Last week, after a long and controversial process, the new Amarillo baseball team announced that it had finally settled on the nickname “Sod Poodles.”
The news was met with much cheering and no small amount of grumbling among baseball fans on the High Plains.
But, just as everything seemed settled, it appears the controversy isn’t over yet. As MyHighPlains.com reports, trademark filings show that the Amarillo baseball club does not own the name, “Amarillo Sod Poodles.”
In fact, the name was purchased months ago by Dusty and Nikki Green, two popular Amarilloans who host a travel show on public television. In a Facebook post, Dusty Green said the team offered to buy his trademark back in September, but he turned them down. Now, he’s working on producing his own merchandise.
Green was one of many prominent Amarilloans who criticized the team’s ownership, insisting they’d turned a deaf ear to baseball fans in the Panhandle. The team ignored pleas for better name choices and disregarded a local petition that garnered thousands of signatures.