No. 1: Baltimore Orioles

Orioles magic!

I know, I know. Favoritism! Fanaticism! (Un)fairness and (im)balance! J’accuse!

Fair enough. I suppose there’s a certain amount of validity to those sentiments. But let me just point out that in my Top Logos of the NFL countdown, my Washington Redskins only made it to number seven. So let’s just assume I’m being impartial for argument’s sake.

The anthropomorphic cartoon bird was first introduced to fans in 1955, albeit in a much different, less polished iteration. After a few changes (including a simple block letter “B”, and more ornithologically accurate renderings of Maryland’s state bird), the cartoon bird that O’s fans came to know and love through the Earl Weaver era and much of the Cal Ripken, Jr. era was introduced in 1966 and was the mainstay cap logo for the Orioles through the 1988 season.

The Oriole Bird, simply put,  is easily the most friendly and inviting mascot in US professional sports. Bar none. You can keep your Phanatic, your Mariner Moose, your Mr. & Mrs. Redlegs, your Mr. Met, your Chief Wahoo … there is no comparison. The logo represents an economy of color and detail, yet expresses so much character. If it’s difficult to quantify in two dimensions, I highly recommend that anyone who finds themself in the Mid-Atlantic region in the warmer months head to Oriole Park at Camden Yards for one of the best sporting event experiences, particularly to see the Oriole Bird in the flesh (or feather, as it were.) C-Rock knows what’s up.

The Boys of Summer, Or How I Learned to Love a Giant, Anthropomorphic Bird.

One down, three to go.

As shown by my previous countdown of favorite NFL team logos, I love sports. And while I’m a devoted Washington Redskins fan, my moods don’t typically rise and fall with their wins and losses during the football season. This might have something to do with their notoriously mediocre-to-poor play since the end of the Joe Gibbs Mk I era in 1993. But that alone doesn’t really explain it, because my favorite baseball team, the Baltimore Orioles, have been equally mediocre over the last twelve seasons (“mediocre” is generous; they haven’t made the playoffs since 1997. At least the ‘Skins made it to the first round in 2005 and 2007.) And the baseball season, at 162 games, is over 10x longer than the NFL regular season. Factor in the potential number of playoff games, and the number balloons to 181, versus 19 in football. So there is less at stake from game to game in baseball, yet an Orioles loss affects me much more than a Redskins loss, which is completely illogical. I’ve made a conscious effort over my lifetime to not identify myself as either a “baseball guy” or a “football guy”, but the fact is that I’m much more emotionally invested in baseball in general and the Orioles specifically than I am in the Redskins or football as a whole. The only “rational” explanation that I’ve been able to come up with is the fact that I played organized Little League baseball throughout my childhood, while I was forbidden from participating in football because I “might get hurt”. Thanks, Mom. Tell that to Kirby Puckett!

With ALL this in mind, let’s dive right in to the top ten countdown of my favorite MLB logos!

No. 1: Detroit Lions

Worst team, best uniforms.

Crazy, huh? At least these lovable losers can be number one at something.

I’ve always loved the Lions’ unis, particularly the logo. It’s right out of heraldry, and totally looks like it belongs on a knight’s shield. The uniforms as a whole are all about simplicity, and it’s easy to let as great a color combo as silver and Hawaii blue do most of the visual heavy lifting.

Like the Cowboys’ logo, this one hasn’t been altered drastically over the years, only receiving noticeable changes this past offseason (and really, who could blame the losingest single-season franchise in football history for wanting to ring in 2009 with a new, slightly fiercer (the fangs are new) look?

No. 2: Pittsburgh Steelers

We didn't sell out—we bought in!

Before I get into why I like this logo so much, let’s let the internet take credit where it’s due:

From Wikipedia:

The Steelers logo was introduced in 1962 and is based on the “Steelmark,” originally designed by Pittsburgh’s U.S. Steel and now owned by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI). In fact, it was Cleveland-based Republic Steel that suggested the Steelers adopt the industry logo. It consists of the word “Steelers” surrounded by three astroids (hypocycloids of four cusps). The original meanings behind the astroids were, “Steel lightens your work, brightens your leisure, and widens your world.” Later, the colors came to represent the ingredients used in the steel-making process: yellow for coal, orange for iron ore, and blue for scrap steel.^[24] While the formal Steelmark logo contains only the word “Steel,” the team was given permission to add “ers” in 1963 after a petition to AISI.

