Ranking 2020’s Best College Summer Baseball Team Names

Image credit: Savannah Bananas players wear kilts as part of a St. Patrick's Day in July promotion. (Photo by Mike Janes/Four Seam Images)

Our focus for college summer leagues usually focuses on their role in player development. They are an opportunity for players to refine their tools or for younger players to get more game time than they might have during the spring season. 

But summer ball is about more than that in many places around the country. It’s a community event and a place for fun. The Savannah Bananas’ atmosphere embodies that part of summer ball as well as anywhere in the country.

A part of creating that carnival-like atmosphere is picking the right name. The Bacon or Pit Spitters or Pickles all set a tone for what to expect when you arrive at the ballpark.

We’re ranking the 25 best summer college team names. To be included in this list, a team must be in action this summer.

1. Macon Bacon (Coastal Plain League)

Having “Bacon” as a team name is good enough, but what puts it over the top is the fact that being the Macon Bacon also means that the name rhymes and can be used as a full sentence.

2. Savannah Bananas (Coastal Plain League)

Just a hair behind the Macon Bacon overall, this is still the original food-based rhyming team name in the CPL and remains an outstanding name. 

3. Round Rock Hairy Men (Texas Collegiate League)

A team borne out of the minor league season being canceled for the existing Round Rock Express and the TCL needing more teams to provide places to play, the Hairy Men name is a nod to a local urban legend called the Hairy Man. 

4. Traverse City Pit Spitters (Northwoods League)

Ahead of their inaugural 2019 season, the Pit Spitters were given that name via fan vote over Black Pearls, Dogmen, Dune Bears, Tree Shakers and Sasquatch. 

5. Baltimore Chop (Maryland Collegiate Baseball League)

A reference to the term Baltimore chop, which is a high-bouncing ground ball, there are few names more fitting of their location than this one. 

6. Green Bay Booyah (Northwoods League)

Previously known as the Green Bay Bullfrogs, the Booyah got their name in a team-naming contest in 2018. A “booyah” is defined as a stew cooked in large kettles, made up of vegetables and scrap cuts of meat.

7. Winter Garden Squeeze (Florida League)

A nod to Florida’s citrus-growing community, the Squeeze round out their name and imagery with a logo that re-imagines a baseball as an orange sliced open. 

8. Portland Pickles/Portland Gherkins (Wild Wild West)

Originally conceived as a farm club for the West Coast League’s Portland Pickles, the Portland Gherkins has instead taken the field as its own entity in 2020 as part of the Wild West League, which cropped up in Oregon once the West Coast League season was canceled. 

9. Tropics (Grand Park)

An obvious nod to the Flint Tropics, the fictional basketball team in the Will Ferrell basketball movie Semi-Pro, this version of the Tropics receives high marks for having a sense of humor and for taste in comedy movies. 

10. Kalamazoo Mac Daddies (Northwoods League)

Originally designed as a one-time Father’s Day name change for the existing Kalamazoo Growlers, the Mac Daddies, complete with a macaroni noodle logo, instead became a full-time team in the revamped NWL in 2020. 

11. Fremont Moo (Expedition League)

The logo for the Fremont franchise is, you guessed it, a baseball-playing cow. Bonus points for the bio on the official team Twitter account reading “Chewing our cud since 2018.”

12. Florida Pokers (South Florida)

An extension of a high school showcase squad of the same name, the Pokers stand out in the South Florida Collegiate League landscape. 

13. Sunflower Seeds (Sunflower League)

It just makes too much sense that you’d have a a team called the Sunflower Seeds in the Sunflower League. Shout out to the greatest of all baseball-related snacks. 

14. Fond du Lac Dock Spiders (Northwoods League)

The Dock Spiders are right up there with all of the other inspired team names in the Northwoods League. It won a naming contest against the Barn Owls, Lake Flies, Pipsqueaks and Shantymen. 

15. High Point-Thomasville HiToms (Coastal Plain League)

A portmanteau made up of the two towns in North Carolina the team represents, High Point and Thomasville, the HiToms name has its roots in a Carolina League franchise that dates back to the 1950s. 

16. Great Lakes Resorters (Northwoods League)

Another team that popped up to help fill out the re-configured Northwoods League in 2020, the Great Lakes Resorters are not just a nod to individuals who spent vacations at the Great Lakes, but also a professional team of the same name in the 1910s. 

17. San Antonio Flying Chanclas (Texas Collegiate League)

An ode to the humble sandal being used as a flying weapon, the Flying Chanclas name has been used periodically by the Triple-A San Antonio Missions. This season, it is being used for a temporary expansion team in the TCL. 

18. Amarillo Sod Dogs (Texas Collegiate League)

An off-shoot of the Double-A Amarillo Sod Poodles, the Sod Dogs are another of the TCL’s temporary expansion teams for this season, all of which have made bold naming choices. 

19. Turf Monsters (Grand Park)

Anyone who has played baseball has been bitten by the mythical turf monster a time or two. This summer in the Grand Park league, players and teams are competing against the actual Turf Monsters and not just metaphorical ones. 

20. Hastings Sodbusters (Expedition League)

A nod to the tough individuals who work the land on a farm for a living, Sodbusters was also the name of a 1994 film starring country singer Kris Kristofferson and comedy legend Fred Willard. And for our purposes here, it’s an Expedition League team based in Nebraska. 

21. Great Bend Bat Cats (Sunflower League)

The Bat Cats may be behind the Sunflower Seeds on this list among teams in the Sunflower League, but they currently stand several games ahead of them in the league standings, and they’ll probably take that trade-off. 

22. Llamas (Cascade Collegiate League)

Using an underrated animal for team naming purposes, the Llamas of the Cascade Collegiate League also get bonus points for the use of an angry llama logo. That llama is not to be messed with. 

23. Omaha Filthballers (Corn Belt League)

In a league made up of teams in Omaha, the Filthballers have the best name of a group that also includes the Rail Riders, Blue Dogs, Bombers, Red Raiders and Black Sox. 

24. North Shore Navigators (Futures League)

Although not as outlandish as most of the other names on this list, the Navigators make the cut because of the alliteration of the team name and its fitting moniker given that it plays its games along the Massachusetts coast. 

25. Toccopola Swampers (Cotton States Baseball League)

Representing Toccopola, Miss., a town listed as having fewer than 300 residents, the Swampers have the best team name in a league they share with the Mudcats, Dealers and Lookouts, among others.