St Louis "StL"

[Mingjai]

I can't think of any other schools similarly situated to BYU that use one letter.  The closest I can think of is Ohio State simply using the "O" (as does the Oregon State baseball team) or all the state schools that simply use an "S" (though there's some tradition behind that).

There's Miami's stupid U...

Why does BYU just use the Y, by the way?

Back in 1906, BYU students wanted to paint "BYU" on the mountain overlooking campus. They got everything laid out, and finished the 380' X 130' Y before realizing they had bitten off more than they can chew and gave up on the B and U. Since then, BYU has become known locally as "the Y" and the university and its sports teams have adopted the Y as a symbol.

The story of Y Mountain

Pictures of Y Mountain: #1 #2 #3

And finally, a picture of Y Mountain from my personal collection: Here. Man, I love that place!

[Korkie]

I can't think of any other schools similarly situated to BYU that use one letter.  The closest I can think of is Ohio State simply using the "O" (as does the Oregon State baseball team) or all the state schools that simply use an "S" (though there's some tradition behind that).

There's Miami's stupid U...

Why does BYU just use the Y, by the way?

Back in 1906, BYU students wanted to paint "BYU" on the mountain overlooking campus. They got everything laid out, and finished the 380' X 130' Y before realizing they had bitten off more than they can chew and gave up on the B and U. Since then, BYU has become known locally as "the Y" and the university and its sports teams have adopted the Y as a symbol.

The story of Y Mountain

Pictures of Y Mountain: #1 #2 #3

And finally, a picture of Y Mountain from my personal collection: Here. Man, I love that place!

Lazy Mormons!

Just kidding, actually that is a cool story and the mountain looks awesome. Your last picture rules, btw, as does the one of the Y at night.

[IceCap]

I can't think of any other schools similarly situated to BYU that use one letter.  The closest I can think of is Ohio State simply using the "O" (as does the Oregon State baseball team) or all the state schools that simply use an "S" (though there's some tradition behind that).

There's Miami's stupid U...

Why does BYU just use the Y, by the way?

Back in 1906, BYU students wanted to paint "BYU" on the mountain overlooking campus. They got everything laid out, and finished the 380' X 130' Y before realizing they had bitten off more than they can chew and gave up on the B and U. Since then, BYU has become known locally as "the Y" and the university and its sports teams have adopted the Y as a symbol.

The story of Y Mountain

Pictures of Y Mountain: #1 #2 #3

And finally, a picture of Y Mountain from my personal collection: Here. Man, I love that place!

Cool story. Just out of cariousity, why didn't they start with the "B"?

[Mingjai]

Cool story. Just out of cariousity, why didn't they start with the "B"?

Apparently it was because they wanted the "BYU" centered about a certain location, so to get everything centered properly, they went "Y" first. I guess if they had started with the "B," BYU would be known as "the B."

[Gothamite]

Question for Packers fans. If the Packers ditched the G in the oval for the Lombardi "GB" would there be that much of a backlash?

In a word, yes.

If only because the G logo has so much history. It's the only helmet logo we've ever worn, and it's seen six World Championships. You can't just toss that away.

Even when Ron Wolf created a redesign proposal in 1994, he changed the team colors but otherwise left the G alone.

I think only Vince Lombardi himself could change the Packers' logo. Which doesn't seem all that likely....

[Sec19Row53]

As for the Packers, yeah, they need a "B" on the helmet. I actualy like the "GB" Gothamite posted.

Question for Packers fans. If the Packers ditched the G in the oval for the Lombardi "GB" would there be that much of a backlash?

Probably. There's so much history* in the Packer unifroms and helmets that any change at this point would not be well received.

* - While there have been changes made to the helmet and uniform since St. Vince created them, any one (non-throwback) uniform from 1961 to the present will look pretty much the same as another.

[sc49erfan15]

You'll also find different hat logos on different players in the same year!

This could be easily explained...but its just odd. BTW...those are from 1957...the year after the Cardinals went birdless. Also one of the Few years the Reds went to "Redlegs" because of the Red Scare...what a goofy year...

I would heavily advise against using baseball cards (especially early ones) as exact references for dates. Just because a 1957 Topps card has a picture on it, that doesn't mean the picture was from 1956.

The Topps photographers usually got around to taking everyone's picture, but not all the time. There are a few instances of the same picture being used for a card more than once, sometimes even a few years apart.

[MarkAtnip]

Here is an obscure addition to the discussion.

This is a picture from the 1947 St Louis Billikens football team. They have at least the S and the L on the front of thier helmet. There might be a T in there. The picture isn't clear enough.

