Minor/Independent/Collegiate League Baseball Logo/Uniform Changes

[kimball]

2 hours ago, JayMac said:

So...these names aren't a joke??

I don’t know how one can be shocked or surprised in a world that’s already seen the Baby Cakes, Rumble Ponies, Biscuits and Sod Poodles.

[JayMac]

1 hour ago, kimball said:

I don’t know how one can be shocked or surprised in a world that’s already seen the Baby Cakes, Rumble Ponies, Biscuits and Sod Poodles.

Call me naive

[mjd77]

It's not as if we didn't know every possibility would be way worse than Snappers.  Just refresh the damn Snappers identity and be done with it.

[KittSmith_95]

100% agree with everyone saying they should just refresh the Snappers indentity. 

[Sec19Row53]

It's like they took all of the failed ideas that the Green Bay Bullfrogs nay Booyah didn't use.

[mjd77]

11 minutes ago, Sec19Row53 said:

It's like they took all of the failed ideas that the Green Bay Bullfrogs nay Booyah didn't use.

 

Don't even get me started on that mess.

[monkeypower]

A new expansion team in the WCL was announced today, the Edmonton Riverhawks.

 

This team will be run by the new lease holders of the Edmonton stadium who won the bid back in May. After losing the bid and having talks fall apart with the new stadium ownership, the current summer collegiate team, the Edmonton Prospects of the WCBL, announced they will be moving to the Edmonton-area city of Spruce Grove for the 2022 season.

 

I posted in the Minor League news thread a couple of months ago about the whole situation in Edmonton.

So now there will be two summer collegiate teams 30 minutes away from each other in Edmonton who play in two separate leagues and the WCBL isn't too happy about this. (The stadium situation is also in question because if the Riverhawks start in 2021 and the Prospects don't have a stadium until 2022, I don't know what'll happen there)

 

Quote

“Our league sees this as a totally unnecessary hostile intrusion into our footprint, something both leagues have respected for the past 10 or more years,” said Prospects managing partner Patrick Cassidy, whose team is one of 12 franchises across Alberta and Saskatchewan making up the WCBL, which was founded in 1931.

 

Quote

“While I’ve been a proponent of two franchises in this market for some time, what made sense was to have them both operating out of the same league and from two stadiums so that co-ordination of scheduling and prime dates could be orchestrated and, from a WCBL standpoint, travel for all league teams could be reduced,” Cassidy said. “I’m not sure what their plan is to reduce travel for players, but that is always a major consideration for any league and often the reason many bus leagues falter.”

 

The closest WCL team is a nine-hour drive from Edmonton, with two-thirds of the league located south of the B.C.-U.S. border, while that same nine hours runs the distance on the entire WCBL.

 

“That’s our longest road trip, from Lethbridge or Medicine Hat to Fort McMurray,” said WCBL president Kevin Kvame, pointing out travel has plagued U.S.-based baseball leagues with teams in Alberta since the glory days of affiliated ball with the Edmonton Trappers and Calgary Cannons. “I don’t know how it works with the West Coast League, they haven’t given us the courtesy of a call or an email back or anything. I have other dealings with one of their general managers who gave me a heads up about a day or so ago, but he wasn’t even aware that they were doing this until recently.”

 

Travel is going to be an issue for the Riverhawks.

 

(Feel free to move part this into the Minor League news thread if you feel it's needed mods, but this is backstory I felt would be needed to discuss the announcement of the team and would get more eyes on it than on just in the Minor League news thread. I'm sure I'll have more updates for the Minor League news thread in the future if stuff starts to pop off later)

[SportsLogos.Net News]

West Coast League expands to include Edmonton Riverhawks

September 15, 2020 - 21:34 PM

The rapidly growing collegiate summer level West Coast League introduced its third new team scheduled to begin play in 2021. The Edmonton Riverhawks are the 15th team in the WCL, and the first outside British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. The nickname derives from the North Saskatchewan River, which features prominently

Read More...

[tron1013]

Are the Snappers no longer among the 42 MiLB being contracted? I thought they were on one of the lists.

[Sodboy13]

Supposedly the kill list has been shuffled a bit in secret. I believe Beloit's presence on the list was contingent on them not getting a new park. If they got the new stadium, I believe Quad Cities would get killed instead.

 

One thing that's been nagging me about the Beloit name choices - so, "Supper Clubbers" is probably the most tolerable of the very bad lot, right? Now, I may be incorrect about this, but I always associate the Supper Club scene with northern Wisconsin. Like, you've at least gotta get north of the 39/90 split in Portage before you're in what could be considered supper club territory. And here's Beloit, parked on the Illinois border. The identity options feel like the brainstorming went as far as, "Beloit's in Wisconsin, right? Okay, what are some Wisconsin things?" and then that was lunch. Shocking that Waterskiiers or AquaBats or Chicago Suburbanites didn't make the cut.

