The Moline Greens' agrarian roots also derive from the name of the city itself. The word "moline" comes from the French moulin for "mill." The Oxford English Dictionary goes on to define "moline" as "of or resembling the expanded or curved extremities of a mill-rind; esp. in cross moline, a cross each of the arms of which terminates in two expanded and curved branches resembling the extremities of a mill-rind," which the OED in turn defines as "the iron which supports the upper millstone of a corn-mill, and carries the eye which rests upon the end of the mill spindle."
Interpretations of the Moline cross vary. At least one authority declares that the Moline cross symbolizes "the mutual converse of human society." In European heraldry, the cross moline marked the eighth son, a number which certainly presages the eight position players on the baseball diamond, itself a heraldic emblem. The doubled extremities of the mill-rind find their theological home in the Moline cross and the doctrine of Molinism, the belief born of Spanish Jesuit Luis Molina (1535-1600), who argued that God's grace alone sanctifes the soul even while man maintains absolute freedom of will.
For an eastern perspective on the converging mill-rinds with diverging extremities, see the eighth chapter of Ts'ui Pen's Garden of Forking Paths. Pacific Islander mythology includes a symbol something like the moline cross with one tine rather than four. Legend says this icon derives from the tail of a whale breaking the ocean surface. Islanders have traditionally used this totem in whale hunting.
Some historical occurrences of the Moline Cross defy exact interpretation, as in its use in Mother Goose as a jumprope ditty, a rhyme which still occurs in childhood play in the northern British Isles: