Megildur

I'd echo all of this. This series has been a treat to witness and I've enjoyed seeing your designs develop and improve. I would love to see the league as a whole when it's all said and done. I'd also like to thank you for showing what's possible with Affinity Designer. It's what led me to the program and got me started with my designs.

I love the Dallas Stars x Texas Rangers look. I think the involvement of black and the more metallic shade of gold than the Athletics distinguishes the Texas from Oakland enough. The cream home set helps with that as well. I do think perhaps scrapping the green alt for a gold alt and potentially replacing the script "Rangers" with the old western block could remove any further Athletics-esque comparisons, but as is, I like how they look. Also, the tweaked Astros and Cardinals look great too. While I like the color scheme for Houston, I would say that it doesn't fit my idea of who the Astros are though. I'll always see them in brick red and black, with the tequila sunrise, or sporting the rather drab navy and orange that they do nowadays. That's no fault of your own though, just a personal preference. The balance of red, yellow, and blue for St. Louis is particularly amazing though and while traditionalists would hate it, I would love to see more use of the yellow and royal blue by the real-life Cardinals.

Thanks! I hear you on the similarity to Philadelphia -- there will be an update to Philly to differentiate the teams a bit more -- though I would say much of the similarity just stems from both teams using pinstripes. As for the FL West, there will be a team, I knowingly skipped that division. I'm deciding on the color scheme for Portland still, so I'll share the two color schemes I'm thinking of when I have some updates for Philadelphia and Jacksonville to share.

*nearly two months later* Long story short, school has been kicking my behind and life has just been crazy, but I've been working on the UBA and Ferris Wheel when I can. Finally, up next: San Francisco Miners The San Francisco Miners entered the UBA in 1984, quickly winning their first championship in 1989 and acquiring the best pitcher in UBA history, SP DeAndre Robinson. However, despite having Robinson’s multi-award winning arm at the forefront of the San Francisco rotation (and all pitching stat categories) from 1986 to 1997, the 1989 championship is the only title to show for it. The Miners have only made the playoffs four times since, most recently in 2013. However, with a second place finish in 2019 with 83 wins and a young homegrown roster, the Miners are well-equipped to chase their second title soon. 2018 Continental League MVP 1B Gustavo Ramirez is just 24-years-old, but he leads the offense and has easily taken over as the face of the franchise. Ramirez bats third and is followed by 27-year-old CF Robby Salazar, who lingered on the free agent market for a while over the past offseason before signing a one-year deal with the Miners to reestablish his value. With a monster season in which he led the CL in WAR, Salazar established himself once more as a top player in the league after years of injuries and should be handsomely rewarded this offseason. So too will 29-year-old LF Tetsukazu Aihara, the CL’s batting title winner for 2019, and 32-year-old SP Pat Cox, the ace of the rotation. Despite those losses, the future is bright, as San Francisco has six Top 100 Prospects, including 18th ranked SP Troy Pritchard, who established himself as a future star with a solid age-23 debut season in 2019. The Miners played around with a yellow and black color scheme upon joining the league in the 1980’s, but quickly adopted a metallic gold and black look in the 1990’s. The one cap features the primary logo of interlocking city initials, a staple since 1984, while the secondary logo seeks to tie two pickaxes into the identity. The Miners were named for the city’s history in relation to the California Gold Rush, hence the emphasis on gold in the identity. The team of DeAndre Robinson has stuck with that look since the 1990’s, adding two alternate uniforms in recent years that have attempted to diversify the look a bit. The unique black alt with pinstripes is worn on select Friday night home games, while the second black alt is worn during roughly a third of San Francisco’s away games. Thanks for viewing! I've been experimenting with some rough jersey swaps for fun, so I included those here, even if they're not perfect (anyone want to buy me Photoshop??). The secondary logo is based off an old Milwaukee Brewers logo, which I was originally using as a framework for my MLB Ferris Wheel Brewers concept, but decided to use here instead. The black and gold pinstriped uni is based off one of Vanderbilt's jerseys. The Miners may get a similarly inspired gold alt in future updates as well, if I decide I want to add another jersey to their rotation. So, what are your thoughts?

I love Cleveland's colors, they look great! As for the Yankees, yeah, I propose just straight up replacing the navy with maroon, so maroon pinstripes and a maroon logo, etc. It'd be similar to the Phillies of the 70's and 80's, but I absolutely think there should be a maroon MLB team.

The Cubs' home and Twins' away have to be my favorites so far. The orange and blue really work for Chicago, while forest green pinstripes on a sand jersey is out of the box but amazing. I'm not sold on the Rangers, but I understand the reasoning. If there's a team that shouldn't go away from the red and blue color scheme, I'd point at the Rangers though. I'd put my hat in the ring for a Dallas Stars version of the Rangers as there's not enough green in the league. In a similar vein of thought, I think Miami is good in the Miami Vice colors, but I would always vote for a return to the teal, black, and silver days. Lastly, I know maroon is literally blue and red combined, but I think the Yankees would look pretty good in just a solid maroon set... (though the Jets colors as @DNAsports recommended would look pretty good too!).

San Francisco is up next! @Shizznick, @jbird669, @TheGiantsFan -- thanks for your comments and compliments, I'll have a round of updates up soon! I got to thinking a couple weeks ago about what some of these jerseys would look like in real life, and one thing led to another, so here are some somewhat rough jersey swaps for Philadelphia and the yet-to-be-unveiled San Francisco team. Two young stars of the UBA are seen here rocking their teams' uniforms within my own adaptations of the Topps' 1985 and 1986 baseball card designs. In the process of moving over my designs to do the jersey swaps, I decided to move up the number on the Philadelphia home jersey, as it looked awkward lower down. Hope you enjoy!

I messed around with adding stitching to the other side of the ball, but ended up not liking it. As for the space needle S, I'm not sure if I'll put a closer view of it up on here unless I end up working more on it in the future. I want to focus on other teams now though, so it may be some time before I do that. As for the Jacksonville script, I'm thinking it may just look better without the in line, so I'll mock up a change over the next few days to get everyone's opinion on that before making a change again. **** Time to visit the "The Athens of America" in the "Keystone State"... The Philadelphia Penns’ origins come pre-UBA, as the traveling Pennsylvania Base Ball Club was quite successful in the early 1900s. As such, the original name for this UBA original team was the Philadelphia Pennsylvanians, but due to sportswriters shortening it so often for newspaper headlines, they officially became the Penns in 1933. With two titles as the Pennsylvanians in the 1920s, a whopping seven titles from 1961 through 1972, and two more in 1982 and 2012, Philadelphia has the 4th most titles in the league. The Penns have also outlasted their former Continental League rival in Pittsburgh (who moved to Minnesota for the 1950 season) and the cross-town Philadelphia Founders (who moved west to LA after the 1956 season) to earn their position as Pennsylvania’s one and only UBA team. Most recently, the Penns returned to the playoffs in 2018, only to get taken out by Houston in the Divisional Round, 3 games to 1. While returning much of the same offense as the 2018 team, the 2019 team finds themselves deep in third place in the CL's East Division, 21 GB of first place Baltimore primarily because of injuries to their rotation. The Penns sport the worst rotation in the CL in terms of ERA, and only their #3 SP Ryan Jones hasn’t missed signifiant time due to injury. At age 39, 3-time All-Star SP Peter Fromm was brought in last offseason to provide a stabilizing force atop the rotation, but has just 51 innings pitched as of mid-August, while fellow free agent pickup 30-year-old SP Jorge Teran has only 77 innings, though he’s done for the year with forearm inflammation. But hope is not lost for next season, as Philadelphia has the 6th best minor league system in the UBA and over $80 million to play around with in free agency. 23-year-old SS Oscar Samano (who already owns a Gold Glove and an All-Star nod) and 25-year-old 3B Jason Lohse will be around for years to come, while 3-time All-Star RF Fernando Novoa continues to mash and mentor at age 35. From their franchise's origins in the early 1900s, the Penns sport a simple keystone logo from Pennsylvania’s status as the Keystone State. A stylized P has also always been part of the team’s look, to represent both Philadelphia and the state. While originally a red and blue team, the Penns took the departure of the other two PA teams as a chance to refresh their look in the late 1950s by being solely a navy ballclub and then lightening that and adding yellow right as the team became a dynasty during the 1960s. The light blue and yellow is similar to the shades in Philadelphia’s city flag, but are deeper shades. Additionally, the team sported an all-yellow look in the late 1970’s with blue pinstripes that also may return as a throwback at some point too. The pinstripes and keystone logo over the heart emerged in the 1960s too, while the pinstriped away and alternate were inventions from the late 1990s that have stuck around. The home uniform is a classic, though the Penns wear their alternate for about a third of their home games and the throwback for a few games here and there over the course of the season. The alternate can also be worn on the road, for about a third of their away games, with plain gray pants with the same blue and yellow piping down the leg taking the place of the home whites. It's a little unconventional to have a pinstriped top without pinstriped pants, but the Penns wear it with pride. Home: Away: Alternate: 1940s-1950's Throwback: SFGiants58 has made a couple Philadelphia concepts that have toyed with a navy and yellow color scheme (here and here), but I hope the different shade of blue here helps distinguish my Philadelphia concept from his. I didn't want to make yet another red and navy Philly concept (except for the throwback), so I took the shades of blue and yellow found from the Welcome to Pennsylvania sign seen entering the state by highway. The keystone shape was also adapted from that sign. As for the uniforms themselves, I wanted to make a team inspired by the Cubs -- pinstriped and the primary team logo over the chest. I was also thinking about these two Indiana Pacers jerseys from the NBA, and their new City? Icon? Earned? insert-random-nike-term-here jersey. The nameplate idea for the back came from looking at old Twins' jerseys from the late 1990s / early 2000s, as they sported a nameplate as they wore pinstripes both home and away. It also represents a slight nod to the Flyers' nameplate, which felt needed for a team called the Penns with a yellow shade that could perhaps be more Pittsburgh than Philadelphia... I didn't want to cram "Philadelphia" onto the away jersey, so I stuck with PHILA., something the 76ers use and that the Phillies used way back when. I'd rather not make PHILA yellow with a blue outline, because then I feel that encroaches on my Denver concept, but I'm not sure if I want to stick with the logo on the chest for the away jersey either, as that would be cool for continuity between the three jerseys but leave none of them openly stating the city name. Anyways, let me know what y'all think!

