Once more into the ... something

And now for an idea whose time has come, and also gone. And gone. And gone. And ... gone.

That makes four "gones" by the Blob's sketchy math, which is how many times Fort Wayne has been down the rabbit hole known as indoor football. If you're scoring at home, there was the Safari/Freedom, the Fusion, the Other Freedom and the FireHawks. Weird stuff happened with all of them, but all of them eventually met the fate of pretty much every indoor football entity on the level a Fort Wayne is going to be involved in it.

Which is to say, it imploded. Or couldn't make payroll. Or got fleeced by snake-oil salesmen from out of state. Or, you know, died because every other franchise died around it and there was no one left to play.

This is what happens in indoor football, a niche sport even at the top level. On the Fort Wayne level, it's a niche-niche-niche sport, attracting the same sort of passionate but limited fan base indoor soccer did. This means it's not likely to attract any Rooneys, Maras or even a Jerry Jones to run the show and the teams. You're far more likely to get grifters, quick-buck artists and honest but under-capitalized civic leaders.

It's too early to tell which of these the ownership of the fledgling National Gridiron League best resembles, but Fort Wayne is taking the plunge again anyway. Four times burned is not enough, apparently, and so welcome to  the Indiana Blue Bombers, who'll play in the Allen County Memorial Coliseum for a construct in which there will be no franchises. The league will own all the teams.

And if you're saying here, "Oh, my God, it's Isiah Thomas and the CBA all over again," congratulations. You know your Fort Wayne minor league history, particularly all the infamous parts.

It was Isiah, after all, who bought the Continental Basketball Association, a 40-some-year-old concern of which the Fort Wayne Fury was a proud member. Within less than two years, Thomas had killed the league and fled -- proving that even if grifters are people you've heard of, they're no less grifters.

I hope this isn't another merry trip down that primrose path. But I'm a prisoner of history just as everyone is. So color me not just skeptical but wary.

As in "extremely wary."

In any event, there's already some strangeness to this. It starts, of course, with the team name: The Indiana Blue Bombers. Who came up with that? And why are they "Indiana" when there's another Indiana team in Evansville? What are they going to call that team? The Really Close To Kentucky And Illinois Whatevers?

All I know is, the Blob is something of a snob when it comes to nicknames, and "Blue Bombers" sounds like something you come up with when you've never stepped foot in Fort Wayne and know zip about the community -- which pretty much describes this situation. If anyone had asked, we could have come up with any number of names with some local flavor to them ...

1. The Fort Wayne Gimme Fives.

(Because this is the fifth go-around for indoor football, so why not?)

2. The Fort Wayne Downtown Arenas.

(Because, come on, tell me an indoor football team doesn't bolster that argument.)

3. The Fort Wayne Not The Cougars.

(A nod to the real football entity in town, the two-time defending national champion Saint Francis Cougars.)

4. The Fort Wayne Freedom.

(Just, you know, for the irony.)

And last but not least ...

5. The Fort Wayne Fightin' Madder-Than-Anthony Optimists.

(Because you pretty much have to be one of those at this point to think this will end well. Don't you?)