It’s official. The team mascot for El Paso’s new Triple-A baseball team is the Chihuahua.

The name was revealed today during a special invite-only event at the Plaza Theater, which included hundreds of little league baseball players, members of the media and other invited guests.

The search for the team name began with a community-wide effort, allowing the region’s fans to submit names through the El Paso Triple-A website. The list was narrowed based on creativity, marketability, fun, relevance to El Paso’s unique character and the ability to trademark the name.

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However, not everyone is as enthusiastic about the name. Shortly after the announcement thousands took to social media in protest. “Im not going to one damn baseball game now,” tweeted @ThePeetsterSays. “Talk about giving people outside of El Paso more of a reason to stereotype our city as Mexicans #ElPasoChihuahuas,” said @MJayy_G on Twitter. On Facebook, the negative comments continued. “Booooo. Come on not even a tuff dog, just a barking rat,” posted Federico Alcaraz. “That’s ridiculous… Who’s gonna take El Paso serious with a name like that…,” said Joshua Anguiano.

A new petition against the team name has been created and has since gone viral, gaining more than 1,500 electronic signatures in just under two hours....

http://elpaso411.com/2013/10/ay-chihuahua-el-paso-triple-a-team-name-announced/