The Steelers are the only NFL team that puts its logo on only one side of the helmet (the right side). Longtime field and equipment manager Jack Hart was instructed to do this by Art Rooney as a test to see how the logo appeared on the gold helmets; however, its popularity led the team to leave it that way permanently.

I don’t know why, but I’ve always found that to be a cool story that demonstrates the sort of communal spirit that athletic teams generate, even if it was clearly a case on both sides of trying to align their respective identities with a perceived winner.

In any event, what I like about the Steelers’ logo is the anomalous use of color. What I mean by that is they use the red and blue sparingly, only appearing as accents within the context of the logo itself. They don’t otherwise appear as part of the uniform, which is consistently black and yellow. It actually gives the red and blue more visual weight by using them less. This is further emphasized by the logo only appearing on the right side of the helmet—the fact that it only appears on the one side throws the helmet off-kilter, but not in a bad way. It just makes you notice it more, and remember it longer, and seek out the reasons behind  the decision (not the easiest thing to do when the information super-highway is just a twinkle in a nerd’s eye when you’re a little kid.)

Another aspect of the Steelers’ logo that I find very cool is the abstract symbolism of the astroids in the logo. They aren’t explicitly representational of the things they symbolize, which lends it an air of mystery. I remember thinking when I was growing up that the “stars” each represented one of the three rivers that intersected near the shores of downtown Pittsburgh, the Monongahela, the Allegheny, and the Ohio. It was a logical assumption, though incorrect. That being said, the cool thing about abstract symbolism is that it allows for such interpretations.

No. 3: Dallas (*shudders*) Cowboys

Ick.

Hmmm…maybe it was a slight misnomer to describe this list as a representation of my “favorite” sports logos. I feel like “most successful” is more apt. Because no other sports logo is simultaneously more instantly recognizable and capable of eliciting nausea from me than this one (That’s a lie; this one is equally capable of both.)

That it is soooo culturally pervasive in our country is a lot to do with Jerry Jones, the obscenely wealthy used car salesman that took over as majority owner of the team in the late 1980s. He’s a shrewd businessman that never met an endorsement deal or cross-promotional opportunity he didn’t like, and will spare no expense in making the Dallas Cowboys the “face” of pro (American) football throughout the world. That said, it also doesn’t hurt that this logo has undergone the least change since the team was formed in 1960, with only the addition of the offset blue stroke around the star being added in 1964 and remaining consistent ever since. This freaking star is basically like the insignia for the Imperial forces in Star Wars: everyone knows it, but only assholes like it.

No. 4: Green Bay Packers

I love cheese.

Ouch. Sorry, Bears fans. I know your NFC North rivalries run deep, what with nothing else to do during the midwest winter besides sitting around listening to or watching football. That’s what you get for having the most miserable weather in the country! Seriously, though. This one gets the nod purely because I love the colors—ever since I saw Sterling Sharpe’s 1991 Donruss card! Plus you had that dude with the wacky Polish last name under center before The Messiah Great Betrayer Brett Favre came to town, all done up in his Lee® dungarees, running around and gunslinging like a little kid.

I might also be partial because I love cheese.

No. 5: Chicago Bears

"C" stands for Chi-town, that's good enough for me!

I was surprised to learn that what I’ve always thought of as the “classic” Bears logo has actually only been in use since 1974. I had always assumed that this was the “C” that started it all, spawning countless imitators from the pros on down (I remember my high school football team playing the Chantilly Chargers, who sported the same logo.) Turns out that it was actually Cincinnati’s own Reds baseball franchise that got the ball rolling all the way back in 1913!

A lot of people might disagree with this selection, or at least my ranking it fifth, saying that it’s boring or too “old-tymey”, but that’s exactly why I love it—it looks timeless. And while I’m not usually a fan of the blue-orange color combo, complementary or not, I think these specific shades of those two hues go together so well. It’s not garish and juvenile like the unis of Boise State, University of Florida, and the old Denver Broncos.

