A former farm team of the Colorado Rockies has renamed itself, simultaneously showing support for a threatened species and offering reparations, of sorts, for a tweet that went sideways six years ago.
The Grand Junction Jackalopes announced this week they will play parts of the upcoming season as the Grand Junction Humpback Chubs, the alternate identity of the Pioneer Baseball League’s western Colorado club.
Alternate identities—teams adopting different names, logos, colors and uniforms—are a trend in the minors, and the Jackalopes this week unveiled the Humpback Chubs as an homage to a federally protected fish in the nearby Colorado River. The Jackalopes will trot out Chubs unis on Wednesdays (“hump day”) and on other special occasions throughout the season. Additionally, the team will have Chubs-themed giveaways and merchandise, including rebranded T-shirts, bandanas, stickers and a bespoke barbecue seasoning, “Chub Rub,” which will be handed out on Father’s Day.
“We thought, what a fun way to get the local community more involved with the team and hopefully generate some excitement for the upcoming season,” Jackson Shapiro, the Jackalopes’ assistant GM, said in phone interview.
There’s also a charity component, with the team raising funds for local students involved in fish restoration efforts.
The Chubs had a long road to this seemingly happy ending. It started in 2019 with a fan, Ian Lummis, who, like the chub, is a Grand Junction-area native. He supported the MLB’s Rockies growing up but believed the name of their rookie-ball affiliate, then known as the GJ Rockies, could use some originality—and he and some friends thought renaming the team the Humpback Chubs would be cool.
“If you’re going to run one of those teams, you should kind of know where you are,” Lummis said in a phone interview. “That whole world right now is about fun, gimmicky names. That’s why I did this originally.”
The humpback chub, a member of the minnow family, is an unusual-looking fish thanks to its namesake hump and oversized fins, adaptations that help it thrive in the roiling waters of the upper Colorado River. But dams throughout the watershed had robbed the fish of valuable habitat, and invasive small-mouth bass preyed on the chub, putting it on the endangered species list.
Lummis, who by then was finishing an engineering degree at the University of Colorado, started tweeting to the GJ Rockies that they should name the team after this noble beast. He harvested 250 signatures on an online petition, but nothing much happened, as Lummis tells it, until a local newspaper reporter interviewed him and reached out to the GJ Rockies for comment.
“That was when someone in the organization decided to take it into their own hands,” Lummis said, “and released the famous statement.”
Though no story had yet appeared, the GJ Rockies’ account tweeted that the team was keeping its name. They tweeted some other stuff, too:
“The GJ Rockies are not considering changing their name and never have. We are owned by a group led by the Colorado Rockies and having a team on the west slope helps build their brand. Suggesting we would be called the GJ “Chubs” is offensive and a slang sexual term for erection.”
They followed that up with:
“Anyone who continues to suggest the GJ “Chubs” in any way will be blocked from our account.”
The internet took it from there. The Rockies’ tweet went viral, then was deleted. Deadspin and SB Nation weighed in. Lummis was suddenly sort of famous. “It was a funny few days,” he said.
As it turned out, the Rockies’ mothership wasn’t even mad. Several months after the furor died down in November of 2019, Colorado Rockies co-owner Charlie Monfort met with Lummis to discuss Humpback Chubs as a name. “He was excited about it,” Lummis said, and wanted to bring it up at the annual team meetings. “I don’t know if he actually got around to doing it, because within like 72 hours of me meeting him, Major League Baseball announced they were contracting the minor leagues.”
The GJ Rockies were among the dozens of minor league teams that lost their affiliations with big-league clubs, and their Pioneer League converted to an independent MLB partner league. The team was sold and rebranded as the Jackalopes in 2022.
While the humpback chub had been taken off the endangered list in 2021 thanks to conservation efforts, the Humpback Chubs were on the brink of extinction before they were even born.
Then last year, a new owner took control of the team: Mike Tollin, a Hollywood producer with a passion for sports and an IMDb page to prove it.
Michael Tollin Productions has launched dozens of sports documentaries, including The Last Dance, featuring Michael Jordan; The Redeem Team, about the 2008 Olympic basketball gold medalists; and Kareem: Minority of One, all of which won Emmys, as well as The Captain, recounting the career of Derek Jeter. The production house’s scripted entertainment credits include Varsity Blues, Coach Carter, One Tree Hill and Smallville.
Tollin had also previously invested in other minor league teams. In Grand Junction, the new regime cast a fresh eye on the rare fish. “We kind of like the name, and we think it’s fun,” Shapiro said.
So did Tollin, who the team said was unavailable for comment at press time. “He loves it,” Shapiro said.
As for Lummis, he’s now talking with the Jackalopes about coming over from Denver to take in a game, get some merch and perhaps throw out the first pitch.
And he has dreams of an even bigger catch. “I’m hoping the reaction [to the alternate identity] will be good enough that maybe starting next year, they’ll move to that just being the full team name,” he said.
Still, despite only averaging 10 inches of rain per year, it’s not always sunny in Grand Junction. The Jackalopes have struggled with attendance since losing their MLB affiliation in 2020. When the GJ City Council rejected additional subsidies for the team last fall, Tollin hinted he might have to move the club, though the Jackalopes said early this year they are committed to staying.
But this was all before the Humpback Chubs became a reality. Maybe a once nearly extinct fish will end up preserving a minor league baseball team.