We’ve been had. We, as in London media, have played directly into the hands of the city’s new baseball team. They played us like fiddles and my, didn’t we make a pretty sound?
We thought it was a joke and we knew it was a lead story when on Tuesday evening the owners of the semi-pro team announced the name and logo: The London Rippers, and a logo featuring a menacing looking guy in Victorian clothing. He is wielding a baseball bat. (I can’t embed a photo of it because they are all licensed but we have one at www.981freefm.ca ) The team’s owner says his name is Diamond Jack but he’s got nothing to do with Jack the Ripper. Oh yeah? As our sportscaster Tom Gibson asked, then why isn’t he named Diamond Bob?
This is just a case of an arrogant American organization coming into what it thinks is hicksville Canada and trying to pull the woolen toques over our eyes. And as they probably predicted, the local media has gone berserk. The fact that it happened at the end of Wear Purple Day in support of abused women, seems to be a bit of good luck on their part when it came to upping the outrage factor. And with our eyes wide open we handed them our city’s media for the day. But really, how could we not?
In case you’ve forgotten, Jack the Ripper was a 19th century serial killer in London, England who preyed on prostitutes and tortured them before ending their lives. He disemboweled them, he cut off their nipples, he was as evil as they come. One woman on Facebook actually wrote, “Wasn’t this a long time ago? Who cares!” Well, I care. Because they were people who deserved to not be murdered! And it turns out the majority of Londoners are with me.
The Mayor has asked for a meeting with the team’s wide-eyed owners as they continue to claim innocence. They’re either the dumbest humans to walk the earth or savvy marketers. I vote for door number two. I also predict that they’ll change the name, make a donation to the London Abused Women’s Centre and beg forgiveness for their trespasses. Let’s see how short peoples’ memories are and if in the spring, their bums go into the stadium seats.