I'm using rsaline's fantastic template from this topic: I've been using it in Affinity Designer, where I've also been doing my design work for logos and scripts too.

It's been awhile, but I'm back with some stuff to share, so I'll hop right to it. UPDATES: SEATTLE: First off, I went back and updated both Jacksonville and Seattle. Seattle was given a new primary logo, and I also scrapped the S in a diamond secondary logo. The original post has been updated accordingly, and I added a special throwback uniform too. While I thought more about the double-green idea taking over the whole look of the team, I decided instead to revisit my initial idea for the primary logo. I sought to avoid the stretched/condensed/warped look of the first primary by making the base of the logo a rotated square and adding white within that to mimic a mountain, rather than stretching out the top part. The Cascades word mark was then placed over that and a simple Space Needle traced from this Supersonics logo was added to take up some empty space. The lime/neon green drop shadow idea was then applied to a throwback alternate (shown above) which found inspiration from the past black alternate jerseys of the New York Mets and this rather interesting logo and uniform from the Toronto Blue Jays. The same simple Space Needle from the Supersonics was wrapped around by a block S for the primary logo of the throwback, and a block word mark was created with the lime/neon green drop shadow. Overall, I'm really happy with this throwback as kind-of a "love to hate it" look. The Seattle ball club in the UBA is a historically terrible team, so I enjoyed creating a throwback look that doesn't necessarily scream success or good ownership/front office choices. The current look for Seattle then represents a return to a sort-of modernized classic look that the Blue Jays, Houston Astros, Milwaukee Brewers, and San Diego Padres have done in recent seasons. Here's how the five uniforms for Seattle look all together: JACKSONVILLE: Since Jacksonville represents a much larger update than the new logo for Seattle, I'll include the new graphics here. For the Tridents, I continued to play around with the roundel and trident logos from here, opting to go for a sharper looking trident and a clearer font for "Jacksonville" within the roundel, while then switching around the colors for the simple J logo. I also worked on a cursive Jacksonville script for the away and away alternate, adding a line through it to mimic the home "Tridents" wordmark as well. The simple trident logo replaced the roundel on the sleeve, just to simplify it a bit, while the two stripes on the socks are meant to match the two stripes on the trident base. I also dropped the second hat as I just plain didn't like it. On a brief note, Jacksonville dealt future free agent SP Alex Trejos to Montreal, so new #2 SP Justin Quehl is representing the team for the home alternate. LF Cesar Frattasio, the centerpiece return in another deadline deal of a starter on an expiring contract, SP Mike Napolitan, has raked since joining the Tridents and models the away alternate in honor of that. Intro: Home: Away: Home Alternate: Away Alternate: I'm curious to see how the new Jacksonville script is received, as I think it may need further work (or maybe just to drop the line within it and outline the script instead?). Otherwise, I'm happy with Jacksonville, so here's how their four jerseys look together: Though I intended to move on to San Francisco, Portland, or Montreal next, I ended up finishing up Philadelphia instead. One of the original UBA teams, who are also considered one of the more successful teams in the UBA standards, the 11-time champion Penns are next. Though I'll expand more on the naming of the team when I post it, the gist is that the team was originally named the Philadelphia Pennsylvanians when the began play in 1921, but over time became the Penns as sportswriters sought a shorter nickname for headlines. Here's a preview of the ball club: As always, let me know what you think. Happy Holidays!

After much delay, I have an update to Jacksonville. I know a couple suggestions were made to tie-in the J with a trident, but it felt too busy when I attempted that. Instead, I created a roundel with a trident in the center and then there's a standalone trident logo as a secondary logo. I also decided to scrap the teal/navy color scheme because it didn't feel as crisp as I wanted. In comes a slightly lighter navy and a nice light blue to complement it. Lastly, I scrapped the wave pattern on the sleeves because I wasn't a fan of how that was turning out. I have a fun idea to incorporate the Sea God logo at some point too, though not within the everyday look of the club (Turn Ahead The Clock jerseys anyone?). Lastly, I've been in a bit of designer's block lately, but I whipped up these to show the completed teams so far (Seattle is still being fine-tuned): Happy viewing! PS. For OOTP players, here's where someone has adapted some of my designs for play in the game. Have fun! PPS. I totally forgot to include this, which shows more of those Jacksonville changes I was talking about. I'm currently working on a custom Jacksonville script for the away / alt2 jerseys and then I'll fill this in!

Thanks for the encouragement, teeray. I'm glad you've enjoyed the series so far. As neo_prankster cautioned, please be patient. I do plan to work more on this series (and I am in my free time), and I want to finish it eventually. Unfortunately, life outside the concepts board is pretty busy right now, so I haven't had enough time to put into the concepts lately as I'd like. I'm a full-time (online) college student with a part-time job currently, so I've been figuring out how to balance that. I'll be back eventually though, and I've got a Jacksonville update in the works. Maybe by that time the Tridents will have dealt Trejos to a contender and I'll have some new players to highlight on the team!

I admit, I was a bit skeptical of this idea at first. I liked the simple monochrome green look, but I played around with your idea and it's growing on me. Before I revamp the rest of the set though, I wanted to see if this is what you're suggesting: I decided to switch the colors of the front number too, to add more contrast against the word mark. With the addition of the bright green to the word mark and number, I may also add it to the sleeve striping too if it looks good. Otherwise, I included an updated Seattle primary logo and a cap with the bright green drop shadow as well. With the inclusion of the bright green into the primary home jersey (and potentially the away and away alt too), I figured I'd add it to the logo. I struggled with figuring out how to fix the mountains and the stretched-out feeling of them in my Seattle concept, so I went with another direction for this one. I ended up looking up other mountain-related logos to get ideas and ended up basing the primary off the shape/set-up of this logo here. The mountain is based off the view of Mt. Rainier from Seattle. What do y'all think? Should I update the rest of the Cascades accordingly?

I was sorta expecting to have this response to the primary logo, so I'll revisit it. As for a simple trident logo, I have a couple reservations about that. Yes, the team is named the Tridents, but to make a trident based logo that feels unique would be rather challenging. For example, a simple roundel with the prongs of the trident already exists in many forms when I googled "trident logo" at one point. That's a bit of why I went with a Neptune angle, to try to do something a bit out there and unique. I hear what y'all are saying though, so I'll hit the drawing board again and see what I can come up with. I appreciate the suggestion to look at the Ottawa Senators, and I'll work with the floating text to better situate it in the primary. As for the J, I feel you, ~Bear, it's not really anything special (and is basically a rip-off of Juventus, which I realized after I hit post on this concept the other day), but I think it gets the job done. I'll change the outline when I have an update ready and I think I need to mess around with the sleeve striping a little bit too. I'll get to all that soon, but in the meantime, thanks for all your comments, ~Bear, NDFreek, and teeray01. Haha, actually the funny thing is that there's a thread over on their mods site where someone is already doing that... they didn't ask me for permission though and have made a couple changes that I don't agree with. They are giving me credit though, so I appreciate that. Once I'm done with the designs here though, I plan to put together my own files for the game exactly as I've got here, but that'll be awhile (and maybe I'll figure out how to make a Quickstart by then?). It is rather fun playing through the game as I add logos and jerseys though.

I had an idea for a teal Florida team and went with it, so here's the 6th team from the UBA, the Jacksonville Tridents! It wasn’t until 2005 that 1995-expansionee Jacksonville had their first .500 season. Luckily, the wait for their first postseason appearance ended the following season, though that 92-win campaign ended quickly in the divisional round against San Diego. Jacksonville would return to the postseason in 2010, and then set a franchise record with 102 wins and another postseason appearance in 2013. However, in all three postseason appearances, the Tridents haven’t made it past the divisional round and have won only three postseason games total. Averaging 71 wins per season over the past three years, this year’s team is actually doing worse, as the Tridents sit at 19-36 (.345) in the first week of June 2019. Obviously that’s not good for anything better than the basement in the Federal League’s South Division. If it weren’t for Brooklyn somehow sucking even worse, Jacksonville would be the worst team in the UBA. There’s really only one player of note on the Tridents’ roster and that’s defending FL Pitcher of the Year Award and 2014 FL Rookie of the Year SP Alex Trejos. At age 28, the lanky left-hander has been destroying opposing batters for the past year and a half, holding players to a .223 batting average and maintaining a sterling 2.39 ERA during that time. However, despite spending his entire career with the Tridents so far, extension talks have gone nowhere and he’s set to reach free agency this upcoming offseason. Without Trejos atop the rotation, 27-year-old SP Connor Flynn will most likely become the de facto ace. He’s not Trejos, but he gets the job done with his career 3.44 ERA and he’s signed affordably through his age-30 season. While Jacksonville’s pitching is solidly middle of the pack in the FL, their offense is dead last in runs scored, on-base percentage, hits, extra-base hits, and walks. There’s really no one of note in the Tridents’ lineup, but perhaps 26-year-old 2B Chris LaSusa can add some offense via his team-leading .265 AVG when he returns from the DL in 4 weeks. Jacksonville sports a rather unconventional look and name for a professional baseball team. The Tridents name is a reference to Jacksonville's popular beaches, which includes Neptune Beach. The primary logo forgoes becoming a full roundel, instead featuring the team name loosely wrapped around the key figure, that of the Roman god of the sea Neptune, shown with his trident in hand. As an expansion team in the 90's, Jacksonville was bound to choose a non-traditional name, yet the detailed shadows of the primary logo are another unique feature as well. They may blur in small applications, but the Tridents insist upon bearing their unusual logo and they bear it with pride (even as they lose nearly every single game). The arched Tridents word mark has been a staple in Jacksonville's history since their inception, while the wavy stripe pattern has also adorned their sleeves for years as well. The alternate is worn often at home and once in a blue moon on the road. I feel like every league has to have a weird team from Florida. Or maybe that's just me. Anyways, I had some fun putting Jacksonville together, though perhaps the end result could be a little more cohesive. Eh, call it the curse of the Marlins, but I like the Tridents. The lack of cohesion is partly intentional even. It's a Florida team. The main arched text is inspired by the early 2000's Pittsburgh jerseys, the Blue Jays' look from those same years, and the primary perhaps has some hints of this old Padres logo. The face of Neptune is heavily based off this statue, while the trident itself is based off Aquaman. While New Orleans had a lot of location-based symbols intertwined in the concept, Jacksonville does not. Instead, it's sort of a combination of things that inspired it, with very little actual Jacksonville things, but it's a concept that I rather enjoy and I hope y'all like it too. C+C is appreciated as always.

Good to know that the update went over well! Thank you all for your inputs, it certainly brings something to my own creative process and improves my work, which I appreciate. I'm glad that the throwback gets the right intention across. As for the updates, I certainly agree that it cleaned up the Crescents and I'm liking the result a lot more than before. Thanks for your kind words. From what I've found via digging, unfortunately I can't access that part of the forum till I reach the 500 post threshold (or something like that). Dang content permissions I guess I'll have to wait until I get more posts, but perhaps by then I can go back and finagle with New Orleans more with some green. I'll have the next team up within the hour...

I updated New Orleans. You'll notice a new roundel and a switched-up set of jerseys. The previous home jersey becomes the throwback and underwent a color change -- I wanted to incorporate a more bronze-y, murkier shade of gold into the set for a single jersey. I got rid of the fleur-de-lis alt and instead replaced it with a purple version of the new home jersey, which allows for more continuity between caps and the jerseys. I also played around with the roundel a bit, so that I'm much more comfortable with the color balance. I messed around with the bronze-y shade a bit, and decided to make the throwback feature it. I still love the athletic gold more, but I think the bronze-y gold could fit into a 2000's and early 2010's set (ala the Nationals, Brewers, and Astros at different times during those years). I tried something along the lines of that, but the abundance of gold didn't fit how I wanted. I instead went with a rather purple-heavy look that I hope fixes some of the color balance issues from before. Hopefully it looks a bit better now. Thanks! As for now, I'm going to refrain from using green, just because I can't figure out a way to incorporate it in a way I like currently. Once I finish more teams, perhaps I will revisit this and figure out a way to incorporate it. I'm glad you like the concept though! I couldn't find your original post for the fantasy baseball team, do you think you could drop a link here to look at?

