As soon as we rid baseball of steroids and football of concussions, and as soon as we can decide which ketchup company owns the rights to the "red zone," maybe then we can address a real troublesome issue in sports.

This issue spans from the professional ranks all the way down to the youth leagues.

And it's about time we dealt with it directly. No more ducking the issue. No more pretending there is no elephant in the room.

I'm talking about team nicknames.

Oh, you laugh. You scoff. But any country that can condone a team in Utah being called the "Jazz" is in trouble, my friend.

Why doesn't Congress get involved with this issue? Why does it insist on looking the other way when the nation's nicknames are being wantonly misused?

Because Jose Canseco hasn't written a book about it, that's why.

But the issue remains just the same.

Take the Los Angeles Lakers. There aren't many lakes in L.A., except for the ones made from the tears of wannabe actors who can't find work.

That franchise originated in Minnesota — the land of 1,000 lakes. But when the Lakers moved to L.A., they kept their monicker. Bad! Bad!

When a franchise moves, it should forfeit its nickname. L.A. should have been called something more appropriate, like the Smogs or something.

The same can be said for the Jazz. No city other than New Orleans should ever be called the Jazz.

It should be a law.

In the NFL, Baltimore should always be called the Colts. St. Louis should always be called the Cardinals. The fact that those cities no longer have that identity in pro football is a travesty.

Locally, I think it's about time the word "Lady" is dropped from the beginning of our female teams.

No more Lady Raiders. No more Lady Rockets. Are we still in the 19th century? Do our female players wear corsets? I don't think so.

There is a school near my hometown that uses the nickname G-Men. For some unknown, gender-bending reason, the school's female teams are called the Lady G-Men.

Talk about an identity crisis.

Plus, "lady" has a certain negative connotation to it in these days of gender equity. How would the male teams of Butler County feel if they were suddenly called something like the Sir Rockets?

Also, assigning a color to a force of nature is never a good thing.

How exactly is a tornado golden? And I have never seen a hurricane that is red.

We should all look to Karns City for guidance.

"Gremlins" has to be one of the best monickers of all time.

Finally, an injunction needs to be filed to keep minor league baseball teams from throwing two words together at random to get a nickname.

Like GreenJackets or Muckdogs or Sand Gnats.

Any schmuck can open a dictionary, point to two words, slam them together to get a monicker.

ChinchillaWranglers.

See, what did I tell you?