments before.
Social media comment sections were unforgiving to the dual name decision — and not short on puns.
“Season hasn’t even started, and already a swing and a miss,” one commenter wrote under one of the team's Instagram posts.
In fact, four posts by the team about the name generated nearly 500 comments over two days — an impressive figure considering the team is relatively new to social media and has fewer than 6,000 followers on the social media app.
“Might as well spelled Coast with a ‘K’ cuz yall def struck out on this one,” another commenter wrote. The letter K is used in baseball to represent a strikeout.
Another commenter said, “We’re not mad, just disappointed.”
“Name sucks but this logo is pretty nice,” one commenter said, adding a little positivity to the thread. (The logo was designed by local artist Francisco Reyes Jr. aka Never Made.)
Redditors also did not hold back, with one person saying the name is too “generic,” while another said “Regulators” must have sounded too “urban” and wouldn’t have made “yt people” happy.
“Long Beach always has an identity crisis nothing new here lol,” someone wrote.
“If ‘The Coast’ best represents the community, the community would have chose it. They are literally telling the community they are wrong,” local record store Toxic Toast posted on reddit. “It's about LONG BEACH identity. Anyone that hears ‘regulators’ is immediately associating it with Long Beach. We are proud of our musicians, everyone in the city knows those names.”
“Legit why have a vote, if you aren’t going to go with the popular opinion and the vote winner?” another redditor asked.
To its credit, the team responded to the backlash, posting a statement to its Instagram stories explaining its decision.
“The naming contest was always meant to be one of many factors in choosing our name, and we should have done a better job making that clear from the start,” the post read. “We made a mistake.”
“The names Regulators, Coast, and Parrots saw the most support, hands down,” the post continued. “That's why all three are going to be a part of your team, Long Beach. This team is still being built in real time. With you weighing in. With us listening.”
It is unclear what plans the team has to incorporate a third name with the Parrots.
In the club’s defense, teams having an alter ego is not a new concept for minor league baseball. The first team to take the field under a name other than its traditional identity was the Fresno Grizzlies, which in 2015 played a game as the Tacos, a tradition it maintains today, according to sports writer Benjamin Hill.
“This is now an established Minor League Baseball promotional strategy, as teams across the country regularly assume alternate identities in lieu of their day-to-day primary identities,” Hill wrote this week, completely unrelated to the Long Beach announcement. “These alternate identities often have a local connection, with teams celebrating their region's culinary specialties, cultural touchstones, geography, industries, notable residents and more.”
This season, the Palm Beach Cardinals will play 12 games as the Frozen Iguanas. The Pansacola Blue Wahoos as the Sky Jockeys. The Winston-Salem Dash as the Carolina Reapers. The Worcester Red Sox as the Pawtucket Hot Wieners. The Somerset Patriots, believe it or not, will play multiple games as the Semiquincentennials in honor of the U.S. turning 250 years old.
Alter egos aren’t even new to Long Beach — and that history began decades before minor league teams made it a norm.
At Long Beach State, the teams are all officially known simply as Beach (previously the 49ers). But back in 1989, under the leadership of head coach Dave Snow and infield coach Dave Malpass, the baseball team developed its own brand: the Dirtbags.
Over time, the new moniker stuck. Though not an alter ego in the same sense as the Coast-Regulators and other minor league teams, it is technically not the university’s baseball team name, despite players regularly donning Dirtbags uniforms.
All that to say the new pro team is not without precedent in its decision to choose two names.
With the names made public, the team has dropped a small line of Coast merch, including hats and T-shirts. No Regulators merch has been released but the team promises it’s on the way.
The team also dropped season tickets and 10-game mini-plans. Season tickets range from $343 to $1,556 per seat, while mini-packages start at $120. Single-game tickets will go on sale “in the future,” according to the team’s Instagram.
Regardless of the name, let’s hope locals can come together and rally behind their only professional sports team. If you like the Coast, that’s great. If not, take a page from this redditor: “Let’s just all call them the Regulators. Fuck it.”
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