[The_Admiral]

16 minutes ago, Sodboy13 said:

One thing that's been nagging me about the Beloit name choices - so, "Supper Clubbers" is probably the most tolerable of the very bad lot, right? Now, I may be incorrect about this, but I always associate the Supper Club scene with northern Wisconsin. Like, you've at least gotta get north of the 39/90 split in Portage before you're in what could be considered supper club territory. And here's Beloit, parked on the Illinois border.

 

I was thinking a variation on the same thing myself. Yes, there are supper clubs in southeastern Wisconsin, but they tend to be on lakes with lots of trees around them: Delavan Lake, Oconomowoc, Paddock Lake, towns like that. Some of the unincorporateds have establishments I guess you could call "supper-club-adjacent," like a bar and grill that has Friday Fish Fry, a relish tray, and paneling, but again, also lake towns like Como or Silver Lake or Okauchee. I think Wilmot has a joint like that near the ski resort.

 

But Beloit? No, not really part of lake country and the attendant supper club culture -- you feel a very real shift in the landscape just west of Delavan, where the lakes and hills and woods give way to crushing dullness and the feeling that no one is coming here to get away from anywhere else, rather, the other way around. And then you have Janesville, Beloit, and Rockford, which form what expert demographers have deemed a Column Of Sadness. That's all post-industrial blight, no supper clubs there. More like Beef-a-Roo and truck stops. Maybe someone tries to open a pizza joint in a disused factory and then it goes out of business in three months.

 

So yeah, it's a really stupid name for Beloit. You can't do whimsical Wiscaahhhnsin yah-hey-dere stuff for what is, like you said, a border town, and not at all a whimsical one. Any effort of Brandiose to gin up some rich cultural tapestry for poor old Beloit will just end up being more depressing than if they hadn't tried at all. Call them the Snappers, design better merchandise, and quit overthinking everything.

[Sec19Row53]

13 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

I was thinking a variation on the same thing myself. Yes, there are supper clubs in southeastern Wisconsin, but they tend to be on lakes with lots of trees around them: Delavan Lake, Oconomowoc, Paddock Lake, towns like that. Some of the unincorporateds have establishments I guess you could call "supper-club-adjacent," like a bar and grill that has Friday Fish Fry, a relish tray, and paneling, but again, also lake towns like Como or Silver Lake or Okauchee. I think Wilmot has a joint like that near the ski resort.

 

But Beloit? No, not really part of lake country and the attendant supper club culture -- you feel a very real shift in the landscape just west of Delavan, where the lakes and hills and woods give way to crushing dullness and the feeling that no one is coming here to get away from anywhere else, rather, the other way around. And then you have Janesville, Beloit, and Rockford, which form what expert demographers have deemed a Column Of Sadness. That's all post-industrial blight, no supper clubs there. More like Beef-a-Roo and truck stops. Maybe someone tries to open a pizza joint in a disused factory and then it goes out of business in three months.

 

So yeah, it's a really stupid name for Beloit. You can't do whimsical Wiscaahhhnsin yah-hey-dere stuff for what is, like you said, a border town, and not at all a whimsical one. Any effort of Brandiose to gin up some rich cultural tapestry for poor old Beloit will just end up being more depressing than if they hadn't tried at all. Call them the Snappers, design better merchandise, and quit overthinking everything.

That does it - I'm driving past Lucky Chucky's Supper Club on the way home and taking a picture for this thread.

 

#GoSnappers

[monkeypower]

It's made the news. Snappers fans believe new owner “destroying brand” with name change.

 

Quote

In order to cover the upkeep costs of maintaining Beloit’s new baseball stadium over the next 20 years, Snappers Managing Operator Quint Studer will change the team’s name.

 

Some fans do not see that as rational decision.

 

“I just think he’s wrong and he’s destroying a really good brand,” said Ben Witkins.

 

Witkins is not happy about the Snappers changing their name.

 

The lifelong Beloit baseball fan and a growing petition of more than 2,300 believe the Cheeseballs, Moo, Polka Pike, Sky Carp, and Supper Clubbers are simply a joke.

 

“It’s just so sad to me that we have this new stadium, the fans are so excited, the community is so excited, but it’s just this epic buzzkill we have to deal with with this new corny name that the entire city is embarrassed by,” Witkins said.

 

The man drawing this amount of ire from snappers fans is Studer. An Illinois native and former Janesville teacher, Studer is coming in to run the team.

 

He believes there should be a little more gratitude on their end.

 

“Anybody can sign a petition and if they want to take over and put 12 to 17 million dollars into this team, they can certainly name it,” said Studer.

 

But Studer is not upset. He hopes that enthusiasm continues and helps boost dwindling attendance numbers, which have dropped by more than 20 percent over the last 15 years.

 

In 2019, the Snappers had just 14 full season ticket holders and ranked second to last in the Midwest League in attendance.

 

“I think this has certainly been a wake-up," Studer said. "They’re so fortunate because if it wasn’t for Diane Hendricks building a stadium, they’d keep the Snapper name, but there would be no team.”

