Top Five Worst Sports Logos (Number 3 Will Destroy Your Sanity and Render You a Hopeless Human Derelict)

About once every six months I make the mistake of clicking on one of those "list" articles that have infected the internet like a severe herpes outbreak (or so I'm told, cough, cough) for the last few years. The outcome is always the same: a plague of advertisements, a list of seven items that must be reloaded twenty-four times to fully read and a general feeling of emptiness and malaise after #7 failed to be amazing, as promised. We all know about this and we can all agree how much this is Not Good. This is not what I'm here to talk about.

When I descended into plugin container hell by clicking in between "celebrity thongs" and a new super steroid that helps actors play their characters better somehow I encountered writing and logic that was so completely awful, devoid of effort and insulting that I feel the need to create a sand-line with my big toe and say "You ain't crossing this, Big Internet." Yes, I'm angry at the low quality of a "click bait" article. No, I am not a crank.

What was offered was the ten worst sports logos. What was delivered was completely bereft of wit, literary skill, and cultural value. I was honestly wishing I'd opted to watch pictures of famous person butt-floss struggle to load thanks to the competition of three dozen flash ads.

Before I ruin this thing worse than 1945 Dresden or today's public schools I'm going to show you how it's supposed to be done. It's very important that a critic establish his or her credentials, after all. Proper accreditation of wise-asses, that's what I'm all about. So here are two logos I personally consider ungood.

Horrible colors. A faddish reference to a forgotten movie (Billy and the Clone-o-saurus, if memory serves). In said movie the "raptors" couldn't even kill vegetarian children, which you would think would be the easy tutorial level and not the final boss. The artist can't decide if the cloned lizard is supposed to be a dopey cartoon or actually intimidating. It's not even properly centered thanks to the tail throwing off the symmetry. Everything about this logo is horrible. It is objectively bad. If you like it, please seek help.

Do I even have to say anything? Well, yeah, that's the point of this. We've got an ethnic stereotype created by an artist who apparently can't tell the difference between Native Americans and Japanese as depicted in World War 2 propaganda posters. It's so inept I'm not sure if it's offensive or just sad. Let's start slapping that all over merchandise and you'll buy it because you're a moron.

That's how you do it. Now let's consider what's raising the big money on heavily monetized web honey traps.

The main argument against this one was it failed to depict "Bills" and instead is a stylized Buffalo. It's also called out for being "boring." I'll concede this one won't win any awards, but you can't really call it an embarrassment like High Chief Tojo or the killer dinosaur that was once defeated by a gymnastics routine. The colors are good, it has a certain minimalist charm and a wad of cash or a depiction of Wild Bill murdering the Cleveland logo would not be much of an upgrade. At worst this one's a C-, but we need a list of ten and putting in actual effort is a waste for something that will be half-read by droolies who will probably be promptly diverted by all those amazing personally-tailored and slow-loading commercials.

Instead of making some obvious corrective dentistry joke the big problem with The Predators logo, we are told, is that no one knows what a saber-tooth tiger looks like. This means the proles will get confused and, I guess, refuse to cheer this Ice Gang. Yes, in the age of information we live in the argument against this one boils down to massive societal ignorance in regards to Ice Age Mega Fauna. Even if you didn't know what a smilodon was, which I doubt is the massive problem the list-maker insists it is, you'd still look at this and think "Hey, that's kind of cool. It's like a tiger with severe overbite issues." Granted the colors and overall presentation aren't exactly top tier, but that's not the argument we get because even the most basic discussion of aesthetics is way too intellectual and what the heck kind of thing is this crazy critter poppin' up on mah sex box?  

After the last debacle I was not expecting the case against Tennessee's logo. The author explains what Titans are, using nice small words thankfully, and then wonders why an awesome Titan wasn't depicted instead of the flaming Tee. I mean, just imagine how righteous that would be! We could have Father Time (Cronos) or Mother Earth (Gaia) on our football helmets! What about Prometheus? Imagine the slammin' halftime show where an eagle will fly down to devour his regenerating liver!

Yes, that was the argument that was made. I'm confused by animals with slightly bigger teeth but I want to see literal representations of Greek Mythology. Consistency, is it too much to ask?

Despite the good colors and solid presentation this one is also dismissed as "boring," followed by a lament that "alcoholism" remains something of a taboo subject for baseball squadron iconography. And let me tell you, your average alcoholic favors 5% American piss-beer and not the bottom shelf hard liquors. So please, Brewers, be more exciting and maybe promote underage drinking. That would be a massive improvement, according to words I struggled to read as pop-ups kept covering them.

We conclude with some more good-ole ignorance. The reviewer thought the "Cardinal" would be a bird, which is something I also thought when I was nine and was first exposed to one of America's most famous universities. The disappointment that it's actually a tree apparently impacted our hack writer as if he found out about Santa or something. I mean, here we were, all fired up for red birds and instead it's a plant. Refund, refund! It's then explained that trees are not intimidating, which having seen "The Happening" I'll readily concede, but I don't think they're trying to scare you. It might, just might, be part of school tradition. I know it's crazy. After all, college mascots and supposed to be nightmares made flesh, like the Ohio State Buckeye or the Maryland Turtle.

There were five more, but my hard drive had caught fire by this point and I think the point has been made. You truly do get what you'll put up with.



Check Out My Books!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read free excerpts here and here.

