of the century. George Stallings, manager at Detroit during 1899–1901, always claimed the nickname came after he put striped stockings on his players, but they have always been Tigers in the American League." (TSNBBG) Another legend concerns a sportswriter equating the 1901 team's opening day victory with the ferocity of his alma mater, the Princeton Tigers. The earliest known use of the name Detroit Tigers in the news was in the Detroit Free Press on April 16, 1895. Richard Bak's 1998 book, A Place for Summer: A Narrative History of Tiger Stadium has the full story. In the 19th century, the city of Detroit had a military unit called the Detroit Light Guard, who were known as "The Tigers". They had played significant roles in certain Civil War battles and in the Spanish–American War. The baseball team was called both the "Wolverines" and the "Tigers" in the newspapers. Upon entry into the major leagues in 1901, the ballclub sought and received formal permission from the Light Guard to use its trademark, and from that day forth the team has been officially the "Tigers". Certainly when the team started major-league play in 1901, they were already wearing a tiger logo on their caps. In short, the Tigers most likely wore stripes because they were already Tigers, rather than the other way around which was the conventional story. In fact, the Tigers wore a red stripe on their socks in 1901, and generally avoided stripes after that until beginning to wear orange stripes for a while in the 1920s. (Okkonen) The Detroit Lions of the NFL were named in reference to their then-landlords, the Tigers. The Detroit Red Wings of the NHL were originally called the "Cougars", but that referred to their point of origin as the Victoria Cougars. Their early name's apparent relationship to the Tigers and/or Lions was coincidental. The University of Detroit, the main predecessor to today's University of Detroit Mercy, initially used "Tigers" as its athletic nickname. The school changed its nickname to Titans in 1919 or 1924, depending on the source. This nickname remained in use for the rest of UD's separate existence, and was inherited by UDM upon the 1990 merger with Mercy College of Detroit that created the current university. Houston The minor league teams of first the Texas League and then the American Association were primarily known as the Houston Buffaloes, or often just