Tag Archives: Amarillo Dillas

Let's go … Thunderheads?

Amarillo’s recent minor-league baseball experience has taken another interesting turn.

The team formerly known as the Sox is now going to be called the Thunderheads.

It’s been a strange ride over the years watching this team morph from one identity into another, and then another.

When I arrived in Amarillo in early 1995, the team that played at the dump once formerly known as the Dilla Villa was called the Amarillo Dillas.

I never learned exactly what a Dilla is. I guess it’s kind of a nickname for “armadillo,” which I’m told populate the countryside in this part of the world.

Whatever, the team then changed its name to the Sox and then adopted a team logo that almost got the team into a copyright problem, as the logo resembled a design used by the Minnesota Twins major league baseball team based in the Twin Cities. That little tempest subsided.

Now it’s the Thunderheads.

Will this name stick to the team for more than a few years, or will the team ownership grow weary of this name and change it … again?

In a way the name might be appropriate. A thunderhead describes a cloud formation that produces often-violent storms that boil up during the spring and summer.

How is it an appropriate name? The city is set to begin construction sometime next year, or perhaps the year after, on a downtown ballpark that will become the new home for the Amarillo Thunderheads. The ballpark isn’t being universally welcomed by all the city’s residents. I’m hearing some grumbling about it and whether it’s really and truly going to be built without any taxpayer money — as the city and developers have promised.

Then the team can abandon that rat hole venue at the Tri-State Fairgrounds.

However, there might be a storm brewing over the Thunderheads’ new venue.