 

Studer, who is also the owner of Pensacola’s Double-A club, says without a new stadium, Beloit would be in the running to lose its MLB affiliation.

 

Witkins says he understands Studer’s position, but the name means so much to his community.

 

“We’re appreciative of the team staying here, we’re appreciative of his efforts, but the name is a big deal for a lot of people," said Witkins. "Alienating fans is not a good idea and I hope Quint hears that.”

 

However, Studer has made up his mind.

 

“The team’s moving on and the Snappers are there on Sundays and it’s just not going to make a difference,” said Studer.

 

Studer says the club will celebrate Snappers history every Sunday by wearing jerseys.

 

While Witkins says Beloit unanimously hates the name change, Studer says they conducted a survey where 70 percent of the community supported it.

 

"If you want to name the team, just buy it!"

 

I guess that also kind of explains Beloit's spot on the chopping block, maybe it was conditional on the building of a new stadium.

[WideRight]

14 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

And then you have Janesville, Beloit, and Rockford, which form what expert demographers have deemed a Column Of Sadness. That's all post-industrial blight, no supper clubs there. More like Beef-a-Roo and truck stops. Maybe someone tries to open a pizza joint in a disused factory and then it goes out of business in three months.

 

 

 

I think you have stumbled onto the perfect MiLB identity for Beloit:

 

Beloit Blight

 

or variations such as...

 

Beloit Blighthawks

Beloit Blightsox

Beloit Blightmares

 

I am sure Brandiose could have a lot of fun with blight, maybe an unemployed, alcoholic turtle swinging a broken 2x4 as a bat.  Sounds like their style. 

[The_Admiral]

1 minute ago, WideRight said:

I am sure Brandiose could have a lot of fun with blight

 

Brandiose could make 1950s-hamburger-stand mascots out of a snuff film.

[monkeypower]

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

 

Brandiose could make 1950s-hamburger-stand mascots out of a snuff film.

 

That one's actually not that hard.

 

The Hash Slinging Slashers or the Butcher Petes.

 

 

[gosioux76]

16 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

I was thinking a variation on the same thing myself. Yes, there are supper clubs in southeastern Wisconsin, but they tend to be on lakes with lots of trees around them: Delavan Lake, Oconomowoc, Paddock Lake, towns like that. Some of the unincorporateds have establishments I guess you could call "supper-club-adjacent," like a bar and grill that has Friday Fish Fry, a relish tray, and paneling, but again, also lake towns like Como or Silver Lake or Okauchee. I think Wilmot has a joint like that near the ski resort.

 

But Beloit? No, not really part of lake country and the attendant supper club culture -- you feel a very real shift in the landscape just west of Delavan, where the lakes and hills and woods give way to crushing dullness and the feeling that no one is coming here to get away from anywhere else, rather, the other way around. And then you have Janesville, Beloit, and Rockford, which form what expert demographers have deemed a Column Of Sadness. That's all post-industrial blight, no supper clubs there. More like Beef-a-Roo and truck stops. Maybe someone tries to open a pizza joint in a disused factory and then it goes out of business in three months.

 

So yeah, it's a really stupid name for Beloit. You can't do whimsical Wiscaahhhnsin yah-hey-dere stuff for what is, like you said, a border town, and not at all a whimsical one. Any effort of Brandiose to gin up some rich cultural tapestry for poor old Beloit will just end up being more depressing than if they hadn't tried at all. Call them the Snappers, design better merchandise, and quit overthinking everything.

 

I'm all in for the Beloit Beef-a-Roo.

[Sodboy13]

6 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

Brandiose could make 1950s-hamburger-stand mascots out of a snuff film.

That's it! The South Wisconsin NippleBelters, with a Vault Boy-esque Ed Gein swinging a femur bone as a primary logo. Checks all the boxes!

[The_Admiral]

12 hours ago, monkeypower said:

It's made the news. Snappers fans believe new owner “destroying brand” with name change.

 

 

"If you want to name the team, just buy it!"

 

I'm trying to figure out the logic to all this: they need a new name so that people will go to games and buy merchandise, but people don't want the new name and wouldn't buy the new merchandise, but also the team is still going to wear Snappers stuff for Sunday home games? Guy gave away the game when he said "well then you pay for it," he's just a small-timer who wants a toy to play with. 

 

I had to look up who stadium benefactor Diane Hendricks is and found the marvelous headline "Roofing Billionaire Dies After Fall Through Roof." lol owned

[MilSox]

The "logic" behind all these nonsense rebrands is that people who don't live anywhere near where the team actually plays will buy the merch as a novelty.  

But if Beloit rebrands, I am officially done complaining about the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers name.  They will be THE Wisconsin team in the Midwest League as far as I'm concerned; and the Brewers affiliate at that.

If they absolutely MUST rebrand, do so in a way that includes Rockford and the entire border area.  But even then, I can't see that yielding something better than what we have now.  This new owner is an ass who definitely has more money than brains.  And it doesn't seem like he has a whole lot of either.