The Round Rock Express will alter history with What Could Have Been Night
You've heard the phrase "the butterfly effect" before -- you know, the part of chaos theory that suggests something as minor as an insect's fluttering wings could create all sorts of tangent realties. But the Round Rock Express, the Rangers' Triple-A affiliate, is interested in a different kind of bug-induced alternate reality, and this one has fire ants.
In addition to being Paul Goldschmidt's greatest fear, the fire ant was this close to having a Minor League Baseball team named after it. In 1999, when Round Rock had a contest to name its baseball team, the "Fire Ants" made the finals. However, "Express" won the title, and that was that.
But what if "Fire Ants" had won? Now you can hop through dimensions and live in that reality for a few hours, during What Could Have Been Night on July 21.
In addition to living in a parallel universe for at least nine innings, you'll get to hang out with this guy:
If he looks familiar, well, it's because you might have seen him somewhere before. "We actually borrowed him from a D-League Basketball Team in Indiana: The Ft. Wayne MadAnts," said Round Rock Senior Vice President of Marketing, Laura Fragoso.
But don't worry, this isn't the only version of the Express you'll get to see. If the team does this promotion again, they'll have plenty of names to choose from. "We went to our vault and found the articles about baseball coming to Central Texas and it mentioned different team names that were being considered," said Fragoso. "A few of the ones to come: Outlaws, Rattlers [and] Jackalopes."
Can the Fire Ant mascot and the Jackalope mascot team up to fight crime? We'd really like to see that.