Albuquerque Isotopes
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The Albuquerque Isotopes are the second-newest team in the Pacific Coast League, one of minor league baseball's two US-based AAA leagues, although the PCL is nothing new for the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Albuquerque Dukes won several PCL championships in the 1970s and 1980s before relocating as the Portland Beavers in 2000.
The Isotopes began playing in 2003 when the Calgary Cannons relocated to New Mexico. Their major league affiliate is the Florida Marlins.
The name was chosen by the fans in the city, taking the name (in part) from an episode of The Simpsons where Homer Simpson discovers that the local team, the Springfield Isotopes, are secretly planning to move to Albuquerque during a lengthy losing streak. Some of the nicknames for the team are "Isodukes," "Archdukes," "Artichokes," and "'Topes." "Isotopes" could also be considered a reference to the fact that New Mexico has a number of well-known scientific/military facilities dealing with nuclear technology, such as Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP). (In The Simpsons, Springfield's main industry is the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.)
After the Dukes relocated the city of Albuquerque mostly demolished the team's home stadium, Albuquerque Sports Stadium, but kept the old playing field intact. The city then built a completely new stadium around the existing field. The new venue opened in 2003 as Isotopes Park. One of the major features of Albuquerque Sports Stadium was its drive-in area, where fans could sit in their cars past the left-field fence and watch the games. The renovation of the stadium originally included keeping the drive-in area, but Isotopes management decided to close it due to security concerns and is planning to convert it into a play area for children. Isotopes Park also features a hill in center field that is in fair territory, similar to the one in the Houston Astros' stadium, Minute Maid Park. Flaws with the stadium's design remain, however; since 2003, as least 6 fans have been seriously injured by errant baseballs, including a young child.
The Isotopes' mascot is Orbit, a big fuzzy electron. This is ironic because among different atoms of the same element, an isotope differs in the number of neutrons and therefore has a significant mass difference, while an ion has a differing number of electrons and thus a net electric charge.