I made a little mistake by naming the team the Crescents, in that there are a LOT of New Orleans logos that use the shape. Oops. That's why I went with a relatively simple logo package before, but I see what y'all are saying about it being a bit bland. I appreciate having the input, especially since it's definitely pushing me to come up with better things. Keep the comments coming! On to the design... With the suggestion of the roundel, I had two ideas: 1) Pursue the New Orleans water meter design, which has historical significance to the city and is a common jewelry piece sold there now. I ran into a problem right away though, as Crescent City FC has a logo based on the water meter that would be pretty hard to put my own spin on without ripping off the CCFC logo. So, on to the second option... 2) Use the crescent shape that makes the NOPD badge unique from others. This shape has been used before too, in one of the Pelicans' countless secondary logos. However, I decided to play around with my second idea and make my own roundel with it. First off, I flipped the crescent so that it matches the orientation of the geographical crescent that the city gets its nickname for. I decided to do that, rather than rotate it into a C, because I also wanted to incorporate the fleur-de-lis into the roundel too. Plus, the crescent as a C with a fleur-de-lis in it is another New Orleans jewelry item apparently. So, no C-like crescent for me. I messed around a bit before with old gold, but the athletic gold fit more to my liking. I think the athletic gold pops out a bit more than the old gold, which I like. Here's the roundel, which looks a bit like a soccer crest, though I still like it. I included it in both color schemes for reference: I've got a pretty clear idea of what I'll do to create an alternate uniform, which I'll put together if y'all like the roundel as is, and as for the founding dates of all the teams... I'll leave you in suspense! However, here's what we've got for the teams posted so far: New York - original UBA team from 1921 Indianapolis - founded in 1921 in Washington DC, moved to Indianapolis for the 1949 season Denver - 1959 (yes, this is certainly a bit earlier than was probably realistically likely at the time. This link briefly discusses Denver as a relocation site for the Athletics in 1978. Denver has a rich minor league history since just after WWII, which is what prompted me to put the Bison in Denver so early) Seattle - 1972 New Orleans - 1972

Nice Rolling Stones song

I really like the colors and the pattern of Atlanta's away jersey. sportsfan7 makes a good point about the Olympics connection that I hadn't considered before, though I think your jersey could still work as a memorial to the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Atlanta Olympics bombing. Just last year, the Oklahoma City Thunder had their own memorial jersey, so it's been done before. Still, it could be a touchy subject. As for the home, it reminds me of that old Gotye song but otherwise, it's great and I like the sublimated traffic designs especially.

Wow, I'm rather blown away by all the input! Thanks for all your help and hopefully y'all like the colors I picked... Without further delay, I present to you the Minnesota Vikings Los Angeles Lakers LSU Tigers...New Orleans Crescents: Out of the eleven UBA teams without a title in their franchise history, the 1972 expansion team from New Orleans has the most postseason appearances. The CL South Division is typically weak, but currently has three teams over .500, including New Orleans at 18-15. Sadly, this is only good for third place, as the Crescents are 2 games behind the surging Houston ball club. Yet, New Orleans has actually been pretty good since the turn of the millennium, with seven postseason appearances and only two finishes below second place since 2000. A couple of those second place finishes have been with a below .500 record though, evidence of the status of the South Division as weak. Despite their successes, the Crescents have failed to turn it into titles, losing to Washington in 2010 in their first and only finals appearance so far. The Crescents have a top-notch offense, but a basement-dwelling pitching staff. The two main offensive threats are five-time All-Star 3B Will Langmore, the face of the franchise, and 27-year-old LF Eduardo Capirossi. The 33-year-old Langmore is the #3 third baseman in the league (behind Merritt of Seattle and Tony Aguilar of Chicago), and has been extremely well-rewarded for his role in New Orleans' recent successes, as he’s in just year two of a $30 million per year contract through his age 36 season. While he’s brought star-level talents to the team for nearly a decade now, Langmore also accounts for nearly a third of the Crescents’ payroll. Like Langmore, Capirossi is a homegrown, nationally popular star too. He’s currently on pace for a 49 HR season, which would easily eclipse his personal record of 39 HR two seasons ago and certainly increase his currently affordable $4.4 million deal from arbitration. The contract demands of Langmore and the lack of recent success at developing homegrown starters is why 31-year-old SP Dave Haegele is considered the #1 starter in New Orleans. Haegale pitched to just a 4.77 ERA last season across 28 starts and this season is not any better, as he holds a 6.39 ERA through 7 starts so far. New Orleans features three logos, of which the roundel and interlocking NO get the most use. The roundel is solely a shoulder logo for the jerseys, while the NO is used for the caps. The fleur-de-lis, found in the city flag and the heraldry of the city’s namesake, the Duke of Orléans, features prominently in the roundel, partly surrounded by a crescent from the city's police badges. The actual team name, the Crescents, comes from the city’s nickname as “the Crescent City,” which originates from the city’s initial crescent-shaped geography along the Mississippi River. The orientation of the crescent in the roundel matches that geography. The fleur-de-lis was formerly used as a standalone logo, but has in recent years been relegated to just its placement in the roundel. The throwback recognizes the days where the fleur-de-lis had more importance though, as it adorns the cap of the throwback set from the Crescents' Continental League Pennant winning-season in 2010. That season was one of the last seasons in which the Crescents wore vests and utilized a more bronze-y gold. New Orleans wears the alternate at both home and away games, though not often. The yellow-billed cap is worn at home only, either with the home or alt uniforms. As I mentioned before, the interlocking NO is directly inspired by this Notre Dame logo. As for the fleur-de-lis, it is my own sketch that I created after looking at various fleur-de-lis designs and making my own version. If the UBA were to exist in the same universe as the NFL and NBA, then New Orleans would have a cool little thing going with the Saints, Pelicans, and my Crescents all featuring different versions of the symbol. The recommendation of the athletic gold was a solid recommendation that I appreciate a lot, considering that I was hoping to save metallic gold for San Francisco eventually and I hadn't thought of athletic gold for New Orleans before. I had fun stealing the color scheme of LSU to really connect the Crescents to another Louisiana-based team too. I've got some fun stuff in the works -- a metallic gold San Francisco team, a classic teal team from Florida, and a Mr. Met / Mr. Red homage -- as well as an update to the Seattle primary logo and shoulder logo too. Hope y'all are staying healthy and that you like New Orleans! C&C is appreciated as always.

