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.

No. 2: Milwaukee Brewers

Bring back the mit!

It’s nothing short of a travesty that the ‘Crew retired this awesome logo. Two bright, primary colors and neutral white, with clean, crisp curves, but nothing really angular. Plus, the coded symbolism; the overt imagery of the stylized ball and mit, but if you look closer, the pocket and thumb of the glove create a “b” and the three fingers clearly create an “m”. And the ball itself uses a swash to denote the seams that’s very similar to number three on our list, the Phillies’ logo.

The fact that the organization moved away from this sort of iconography is depressing and, honestly, completely wrong-headed. The replacement of the bright primaries with the newer muted navy and gold and the use of the wheat (symbolizing the brewing history of Milwaukee) is an obvious attempt by the club to “grow up” and put forth a more mature image. In fact, a lot of major league organizations have done this over the last 10-15 seasons, and it’s a shame.

The fact of the matter is, baseball is a kid’s game. It always has been, and it always will be. And I realize that a lot of people would call this reductive assessment naive, and make claims that it stopped being a kid’s game the second it became a business. But let’s be serious: it qualifies as a business and makes its money as a business because it’s entertaining. It’s fun! There’s a reason sports franchises of the 50s, 60s and 70s used primary colors and cartoonish mascots and logos so much, and it’s because kids love to watch baseball, and that’s where the merchandising money is—in the pockets of parents, just waiting to be spent on goodies for kids.

The game has moved away from this aesthetically, and I’m not trying to draw connections where none exist, but it’s hard not to notice that as soon as teams began moving away from the fun colors and icons that most fans associate with their youth and moved toward the self-serious muted tones that are so chic among marketing and design departments around the league now that it coincided with the proliferation of PEDs like steroids, HGH and the like. I’m just sayin’ that I’m sayin’.

I’m Back (Sort of.)

So, I was gone for almost two weeks on the west coast in September, and I was so swamped with work when I got home that I’ve been unable to update. But I’m back (for the time being.) There will probably be a flurry of posts tomorrow and over the weekend, as I gush about my vacation, post new Infinite Playlist entries, and complete the MLB logos list.

No. 3: Philadelphia Phillies

World Fuckin' Champions!

Before last season, I was only aware of the Phillies in any sort of direct sense for three reasons:

1. I grew up wishing I’d been cognizant and aware of baseball when the Orioles last won the World Series in 1983, against the Phillies.

2. For some reason, I ended up with a disproportionate number of Dale Murphy Donruss cards in 1986/1987.

3. The NLCS winning team from 1993, specifically Lenny “Nails” Dykstra, and Randy Johnson scaring the shit out of John Kruk at the ‘93 All-Star game.

What I have noticed since they’ve been contending once more is how much I loathe the new “P” on their caps and jerseys compared to this chunky-yet-sleek, monstrously cool 70s logo. Plus, the shift from the more unique maroon to the now ubiquitous (in baseball, at least) fire engine red definitely leaves a lot to be desired.

I love the smooth curves on display here, and that it is clearly a single object. It’s clean and cohesive and has a real completeness about it. Bring it back!

No. 4: Toronto Blue Jays

Baseball, eh?

It wasn’t until about a year and a half ago when I was watching the Orioles play the Blue Jays that I realized how much I missed the old Toronto unis. The tone-on-tone blue palette works so well, and contrasts nicely with the red symbolizing the Canadian flag. It’s a real shame that the ball club felt they needed to mess with the old design, but I guess I can kind of understand the reasoning behind it; it was largely unchanged for the first 25 years of the team’s existence, and it did have a somewhat dated retro 70s/80s feel. Plus, the single best way a sports franchise can drum up merchandising dollars is to change uniforms.

That being said, it’s somewhat disheartening that they went in the direction they did; there’s something very late 20th/early 21st century about the current logo and uniform in terms of the color palette and very streamlined design, but it’s not particularly timeless. It already looks pretty dated, and a little too much like a minor league uniform for comfort. There’s a good reason that the Red Sox, Yankees and Dodgers have left well enough alone over the last 70-80 years: baseball is a business, and every bit of marketing material, from letterhead to the logos on the team’s caps should reinforce and strengthen the brand. The easiest way to achieve that sort of brand positioning is to simplify. It’s no surprise that Tampa Bay is finally selling merchandise—winning helps, but so does not having a gradient-heavy manta ray on your uniform.

No. 5: Montreal Expos

Les Expos de Montréal!

Poor Montreal; they never really stood a chance of keeping baseball. Forget it Jake, it’s hockeytown.

Again with the bold, bright red/royal color combo, but what I really like are the soft, round, fluid curves coupled with the visual symbolism—the colors delineate the letter forms that spell out the full name of the team in French: Les Expos de Montreal Baseball Club. Plus the team name itself is just so fresh and original—completely detached from the well of typical team names like the Giants, Cardinals, et al.

Bold. Simple. Elegant.

No. 6: Chicago Cubs

Go Cubs Go!

Poor, poor Cubbies. The last 10 or so seasons have been brutal to follow, because every year you’ve seemed so tantalizingly close to ending the curse. You’ve acquired all the missing pieces, all the necessary tools.

Then the actual season starts. Injuries occur. Your bats slump while your pitching’s hot and vice versa. Then August hits and both go down at the same time.