[STL FANATIC]

I know this is an old thread, but I noticed something relevant to it today, but not IMO worthy of a new thread.

Here's the recap, though...

The Cardinals, throughout their history, have had some mismatching STL logos with various thicknesses and angles, but between the 60s and the 80s they for the most part started to streamline into the one seen here from the fabulous SportsLogos.net.

That logo is all over all thing Cardinals is the decal on their batting helmets. As of last season, I believe, it was and has been the only official STL graphic of the Cardinals (color swapping not withstanding).

However, for quite a while now, the Cardinals game hats and most fan hats have featured a slightly different logo. The crossbar of the T is angled, and everything else appears to be slightly thicker--my hypothesis is that the main logo is a stroked outline while the "extra" logo has an offset outline.

I noticed today, for the first time since the early 90s (when some of the inconsistent STL logos hung around on various gear like bp jerseys), the appearance of this "extra" logo somewhere besides the caps--it's found it's way onto the website.

If you go to stlcardinals.com and go to the fourth row of information all the way on the right, you'll see it in the background, or I took a screen capture.

Anyways, I'm a known complainer about the Yankees and Tigers inconsistent NYs and Ds respectively, and homer or not, my take isn't any different here. I'm annoyed that there's two.

The one difference is that the other two teams officially endorse inconsistency while the Cardinals seem to just continually allow a non-official graphic onto their uniforms. Not really sure which is worse.

My preference would be for the Cardinals to adopt the "extra" logo as the official and drop the slightly blander current.

Anyways, just thought I'd note the website appearance.

[TruColor]

Bottom line is this - it's been incorrect for years in the official graphics files, and was "cleaned up" and fixed in the 2008 files. Along with a few other logos (the A's cap logo, the Red Sox script, the Royals' "Kansas City" road script, etc.).

[STL FANATIC]

Bottom line is this - it's been incorrect for years in the official graphics files, and was "cleaned up" and fixed in the 2008 files. Along with a few other logos (the A's cap logo, the Red Sox script, the Royals' "Kansas City" road script, etc.).

Can you elaborate?

How many STL logos do the Cardinals have and whats the official one(s) now, as of 2008?

[STL FANATIC]

Actually, don't worry about the clarification PANTONE. I see MLB still hasn't fixed the loophole to keep people from getting to logos (maybe at this point that's intentional), so I see what you mean. I'll post a raster image of the new logo in a minute.

I'm REALLY excited that they (1) standardized it and (2) went to the better of the two logos. Good stuff.

[Gothamite]

Now if the Yankees would just drop the print-only logo....

[STL FANATIC]

Now if the Yankees would just drop the print-only logo....

They have a print only logo. In addition to the hat logo and the jersey logo.

Oh dear. I'm gonna flipl

[Gothamite]

They also have a batting helmet-only logo.

Flip away....

[RichO]

I had been told by a graduate of University of Chicago that they were the first to use the wishbone C as far back as the 1800s. The Chicago Bears copied it from them and now whenever people see the UofC C, they think that the university copied the Bears. Anyone know any details more than that?

I've heard this from U of C people too. I've also seen old pictures of U of C teams back in the Stagg era which easily predates the Bears. Given the historic football prowess of the Maroons when the Bears moved north and became the Bears it makes sense that they would adopt the horseshoe C as team symbol- they already lifted their colors from Illinois.

It is totally believable that UChi used the horseshoe C back in the late 1800s. Whether they would be the absolute originators may be plain undeterminable. But I'd say with the Reds they are the first prominent users.

[Gothamite]

Bottom line is this - it's been incorrect for years in the official graphics files, and was "cleaned up" and fixed in the 2008 files. Along with a few other logos (the A's cap logo, the Red Sox script, the Royals' "Kansas City" road script, etc.).

Now if they'll fix the Cooperstown Collection files....

[Gothamite]

I had been told by a graduate of University of Chicago that they were the first to use the wishbone C as far back as the 1800s. The Chicago Bears copied it from them and now whenever people see the UofC C, they think that the university copied the Bears. Anyone know any details more than that?

I've heard this from U of C people too. I've also seen old pictures of U of C teams back in the Stagg era which easily predates the Bears. Given the historic football prowess of the Maroons when the Bears moved north and became the Bears it makes sense that they would adopt the horseshoe C as team symbol- they already lifted their colors from Illinois.

It is totally believable that UChi used the horseshoe C back in the late 1800s. Whether they would be the absolute originators may be plain undeterminable. But I'd say with the Reds they are the first prominent users.

Then again, there are horseshoes and there are horeshoes.

The horseshoe the Bears use:

is distinct from the one the Reds use: