Back in the days of commercial network radio glory, Jack Benny featured a regular bit. He, Mary, Rochester and Don Wilson and the rest of the gang would be taking a train trip when suddenly the station announcer would shout: "All aboard for Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga."

Cucamonga was the real punch line; Anaheim, like Azusa, was just a second-banana gag. Even in comedy, Anaheim was nowhere. But then Anaheim became home to Disneyland, Major League Baseball and NHL teams -- the Angels and Mighty Ducks. As Americans fled cities for the suburbs, Anaheim  became larger than such genuine old American cities as Pittsburgh and St. Louis.

But, alas, the owner of the Angels, Arte Moreno, has decided Los Angeles has more cachet, and so he changed the name of the team to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The only reason he's kept the Anaheim footnote is to be cutesy with the stadium lease, which obliges the team to keep Anaheim in its name.

Oh, for the good old days when teams were just named for the cities where they played. Now, though, we have teams named after nine whole states -- Minnesota, Indiana, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Jersey, Florida, Carolina and Tennessee -- not to mention a body of water, a state title and a region. That is: the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Lightning and Devil Rays, the Golden State Warriors and the New England Patriots.

The courts are examining the Anaheim matter, and if they agree that you can't name a team after a city where it isn't, I think next it's time to prohibit a team from unfairly appropriating a territory in toto for its name. How do the Florida Marlins get off taking in the whole state when the Devil Rays are also in Florida? How do the Warriors get to say they're the Golden State team? Why, they might as well call themselves the Los Angeles Warriors of Oakland. And the New England Patriots? The people who live in much of Connecticut are strictly Giants and Jets fans. I say we demand that we have accurate name changes, like: the Some of Florida Marlins, the Mostly New England Patriots and the Little Bit of Golden State Warriors.

Even more important. The teams with nicknames that were indigenous to their original cities should have to use the term "out of," as they do in horse racing, to designate a thoroughbred's dam. Thus, it's only right that, by law, we demand: the Utah Jazz officially be titled the Utah Jazz out of New Orleans, along with the Calgary Flames out of Atlanta, the Memphis Grizzlies out of Vancouver and the Los Angeles Lakers out of Minneapolis.

It was, though, good to see the new Washington baseball franchise refuse to become the Senators again. After all, truth in nicknaming: Washington is the only part of America that has no senators. Once before, the old Senators threw up a trial balloon to see if they couldn't officially change their name to Nationals, or Nats in the vernacular. They had a song, which actually went:

I'm nuts about the Nats,
I'm nuts about the Nats.
I'm crazy 'bout the Senators,
And nuts about the Nats.

Oh well, it's no Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga.