Old97s.com

I have always wondered, why is there an apostrophe in Old 97's?  What is it that is belonging to the Old 97?  That's what an apostrophe s is for, you know, to show ownership of something.  So what is it that the Old 97 is owning?  Someone please tell me.

http://www.writingcenter.emory.edu/apostrophe2.html#plurals

Doreen1973:

I have always wondered, why is there an apostrophe in Old 97's?

Here ya go! From: http://www.hitbyatrain.com/biography/factoids.html

Apostrophe - Why is it “Old 97’s” and not “Old 97s”? Are the Old 97’s confused about the rules of grammar? No. “Do any of you have Webster’s grammar books? If you do, look up the section on apostrophes. You will find that it’s OK, in order to prevent confusion, to add an apostrophe before an ‘s’ when making something plural. For instance, if Johnny comes home from school and says, ‘I got two F’s today in attitude’, then he’s at least right grammatically. It would be confusing if he said, ‘Fs’. Get it? So five years ago we decided to invoke the rule and be ‘Old 97’s’ rather than ‘Old 97s’. Or ‘Old Nine-Seven-Ess’, as we would have probably be called. If you have ever seen our original demo, you’ll probably notice that we were ‘The Old 97’s’. I don’t remember why we changed. We just did.” - Ken Bethea (1998) 

Why isn't it "Deaf Leopard" or "Lead Zeppelin" or even "The Beetles"? Rock 'n roll doesn't have to be grammatically correct -- thank goodness! ;)