I was wondering about that... I thought it had something to do with his being a science teacher. That was the local baseball team in The Simpsons I think.. Isotopes...
Yes, but it became real life a few years back.
https://www.milb.com/albuquerque
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albuquerque_Isotopes
The Albuquerque MiLB team is actually named after The Simpsons team.