His first novel "The Foolchild Invention" is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

Choose Your Own Adventure #1: The Cave of Time

Last time we tried a Choose Your Own Adventure Book, a series aimed at grade school kids, we faced murder, alcoholism, home invasion, the horrifying existential nothingness that renders all we do absurd and meaningless, pistol-whippings, T.B.I., and ghoul/vampire monsters packing heat. Suffice it to say, that book was in no way representative of the series as a whole. Consider the very first book, where we'll face time travel, paradoxes, and the absurd farce that is free will, human agency and hope. Let's step into that Time Cave and encounter the exciting miseries, crimes and atrocities that make up the vast bulk of human history!

We get a little insight into the reckless nature of the pre-teen hero we'll be guiding right away, as he decided it's a good idea to enter a cave that was recently uncovered by a rock slide. I mean, what could go wrong? I guess reading page after page of slowly dying of oxygen deprivation in a collapsed cave that we foolishly entered is too bleak even for this series, or more likely that's the kind of horrible fate these books like to build up to rather than inflict right away. Emerging from this earth-hole reveals the sun is now set, the moon is in the wrong phase and there's a general sense that all is not well. "You must have fallen asleep," is the lame rationalization we get. Unless our hero is some sort of narcoleptic that seems like strainin' to do the explainin'.

Life ruining disabilities = comedy gold.

We're given a choice to simply "wait," which doesn't seem too logical, all things considered. Instead, we head back home with the naive hope that the spelunking-generated temporal anomalies will simply fix themselves if we sink deep enough into denial. I mean, I might have just fallen asleep in the middle of walking around, right? Sadly, this comforting illusion is ruined when our hero notes that the trail is different and also it's not a trail it's a river bed. Even then we lamely try to blame it on "moonlight playing tricks on the eyes." Assuming this kid somehow survives the coming nonsense he's gonna end on Dr. Phil or the non-televised equivalent as an adult, still blaming everything and everyone for his own self-constructed failure. I'm just saying.

I think we both know the moonlight is not to blame for your freebase habit.

The good news is the sun is coming up. The bad news is everything has changed and it's become so blatantly evident that no amount of double-talk is getting us out of this one. Even our watch is busted. Nevertheless, I must stay true to our character's delusional tendencies and keep heading toward "the ranch." An encounter with mountains and glaciation finally confirms what I think we knew from the start: we've been sent back to the Ice Age. Despite this setback, we still feel we can somehow get back to "familiar territory." The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, kid.

So we enter another, presumably non-fifth dimensional, cave. Here we immediately encounter stereotypical cave dwellers. As you might expect they're completely agog, because primitive humanity, never, ever, takes novel events in stride. A civilization and symbolic language-impaired gentleman approaches wielding a "vine." Here we get the classic flight or friends response and I decide to go with friends, what with my advanced frontal lobes and posture. Hell, I'll probably be in charge of this whole tribe in a month.

Assuming I don't get strangled with a vine right off, that is.

 Alternate cover embellishes the "vine" scene somewhat.

The universal language of "friendly gestures" is sufficient to make the scene with these Model-A humans. However, there still is a language barrier, which I overcome by making "drawings" on the cave wall. I want to point out that the current theory of cave paintings is that these images had religious and/or magical significance and messing with this would probably not win any points. I'm just saying this for the benefit of any of you that go into a cave and enter the Ice Age. Also, try not to wreck the present by indiscriminately killing and smashing. Follow those two rules and you should be fine.

Showing surprising adaptability for someone who is constantly trying to wish away the real world, I settle into the neolithic banality of cleaning, cooking and adding pictures to the wall. Just to mess with these human prototypes I draw airplanes, ships and cars, which their primitive minds see only as "abstract designs." So I'm a bit of a dick to the people that saved me from freezing or being devoured by a mammoth, no one's perfect. This pocket paradise of laughing into my sleeve at how backward and dumb the noble hunter-gatherer really was while pissing on their religious beliefs and generally being an ugly American time-tourist can't last, however. Cold weather is coming and with it "The Migration." Our ancestors were sort of like Canadian Geese.

Here, let me draw future objects you won't understand over this b.s.

Feeling I've taken advantage of these surprisingly hospitable hominids I use this as an excuse to try to find my way back to the cave of time and hopefully our present world of airplanes, electric razors and glory-holes. So I trudge off through the snow, all toughened up from my time as a cook, cleaner and iconoclast. Then I run into a wolf, kind of an odd choice by the author considering the plethora of more exotic Ice Age creatures. I run like hell into the cave, which conveniently enough is also right there.

Nearly ended by this.

I end up in a well-lit area of the cave, where an old man, the Keeper of Time or some shit, is waiting. Faced with this b.s. I decide to ask "who are you" rather than play along with his little games. This cuts the Gordian Knot, as Father Time or whatever is forced to admit he's a "philosopher" who chose immortality on the condition that he sits alone here, forever, contemplating chair reality and what is best in life and where does the Cave of Time fit into God's grand design and so on for all eternity. He basically admits he screwed the pooch with that choice and directs you back to your own time for the happy ending.

Overall this was an amusing enough read. Even though I just realized it contained devil-lution, evil magic, unholy immortality and false religions, thus opening the door for diabolic possession and the like. In light of that, it probably wasn't worth it. Still, the series had to start somewhere and time travel fantasy is always fun. Plus there was philosophy bashing and the futility of secular humanism, so I guess the questionable content evens out a bit. Just don't go exploring holes in that rock slide area, kids. You won't go back in time, you'll just get crushed by heavy stones.

  Don't try something like this, either.

Aaron Zehner's first novel The Foolchild Invention is available in e-book format at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.