Maybe something like this? On the left, how what you suggested would appear on a purple background, so on a purple cap for instance. On the right, how it would appear on a white background, with the purple included as an additional outline.

Thanks for the detailed comments, mbannon92 and generalshepherd141! I'm a big fan of the script and the color scheme as well. I visited Seattle once and got lucky to get sunny weather. The view of the Olympic Mountains over Puget Sound (if I've got my geography right) were amazing, but Mt. Rainier in the distance was even prettier and it stuck with me since. I'm absolutely jealous that you get to see the Cascades more often than I do! I went back and implemented two of your suggestions -- no white on the Seattle away (and as a part of that, no white on the away pants), and yellow text on the red Denver alt -- and updated each teams' original posts. I'm hoping I read the "text fill & stroke" part correctly, since I don't know much graphic design lingo (I just click around on Affinity Designer until I like what I've created) . I'm not completely sold on the yellow-heavy text on white either, but I like that it feels unique to me. I was hoping the double outline around the yellow would separate it enough from the white, which I think it did fairly okay. I chose the simple maroon for New York because maroon has always been attached to royalty, and naming a team the "Emperors," even though it was named for a building and the NY state nickname, felt appropriate. Oh, and it looked cool. The initial idea behind developing a mint green alt was me trying to do a green equivalent of a powder blue jersey. I played around a bit with the mint green jersey that I'd mentioned, but scrapped all efforts after I couldn't find something that worked well. A yellow Supersonics inspired alt didn't work either, though I did try. I'll keep the neon green for now as I sorta love to hate it and it reminds me of the Seahawks. I'm going to continue work on the Seattle logos, since I agree that the secondary looks rather stretched. I'll mess around with some snowcaps too, to see if that gets anywhere. Here are my initial sketches of the Cascades, if you're interested: **** Next up, we've got New Orleans. I'll leave you to figure out what the team name is going to be, but regardless the logos will relate more to New Orleans and less to the team name. I've got two color options so far, 1) purple and gold, or 2) Mardi Gras-inspired purple, green, and gold. I went with an interlocking NO instead of NOLA because the interlocking city abbreviation feels more traditionally MLB-esque than NOLA. Also, the NO is pretty clearly derived from this Notre Dame logo. Which color scheme do you prefer?

I think it's an improvement for sure. It's more clearly a T, which I like more than the previous version. I agree that it's still a bit static though. Do you think perhaps centering the T and doing the unique striping on both sides of the T would help? It would prevent you from putting the crest in the middle of the T and you'd probably have to get rid of the maple leaf, but maybe it'd feel less static? I think it's still a great look though. Albuquerque is great. I love the home jersey with the hot air balloon inspired design, as well as the color scheme and peppers design on the away. As for Atlanta ideas, the usual go-to is the phoenix rising from the ashes (I'm planning to do something like that for a baseball design soon), but there are also peach trees, Coca Cola, and the Olympics to draw inspiration from for Atlanta. And it's supposedly Hollywood Jr. I think MARVEL filmed a lot in Atlanta for their recent Captain America movies.

