Topeka Kaws · Topeka, Kansas · 1915

Why "The Prohibs" Would Be Appropriate Name for Ball Team

Topeka, March 1915: the State Journal opens the Fan's Forum on what to call the ball team. T. D. Humphrey builds a legal brief, Kansas is the leading prohibition state in the Union, Topeka is the capital, therefore The Prohibs. W. A. McCauley of Auburn counters with Kaw Chiefs. The fans have the floor and they are taking it seriously.

In the spring of 1915 The Topeka State Journal opened its “IN THE FAN’S FORUM” column to the question of what to call the ball club, and on March 27 it printed two earnest answers.

The first is a masterpiece of civic logic from T. D. Humphrey, who lays his foundation one flat declarative at a time: “Kansas is the leading prohibition state in the Union. Topeka is the capital of the state. Topeka is the headquarters of the State Temperance union.” He then notes that “it is impossible to hold a municipal election in the city of Topeka without the ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ issue being injected into the campaign, with or without the consent of the candidates,” before arriving at his conclusion: “In view of the foregoing conditions I would suggest that an appropriate name for the ball team would be ‘The Prohibs.’”

Every word of the argument is sound. Kansas had been dry since 1881, decades ahead of the nation. And yet one struggles to imagine the bleachers chanting for the Prohibs, a name that promises nine innings and not one drop of joy.

The second letter, from W. A. McCauley of Auburn, Kansas, is shorter and wiser: “It seems to me that the ‘Kaws’ is hard to beat as a name for the ball team, but will suggest the name of ‘Kaw Chiefs.’” The town stuck with the Kaws, the name it already had, and the Kaws went on shutting out Wichita under that flag. Readers writing the sports page to argue about names is a tradition as old as the sports page; Mexico, Missouri’s letter writers went at Sunday baseball the same way, and we are richer for every one of them.