There’s Nothing Minor League About Team-Naming Effort

The Los Angeles Angels of Azusa, or wherever they’re from, aren’t the only Southern California baseball team adopting a new name.

The new Long Beach entry in the professional Golden Baseball League also needed one, so it asked residents and school kids for suggestions and received more than 1,000.

My favorites were the ones from the school kids, which included:

* Long Beach Beach Bums

* Long Beach Bling Bling

* Long Beach Golden Gangsters

* Long Beach Big Burgers

* Long Beach Killer Skulls

* Long Beach Shrimpies

And,

* Long Beach Green Geckos

Of course, my opinion didn’t count.

The team chose the less showy Long Beach Armada.

By the way, one fan suggested that the Long Beach team try to horn in on Dodger territory a la the Anaheim Angels. His suggestion: the Long Beach Los Angeles Dodgers.

Dueling signs: Brian Brockway found rival businesses in a mall offering shoppers the option of a buzz or a snooze (see photo).

Talk about luxury! In a travel brochure, Anadel Miller of Whittier read about the facilities aboard the motor coach and commented, “I find this kind preferable to the nonworking kind” (see accompanying).

“Duh!” Award winner: No sooner did we publish a list of wacky warnings than we heard from Randy Semel, who spotted a rather common-sense notation in an ad for the iPod shuffle personal music player (see accompanying).

Phantom of the OC? The Aliso Viejo News reported that a woman saw a “suspicious person” walk “out his apartment naked with a black mask on.” OK, but what did she find suspicious about him?

He didn’t get a nibble: A resident phoned police “after a man in a bunny suit and mask knocked on her door” in Trabuco Canyon, the Canyon Life newspaper said.

She didn’t answer. (I don’t think it was the same mask that the Aliso Viejo nudist wore.)

Unusual Sports Venues Dept.: During the recent storms, a San Clemente resident phoned authorities to say “that five to 10 subjects are surfing the fairway over by the 15th hole of the [adjacent] golf course,” the local News-Post said.

miscelLAny: The San Fernando Valley Folklore Society (snopes. com) says an old urban myth involving Richard Nixon is apparently making the rounds again.

It’s the yarn about two young men who save Nixon from drowning off San Clemente.

When he asks what he can do for them in return, one replies that he wants to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Nixon asks why.

“Because,” the guy says, “when my father finds out I saved Richard Nixon, he’s gonna kill me.”

OK, Republicans, let’s not get incensed.

The folklore society says the same story also circulates with Bill Clinton in Nixon’s place.