Sports stats



McHenry County's Pro Baseball Team Selects Name

July 20, 2009 - Frontier League (FL)
McHenry County K-Nines News Release


The brand new professional baseball team that is slated to begin playing in the Spring of 2011 at the Multipurpose Events Center in Woodstock,IL has selected it's official name. A name the team contest concluded on July 5th with close to 1000 fans participating suggesting almost 3000 potential names. The winning name was suggested by 4 different individuals who will each receive an authentic team uniform jersey and cap as well as tickets to home games during the team's first season.

After careful consideration of all of the great suggestions team officials selected Canines as the new name for McHenry County's team. The name though will take on a decided baseball twist as the spelling will be K-Nines. Baseball enthusiasts will recognize the letter K as the symbol for a strikeout when keeping score. The use of the letter "K" to denote a strikeout was popularized by sportswriter Henry Chadwick who is also credited with inventing the box score. "Nines" represents the number of innings in a game and the number of players on a team. Baseball teams have also been known to be referred to as the "hometown nine".

The full name of the team will be the McHenry County K-Nines.

The team has developed a complete set of logos featuring both a canine character and the K-Nines spelling. The logos feature the team's primary colors of forest green and yellow. The logos, as shown on the team's website, www.kninesbaseball.com, will be used on team uniforms, all marketing pieces, and soon to be available team merchandise. The canine theme will be emphasized at the ballpark and in community activities that the team will participate in.

The team also is announcing that the K-Nines mascot, "Woody", will soon be revealed and begin making appearances around the county. Pete Heitman, managing partner of the ownership group, had these comments, "we want to congratulate our 3 winning fans and were thrilled with the response we received to the contest. We think our new team name coupled with the distinctive logos and baseball theme will be popular and well received by our fans. The baseball reference coupled with the ability to incorporate the canine aspect will help us create the fun atmosphere we are planning for our team and the ballpark. Despite the amount of excellent names suggested by our fans K-Nines won out as our favorite. We look forward to seeing the K-Nines take the field in 2011." In the meantime he encouraged future fans to follow the team and stadium progress on www.kninesbaseball.com. The winning fans are MacGuire Folliard, Susan Dahm, Randy Tipps, and Karen Derner.

MacGuire is a 6th grader from Wonder Lake, IL. He counts basketball as his favorite sport and said this is the first contest he has ever won. When asked about his choice of Canines he reported that his family had a dog named and spelled K-Nine!

Susan, who lives in Madison, WI., where she works for the Marriott is no stranger to the canine world. Her dog Button attends many shows and community events and even has it's own magazine column - Dear Button. Susan is very active in the community with Button and has a business that takes photos of people with their pets that she makes into greeting cards.

Randy is from Woodstock, IL. He is the Governor of the Woodstock Moose Lodge and Family Center and works for the independent hardware distributor Orgill. Randy based his selection on the marketing potential of the name.

Karen Derner is a 5th grade teacher from Wonder Lake. She teaches at Harrison School. Karen's family owns two dogs and sees that many people in McHenry County are dog owners. With that thought in mind she felt that canines was an appropriate name for the area's new baseball team.

With this task now completed the K-Nines will now begin to reach out to the community to conduct a season ticket drive while looking to spread K-Nines fever throughout McHenry County and beyond.

• Discuss this story on the Frontier League message board...

Frontier League Stories from July 20, 2009


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

Other Recent McHenry County K-Nines Stories



Sports Statistics from the Stats Crew
OurSports Central