Friday List: Top Ten Baseball Teams in Cincinnati

Baseball teams never die, they just end up in the Baseball Reference "Earlier Franchises" section. Cincinnati has been host to five recognized Negro League Teams: the Tigers, Browns, Buckeyes (who moved to Cleveland), Cubans and Clowns.

There have also been number of ancestors and evolutionary dead-ends to the modern day Reds strewn across the charter National League (Reds/Red Stockings), American Association (Kelly's Killers), Union Association (Outlaw Reds/Unions) and the loosely-organized National Association of Base Ball Players (the seminal Red Stockings).

And don't forget about the 19th Century Cincinnati Buckeyes, who eventually played Washington Generals to the Red Stockings and were revived as a vintage baseball team in Sharonville.

But some baseball teams never have the chance to exist.

10. Cincinnati Pork Citys

This was a team-naming trend 'round about the 1870s, resulting in: the Cleveland Forest Citys, the Rockford Forest Citys, the New Haven Elm Citys and the Allentown Soot-encrusted Industrial Citys.

9. Western Hills Viaducts

A viaduct is "a bridge composed of several small spans." Which is why they feature a number of miniature, mostly ornamental Denard Spans.

8. Cincinnati Sanguine Shins

They got a little cute with the name, but the power hitting of Dirk "Hahahahahahahahaha" Gelding cannot be denied.

7. Mt. Washington Malefactors

They kind of just get in the way.

6. Queen City Insanes

Keep opponents strategically off-guard, Nixon-style, by sometimes running the wrong way around the bases or pitching the glove instead of the ball.

5. Price Hill Chilis

A tasty team.

4. Cincinnati Claxons

Main weapon: an incredibly shrill horn.

3. Cincinnati Transit Systems

Even in the realm of apocryphal franchises, this is more of an idea than a team.

2. Losantiville Northwest Ordinances

Last surviving town ball team. Forced to challenge last barnstorming American Rules Cricket team to games every several decades.

1. Cincinnati Reds

Feat. Joey Votto.