Why the Nats should drop the "W"

[Gamingboy]

I always thought the old Toronto Blue Jays font looked sorta like the CNN Logo.

Wait a second, let me find a picture.

Compare this to this of CNN

Okay, so they don't look as similar as I thought they were.

[redsfan39]

the W has to stay....it looks great

[BBTV]

That's nothing new to have it look like something else. The W looking like Walgreens is total coincidence...this however is not. The Brewers made their M look close to the M in Miller Brewing Company.

Notice I said close...not exact. Either way you can tell they want you to feel the harmony between Miller and the Brewers.

I know you didn't say that they were exact matches, but I don't think they look even the least bit alike.

The Miller M doesn't have a "V" in the middle of it like the Milwaukee M does. The Miller M has two horizontal lines on the top and a vertical line to make the middle of the M, while the Milwaukee M is more like a traditional M. I don't know if that made sense, but other than the coloring of the logos, they aren't that similiar.

[OnWis97]

I always think of the C in Cardinals (on the jersey) when I see the C in Coca Cola.

[slapshot]

Like it or not, the pretzel "W" is forever linked with baseball in Washington, D.C. (not "Washington Baseball", that's something else entirely). There aren't too many other icons that bring instant recognition like that. It might not be from a long period of time, but it still symbolizes "Washington" and that's all that matters.

Yes, it's inconsistent with the logos, wordmarks, secondaries, etc. Yes, a W that matched the wordmark typeface would seem to fit better. But the pretzel W is what most people affiliate with baseball in Washington, and links the current team to past history of other baseball teams there as well.

"DC" is fine for a secondary or batting jersey logo, but not for the primary. They're the Washington Nationals, not the DC Nationals. It may be OK for a road cap, as long as it's only worn with the Washington script.

[VitaminD]

"DC" is fine for a secondary or batting jersey logo, but not for the primary. They're the Washington Nationals, not the DC Nationals. It may be OK for a road cap, as long as it's only worn with the Washington script.

Bingo.

The Nationals are identified by the city they play in. Washington is the city, like Boston, Chicago or St. Louis. "DC" is an abbreviation for the federal district coterminous with the only city within itself. This would be like the Cardinals or Red Sox wearing "M"s on their caps since they play in the states of Missouri and Massachusetts.

Just because people have popularly made [the city of] Washington and [the federal district of the] District of Columbia essentially synonymous does not mean that they actually are. The W belongs.

BgMack: the Miller Beer "M" and Milwaukee Brewers' "M" aren't that similar besides both being "M"s. The Miller "M" has 3 vertical lines and curves on top of all 3 downward strokes - it's actually closer to the Minnesota Twins' M. The Brewers' "M" has an angled downward peak, and only 2 vertical strokes. The middle of the M is made from angled straight lines. They only seem similar because Miller is so closely associated with both the city of Milwaukee and the team playing in the stadium named by the brewery.

[The_Admiral]

"They're not the DC Nationals!"

AHHHHHHHHHAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"DC" and "Washington" identify the same place in the same way. People say "DC," they mean Washington. In fact, it cuts out the district/Pacific Northwest ambiguity. And all the pretzel represents is futility, anyway. By wearing a holdover from the "we may have lost like 100 games a year, but Ted Williams was our manager!" era, which you'd think would be property of the Rangers ANYWAY, it just seems like they forgot to design a hat. They didn't forget. They did in fact design one, a superior one in the gold and white "DC." And I'm not a Democrat.

[oakland ehs]

the W should at least be in the modernized format like the NATIONALS and WASHINGTON scripts.

[VandyDelphia Mike]

"They're not the DC Nationals!"

AHHHHHHHHHAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"DC" and "Washington" identify the same place in the same way. People say "DC," they mean Washington. In fact, it cuts out the district/Pacific Northwest ambiguity. And all the pretzel represents is futility, anyway. By wearing a holdover from the "we may have lost like 100 games a year, but Ted Williams was our manager!" era, which you'd think would be property of the Rangers ANYWAY, it just seems like they forgot to design a hat. They didn't forget. They did in fact design one, a superior one in the gold and white "DC." And I'm not a Democrat.

Solution: have Malcolm Glazer buy the team. All vestiges of a team's unsuccessful past would then be treated as if they never existed.

Oh, he's buying some soccer team? Never mind.

[SteveR]

the W should at least be in the modernized format like the NATIONALS and WASHINGTON scripts.

Why? So that it matches?

Matching is over-rated.

Besides, the W in the uniform script looks like a tuning fork.

[redsfan39]

the W should at least be in the modernized format like the NATIONALS and WASHINGTON scripts.

no. You can't change the pretzel W, and if they made DC on the caps that should be pretzel too

[teenchy]

"They're not the DC Nationals!"

AHHHHHHHHHAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"DC" and "Washington" identify the same place in the same way. People say "DC," they mean Washington. In fact, it cuts out the district/Pacific Northwest ambiguity. And all the pretzel represents is futility, anyway. By wearing a holdover from the "we may have lost like 100 games a year, but Ted Williams was our manager!" era, which you'd think would be property of the Rangers ANYWAY, it just seems like they forgot to design a hat. They didn't forget. They did in fact design one, a superior one in the gold and white "DC." And I'm not a Democrat.

I've never heard anyone refer to the team in Seattle as the Washington Mariners.

Anyway: Let's all agree to agree that the history of the two Washington AL franchises was mostly dismal. The expansion club never made the postseason and had only one winning season, period (1969, under Williams, wearing yes, those red caps with the "pretzel W"). Its overall winning percentage was .418. The original franchise, not much better with an overall winning percentage of .465, at least had three World Series appearances and one World Series title to its credit (1924; the Cubs, White Sox, Indians and until last year, the Red Sox haven't won one since then). We all know of Walter Johnson, Sam Rice, Goose Goslin and Bucky Harris, but there were other very good players - some HOF or near HOF caliber - on those Washington teams. You can see some of their names in the DC Hall of Stars, now a shameful baggie on the RFK walls. Baseball history in Washington wasn't an endless run of sad-sacks.

Design-wise the original Washington AL franchise used a simple block "W" for almost its entire existence. For a good many of those years they just wore simple, thin little W's on their uni sleeves with no decoration across the chest. When they did wear something on their chests it was almost always a bigger block "W." Of course there were exceptions: pre-1912, the patriotic shield of 1926-27 (still with no chest decoration), the 3-D block "W" of the mid-1950s, and finally the "Senators" script and "Mr. Senator" sleeve patch (see my avatar) of 1959-60.

Which, if any, to use then? Maybe bring some back for "turn back the clock days" if the Twins and Rangers will let them?

[IceCap]

Maybe bring some back for "turn back the clock days" if the Twins and Rangers will let them?

but the current washington nationals never wore those old washington baseball unis. the current washington team used to be the montreal expos, and were founded in 1969. the only jereseys they could wear in a turn back the clock game would be an expos set. the past washington unis belong to the twins and rangers.

while were on the subject (sort of) they need to ditch that "Est. 1905" logo.

[Gothamite]

Maybe bring some back for "turn back the clock days" if the Twins and Rangers will let them?

but the current washington nationals never wore those old washington baseball unis. the current washington team used to be the montreal expos, and were founded in 1969. the only jereseys they could wear in a turn back the clock game would be an expos set. the past washington unis belong to the twins and rangers.

Pish posh. Why couldn't they? The Brewers do Milwaukee Braves throwbacks.

[Gothamite]

the W should at least be in the modernized format like the NATIONALS and WASHINGTON scripts.

Why? So that it matches?

Matching is over-rated.

I'd be with you completely if everything else in the Nat's set wasn't matching to the Nth degree.

I love uniforms like the Yankees, Tigers, Dodgers and others, in which the cap logo font doesn't match anything else in the uniform. But you'll notice that in those cases, many scripts don't match. The home uniform doesn't match the road uniform doesn't match the cap (or, in the Dodgers' case, they have two separate wordmarks that don't match).

The problem isn't that the W doesn't match, the problem is that the W is the only thing that doesn't match perfectly.

[teenchy]

Maybe bring some back for "turn back the clock days" if the Twins and Rangers will let them?

but the current washington nationals never wore those old washington baseball unis. the current washington team used to be the montreal expos, and were founded in 1969. the only jereseys they could wear in a turn back the clock game would be an expos set. the past washington unis belong to the twins and rangers.

Pish posh. Why couldn't they? The Brewers do Milwaukee Braves throwbacks.

Really. Look at all the MLB teams wearing Negro League unis in TBTC games, not to mention the Devil Rays' wearing U of Tampa unis.

Why shouldn't the current Washington franchise look for some tie to the city's baseball past, if only in a design element in the current uni?

I do agree and have said as much elsewhere on this board that the "Est. 1905" needs to go. It was the use of "Nationals" as a nickname that began in 1905 - not the establishment of any franchise.

[The_Admiral]

The other thing that's bugging me is that they're red at home and navy on the road. I hate this lack of continuity from home and road. Despite their disparity in records, they're still the same team. As it stands, they look like the Angels or Cardinals at home, and look totally different on the road. Instead of shifting everything from red to navy, why not compromise? Have some elements be red, some be navy, and keep it that way. And like someone said, they made a concerted effort to have all the elements of the Nats package match, then they slapped that stupid W on there to mess it all up.