What I love about this is how beautifully simple it is. Compact, concentric, balanced, and great colors. That royal blue is just so inviting, unlike the neutral, modern navy used in the Washington Nationals’ uniforms. The red is bright and playful, not the harsh crimson of the Nats  or D’Backs. This just looks like “fun”, the same way a ball and stick always have, from wiffles to fungoes to Louisville Sluggers.

And then there’s this:

No. 7: San Francisco Giants

Of all the MLB teams, the ones comprising the NL West have probably garnered the least attention from me over the years. Not only are they not in the AL East with the Orioles, but they’re not in the AL or the eastern part of the country. They are the polar opposites of what I’m paying attention to as a baseball fan.

Another thing to factor into this is the fact that, apart from a blip here or there, the NL West hasn’t been well-represented in the post season in my lifetime. Before interleague play was introduced in 1997, the postseason was really the only exposure I had to NL teams in general, and the fact that most of them didn’t go very deep in the playoffs or field successful clubs in successive seasons really limited that already minuscule amount of exposure. In fact, NL West teams have only accounted for six World Series champion ballclubs since the World Series as we know it today began in 1903. And that includes original division-founding franchises the Cincinnati Reds, Atlanta Braves, and Houston Astros that have since been re-aligned to the NL Central and NL East. Compare that to the 42 Series wins for AL East teams (including four from the Detroit Tigers before they were re-aligned to the AL Central.) No comparison at all, really.

While there’s no doubt that interleague play has certainly made me more aware and interested in the goings-on in the National League, it still feels a little alien to me.

But I digress; this post is all about the NL West, or, at the very least, the San Francisco Giants. The G’ints get the nod over the Los Angeles Dodgers, but just barely. Both clubs have extremely timeless and iconic logos and color schemes. A big part of that stems from the fact that, compared to their division rivals, they are the elder statesmen, at least as of the most recent division re-alignment. Just more proof that everything was cooler before I was born.

No. 8: New York Mets

Meet the Mets, greet the Mets, come on out and beat the Mets!

Kind of an anomaly as far as my aesthetics go, the Mets logo is positively crammed with visual information, which I typically find disorienting and unappealing in most logos. But every element has a purpose, and the garish orange and blue combo, which I often hate, is built into that symbolism.

From Wikipedia:

In the primary logo, designed by sports cartoonist Ray Gatto, each part of the skyline has special meaning — at the left is a church spire, symbolic of Brooklyn, the borough of churches; the second building from the left is the Williamsburg Savings Bank, the tallest building in Brooklyn; next is the Woolworth Building; after a general skyline view of midtown comes the Empire State Building; at the far right is the United Nations Building. The bridge in the center symbolizes that the Mets, by bringing National League baseball back to New York, represent all five boroughs.

That’s so cool! Obviously, it helps that NYC has such a distinctive skyline; Atlanta or Chicago or Los Angeles could never pull this sort of thing off. But the intrinsic payoff for all the symbolism on display here is that you know the Mets will never leave, no matter how legendarily futile their World Series campaigns usually are, because the team’s entire existence is so tied up in its replacement of the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers.

It’s all very sweet, really. A love letter to an entire city. Mets fans should be honored (I know I’d be.)

No. 9: Boston Red Sox

Kiss me, I'm fake-Irish!

A lot of the same things can be said about the Red Sox logo that were said about the Yankees one. Red Sox Nation commandeers virtually every ballpark they visit, and are probably tied with the Chicago Cubs as far as market share goes. The stylized “B” has an edge over the Yanks’ logo due to its unique shape and the colors, which work together so well. Typically blue and red is a no-brainer when it comes to sports teams, but I’ve recently realized just how difficult it is to pull it off (Phillies, Nationals, I’m looking at you.)

Something that really bugs me about the Red Sox is the nosedive the quality of their fanbase has taken over the last 5-10 years. Don’t get me wrong, I always found Jimmy Fallon’s “Boston” sketches on SNL hilarious, but it was a caricature of the average Red Sox fan—there’s no need to try and emulate it. It’s just always disappointing to see a fanbase get hijacked by bandwagon jumpers that generally are just using the team in particular and the sport in general as an excuse to engage in binge drinking and oafish behavior. Actually, Kevin Kaduk over at Yahoo! Sports’ baseball blog Big League Stew posted today about how the behavior of particular Cubs fans over the last decade reached a nadir yesterday when Phillies center fielder Shane Victorino was doused with beer while making a play on a fly ball. Not that Phillies fans are remotely without blame as far as this sort of behavior goes; Philly sports fans are legendary for their bad behavior. But the long and short of it is that this sort of reckless, degenerate behavior is endemic any time a team achieves sustained success. Honestly, the only baseball teams that I can think of that haven’t developed this dark underbelly of fandom are the St. Louis Cardinal and Los Angeles Angels fans of the 2000s, and the Atlanta Brave, Cleveland Indian and Seattle Mariner fans of the 1990s. Excluding LA, it might just be a case of market size, and to be fair, Los Angeles has never been much of a baseball town. And before you Dodger fans jump down my throat, pause and reflect on the fact that as far as pro teams in your town go, the Lakers trump everyone else several times over.

Anyway, I’ve clearly digressed to the point of no return on this post. But as logos go—good show, Boston.