It appears as if the Denver update has been well-received, so we'll move on to the Seattle Cascades. Here, set the mood with this song by The Cascades, who were actually from San Diego, according to Spotify. The song is about rain, which Seattle gets a lot of... Intro (updated 12/20/20): Since the expansions and realignments of the late 1990’s, California has been the major player out of the Continental League’s West Division. With the past two division titles though, Seattle has emerged as a force to be reckoned with in the division, and the team continues to lead the division with a 19-15 record so far this season. The lone title in Seattle’s history, and their first postseason appearance, came in 2004, as the Cascades beat Atlanta in five games to hoist the Maynard Trophy. Yet, the rest of the Cascades’ history has been bleak, as the club has only managed 11 seasons at .500 or above in their 47 seasons of play. Despite the lackluster history of the Seattle ballclub, the Cascades are poised to contend for years to come with the #1 pitching staff in the Continental League, which features dominant hurlers throughout the pitching staff, and two top-60 pitching prospects waiting in Triple-A. Lefty SP Trevor Cabrera is the ace, and rightfully so, since he finished last season 2nd in CL Pitcher of the Year voting with his 2.30 ERA and 206 K’s. The 22-year-old signed a team-friendly deal with Seattle this past offseason, buying out his arbitration years and keeping the fan-favorite in a Cascades uniform affordably for years to come. Homegrown SP's 26-year-old Cody Hester and 22-year-old Jay Johnson are slated to anchor the rotation alongside Cabrera for much of that duration, while 31-year-old SP Jonathan Flores represents the lone veteran in the rotation and boasts the only All-Star nod of the staff (for now). 3B Ryan Merritt, at just age 24, is another young star and currently ranks as the UBA’s #4 position player league-wide. Acquired from Cleveland in the 2017-18 offseason for young SP prospect Willie Lovera and others, Merritt established himself as a star last season with 29 HR, 99 RBI, and a .319 average in his first full season as a regular. RF Octavio Molina was signed that same offseason to a 6-year, $102 million deal after establishing himself as an 2x All-Star in Toronto, and he anchors the lineup in the cleanup spot, right behind Merritt at #3. The Cascades were named for Seattle’s proximity to the Cascade Range, which lie east of the city and boast the beautiful Mt. Rainier, which is visible on sunny days from Puget Sound. The cursive Cascades script has long been part of Seattle’s identity, as well as their rich shade of green and the mountaintop details on their logos. Urban legend claims that the Seattle-based Starbucks chain loved the Cascades color scheme so much that they copied it for themselves. As for the cap, the Cascades boast simple yet classic green cap with the curled S in white. The bright green alternate, worn in about 30% of Seattle’s home games, was introduced in the early 2010s, after the club scrapped their black alt in the mid-2000’s. The second alternate, a fan favorite, is actually worn more often than the away grays, if just slightly, though it is only worn when the club is on the road. (12/20/20: The fifth uniform is a throwback to an alternate worn by Seattle from 1997-2011, during which the Cascades won their first and only title in 2004. Seattle sported a simple, yet rather garish logo of a block S wrapped around the city's iconic Space Needle. Fans, and a couple well-known players on the team, lobbied ownership to bring back the fan-favorite uniform, and now the team sports it on select Friday night home games throughout the season). Home (updated 12/20/20): Away (updated 12/20/20): Alternate 1 (updated 12/20/20): Alternate 2 (updated 12/20/20): 1997-2011 Throwback (added 12/20/20): (12/20/20: The throwback is inspired by all the recent talk I've seen on social media about getting the Mets to bring back their black alternates from 1998-2012. I also took inspiration from these rather terrible Blue Jays years). So there ya go! Team #4 is posted, so by my measure, just seven more groups of four to go. Welp. If it takes a month for me to post four teams, then that pace would have me done sometime in early 2021. Hmm, hopefully I can speed up before then. (12/20/20: Perhaps that was a bit too optimistic...) Like always, let me know what you think and I hope y'all like Seattle! SPOILER from 12/20/20: Includes the original team intro, home and first alternate sets, and the version 2 away and second alternate sets. I finished updating the primary logo, so the new graphics above include the new primary, which also replaced the old S in a diamond logo on the sleeves. These changes are detailed here. SPOILER from 7/23/20: Includes v1 of the away uniform and alternate 2. I removed the white outlines from the away set, including the white from its place alongside the green striping. I changed the alternate's pants to match. Also, the removal of white from the away uniform included making the socks stripe-less.