To mark the start of the NBA’s 81^st season, the Man Mulligan travel train has pulled into Grand Central for tonight’s matchup between the new-look, old-LeBron Philadelphia 76ers and the world-champion, won’t-let-anyone-forget-it New York Knickerbockers in what promises to be just the first exchange in a seasons-long battle for Eastern Conference supremacy.

While the Sixers and Knicks have been going at it for decades, Philadelphians and New Yorkers have been feuding even longer, ever since the nation’s earliest colonial days, in fact, and their history-rich team names reflect those roots, specifically Philadelphia’s as the country’s birthplace and New York’s as an early trading post and then colony of the Netherlands.

So, how do those nicknames stack up today, hundreds of years post-provenance, and, most importantly, which team earns the coveted Man Mulligan nod for tonight’s banner-dropping game? Both score high on our scale, but this tip-in goes to the Knicks, 9 Old Dutch Cleansers to 8 Quaker Oats Cans.

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The WNBA Finals tip off today in Ballhalla, the heavenly christened, violet-clad alter ego of San Francisco’s Chase Center, with the arena-by-committee Atlanta Dream facing the Golden State Valkyries in a battle of would-be first-time league champs.

Now, if arenas were the sole factor in this series, the Dream’s title march would have dead-ended somewhere near MLK Jr. Drive (pick the city), especially as what the Valkyries’ marketing department has appropriated this season with their slice of Norse afterlife mythology is best-in-league supreme (despite Valhalla—small fishbone to pick here—being for the slain, not those still slaying).

Instead, the teams’ nickname merit, naturally, will tip the series’ scales in the end, and the Man Mulligan amateur building superintendents see the revamped Dream sermonizing the upstart Valkyries into ultimate submission, 8 Preacher Pulpits to 4 Runestones.

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Earlier this week, the Springfield Cardinals (Double-A, Texas League, North Division) shed the red-feathered nickname of its mother club and rebranded as the equally red-feathered (but now regionally tongued-twisted) Ozarks Springbirds.

Less a mohawk-to-toes rebrand than a merch-makeover refocus, the Springbirds as a label has been in unofficial use for the past 20ish years, popularized by the team’s long-time broadcaster, so the change, while rooted in the local infield grass, presents as the end product of a corporate directive.

Reaffirm franchise’s connection to its ancestral roost in St. Louis? Check.

Let the birds of SW Missouri spread their wings, at least superficially? Check.

Refresh team store with new swag and, God willing, reverse slumping sales? Check.

Avoid an opportunity to stamp the team with a unique identity, one true to Springfield, the Ozarks, and its people, rather than a sock-inspired team name coined during the presidency of William McKinley? Check.

Ruffle as few red feathers as possible in the process? Check.

A corporate success, through-and-through, but to the C-suite rejects here at Man Mulligan, the new moniker may score twice as nice on our decidedly unscientific scale as the original Cardinal sin (4 Bible Belt Buckles to 2 Mother Roads), but it’s still only half as bright as it could be.

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Tonight, when the Florida Panthers (of Greater Miami) visit the reigning champion Carolina Hurricanes (of Raleigh proper), it will be just the second time ever (and first time on home soil) that an NHL season puck-drops in September, a month more familiar with gridiron play—like that from the Miami Hurricanes (of Greater Miami and the NCAA) and the Carolina Panthers (of Charlotte proper and the NFL)—than frozen face-offs. For this head-to-head of Panther-Hurricane duos, Man Mulligan’s playoff-bearded hockey nuts—as we battle through this sub-zero bit of nickname double vision—call interference on the home team and award a power play to the visitors. Panthers over Hurricanes, 7 Blockbuster Video Cases to 6 Insurance Claims.

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Who cares about the best record in baseball, anyway? Not the bottom-feeders here at Man Mulligan, that’s for sure. In fact, to mark the end of another regular season of MLB play, we’re spotlighting the year’s worst of the worst, and in 2026—as it was in 2025 (and may be in 2027)—that’s the lowly Colorado Rockies, who “earned” their fourth consecutive 100-loss season earlier this week. With another stinker of a season, the franchise of mile-highs and purple-mountain-majesties will reach a major-league-record level of futility—a miles-wide, purpled-canyon-travesty—and we’ll pour one out for its suffering fanbase. Seven stubby brown bottles out of 10.

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