That being said, color is the primary reason this one got beat out of the number four spot on this countdown….

No. 6: New Orleans Saints

Saints' fleur de lis

Admittedly, I’ve never paid much attention to the Saints. They’re a small-market team from a city I’ve never been to in a geographical region I tend to loathe. Honestly, I often forget that they’re even in the same conference as the Redskins. But as logos go, this is pretty solid. It’s a single graphic element that immediately associates the team’s location with its French roots. There’s a bit more universal iconography at play here than in most other sports logos, which is probably a good thing, as that off-sets the regionalism of the franchise. Not the most original logo in the world, but it’s still a powerful symbol that is instantly recognizable.

This is the first entry in what I like to refer to as the “muddled middle”, a grouping of logos that are clearly good, but the relative merits of each are so negligible that they make actual numeric ranking a tricky proposition. It doesn’t get really great again until the top two. Also, I realize that the AFC is very under-represented on this list, appearing only four times, and in the case of numbers 9 and 10, representing only three different franchises. Part of the problem is that a lot of AFC teams are just “newer” in the grand scheme of things and don’t have the same storied history as older NFC franchises that were established, in some cases, back in the ‘teens of the 20th century. Also, AFC teams just seem to re-design their logos with a lot more frequency, which makes it difficult for an icon to establish any sort of identity.

No. 7: Washington Redskins

Chief Z

OK, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m a life-long Redskins fan. I’m not going to get mired into the argument of whether or not the name of the team is culturally insensitive/offensive (it is.) That being said, this list is about logos, not names. And as a visual representation of a sports team, this is one of my favorites.

Like I said in my Tampa Bay Buccaneers entry, I usually am not a fan of “character” logos—they’re overly-busy and don’t communicate visual information very quickly. There’s a lot more detail to take in, and when you’re talking about a high-energy sport like football, immediate impact is key.

First off, I love the colors. Burgundy and gold aren’t what you’d call a very intuitive pairing, but they work so well together. The gold circle and tail feathers create a beautiful frame around the Native American head, almost like a stylized dreamcatcher. The illustration of the Native American himself is a little problematic. While nowhere near as unrepentantly offensive, cartoonish, or poorly executed as the Cleveland Indians’ Chief Wahoo or the Chicago Blackhawks’ Native American mascot, it still makes liberal use of cartoonish visual cliches associated with Native Americans—the “red” skin, the large nose—and I can easily understand the indignity it foments. However, the facial expression of the Native American is, to my eyes, mesmerizing. Every time I look at this logo, I see this perfectly balanced, subtle combination of pride, dignity and sadness. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe my (admittedly) overwhelming “white guilt” is creating visual signifiers that aren’t there as a way to rationalize my fandom. Maybe it’s just a logo. I just don’t know.

Ultimately, as much as I love my team, it’s the twenty-first century. Do we really want to continue marginalizing swaths of our “society” (no matter how steadfastly we tried to disenfranchise and/or eradicate this particular segment over the last 400 years), even if it’s disguised as innocuous sportsmanship? I think it’s long past time for a change. But please—don’t pussify it like you did to my beloved Bullets!

No. 8: Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Bucco Bruce!

Bucco Bruce!

I’m not a big fan of “character” logos; they tend to be less impactful than a simple, streamlined icon utilizing universal visual signifiers. But Bucco Bruce, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ logo from 1976 to 1996, is just too great. It’s completely over-the-top and flamboyant, which matches the team name perfectly. When people hear the word “pirate”, they immediately envision dirty, quasi-emaciated degenerates with scurvy that lay waste to government property and spend their off-days raping and pillaging. But “buccaneers” are glamourous! They don’t rape, they “ravish wenches”. They don’t pillage, they “re-appropriate”. And they’re such snappy dressers! The dandies of the pirating world!

Ultimately these distinctions are semantic quibblings, but the fact remains that carrying daggers in one’s mouth is bad-ass, the red-and-orange color scheme perfectly references a gulf coast sunset, and that wink would make even the burliest defensive lineman come hither. Here’s to you, Bruce.