Minor Leages in Little League

[BallWonk]

Went out for pizza Saturday afternoon and saw tons of kids fresh from youth baseball. You know the drill: official team cap, solid-color jersey with simplified two-color screen-printed scripts on t-shirts or two-button jerseys, baseball pants, socks matching the t-shirts. Got me wondering, as a former youth baseball player and coach, what would be the best lineup of minor-league team identities for a youth league?

Here's how I would outfit a 12-team league.

1. Nuts (Modesto). Black.

2. Storm (Lake Elsinore). Black. (Gray pants.)

3. Catfish (Columbus). Blue. (Gray pants.)

4. Spikes (State College). Blue.

5. Hawks (Boise). Green. (Gray pants.)

6. Dragons (Dayton). Green.

7. Thunder (Trenton). Yellow. (Gray pants.)

8. Bees (Burlington). Yellow.

9. Threshers (Clearwater). Red.

10. Bears (Yakima). Red. (Gray pants.)

11. Ghosts (Casper). Orange. (Gray pants.)

12. Grizzlies (Fresno). Orange.

This is far from my list of favorite minor-league uniforms. I'm thinking of names kids would like, among teams that have at least one cap logo that uses a mascot instead of an initial, with interesting jersey scripts, and that would work within a duplicated six-color scheme. And on my list, both the Bees and the Thunder could be blue, in which case there would be a pair of light blue and a pair of navy teams.

So, what minor-league teams would be on your short-list as a youth baseball commish?

[gueman]

Well we only use minor league teams in out T-ball division, the rest are MLB teams. We have the Rattlers (maroon), Sandgnats (green), Thunder(gray), Riverdogs (blue), Lugnuts (red) and Ironbirds (black) in the T-Ball. I am not exactly sure why those names were chosen, other than they all have logos 5 and 6 year olds would like, a snake, a bug, Thor, a dog, a smiling bolt, and smiling jet. Our kids supply there own pants at this level and get to keep the shirts. I would think it would be cool to have each level represent a level of the minors. We have T-Ball, Rookie, Minor, Major, and Junior levels. We could very easily have Rookie, A, AA, AAA, and MLB teams.

But I kinda like it when I was a kid in the 70's and 80's we were just the local business teams. The town butcher, bank, pharmacy, auto parts store, etc.

[AndrewPF]

Here's what we had when I played:

AAA

11, As far as I remember:

Carolina Mudcats (black)

Tuscon Sidewinders (teal)

Portland Sea Dogs (black)

Midland Rockhounds (white)

Savannah Sand Gnats (green)

Durham Bulls (orange)

Mobile Baybears (blue)

Augusta Green Jackets (green)

Batavia Muckdogs (red)

Charleston River Dogs (purple)

Louisville Bats (purple)

Now I'll see what i can piece together from memory as far as AA went. AA jerseys were one solid color (town name on the front) with a white stripe on each arm that had a smaller secondary color stripe inside it. We had official hats.

This is not all of them...

Hudson Valley Renegades (maroon/gold)

Burlington Bees (yellow/blue)

Chattanooga Lookouts (white/blue)

Altoona Curve (green/gold)

Everett Aquasox (blue/light blue)

Frederick Keys (black/orange)

Then there were teams that weren't around when I was playing, but I had heard of my friends' brothers making or whatever, couldn't tell you what shirts looked like, but the teams were

Las Vegas 51s

Lynchburg Hillcats

New Orleans Zephyrs

Round Rock Express

Trenton Thunder

[sacker12]

I've heard of some teams with the Montgomery Biscuits styled uniforms.

[eRay]

we always just had MLB team names/generic sports names, with the exception of the homestate team, the Portland Sea Dogs. but i have always thought it would be cool to have levels seperated out like gueman said.

not divided up into leagues, you could have teams like:

1. Suns (Jacksonville)-Royal over White

2. 51's (LV)- Royal over Gray

3. Thunder (Trenton)- Navy over White

4. Sea Dogs (Portland)- Navy over Gray

5. Biscuits (Montgomery)- Yellow over White

6. Cyclones (Brooklyn)- Yellow over Powder Blue...that may be crazy...

7. Nuts (Modesto)- Red over White

8. Threshers (Clearwater)- Red over Cream

9. Flying Tigers (Lakeland)- Orange over White

10. Ghosts (Casper)- Orange over Gray

11. Fisher Cats (NH)- Green over White

12. Wizards (Fort Wayne)- Green over Gray

just what i might do.

[Erik121]

Went out for pizza Saturday afternoon and saw tons of kids fresh from youth baseball. You know the drill: official team cap, solid-color jersey with simplified two-color screen-printed scripts on t-shirts or two-button jerseys, baseball pants, socks matching the t-shirts. Got me wondering, as a former youth baseball player and coach, what would be the best lineup of minor-league team identities for a youth league?

Here's how I would outfit a 12-team league.

1. Nuts (Modesto). Black.

2. Storm (Lake Elsinore). Black. (Gray pants.)

3. Catfish (Columbus). Blue. (Gray pants.)

4. Spikes (State College). Blue.

5. Hawks (Boise). Green. (Gray pants.)

6. Dragons (Dayton). Green.

7. Thunder (Trenton). Yellow. (Gray pants.)

8. Bees (Burlington). Yellow.

9. Threshers (Clearwater). Red.

10. Bears (Yakima). Red. (Gray pants.)

11. Ghosts (Casper). Orange. (Gray pants.)

12. Grizzlies (Fresno). Orange.

This is far from my list of favorite minor-league uniforms. I'm thinking of names kids would like, among teams that have at least one cap logo that uses a mascot instead of an initial, with interesting jersey scripts, and that would work within a duplicated six-color scheme. And on my list, both the Bees and the Thunder could be blue, in which case there would be a pair of light blue and a pair of navy teams.

So, what minor-league teams would be on your short-list as a youth baseball commish?

That is a pretty good list. I would have to add the Lookouts and the Biscuits just because they are so different.

[TBGKon]

Going with the best non-parent club name from each league, I've put together this list:

- Nuts (California)

- Warthogs (Carolina)

- Thunder (Eastern)

- Threshers (Florida State)

- Mud Hens (Int'l)

- Dragons (Midwest)

- Renegades (NY-Penn)

- AquaSox (Northwest)

- Bees (PCL)

- Ghosts (Pioneer)

- Grasshoppers (Sally)

- Biscuits (Southern)

- Roughriders (Texas)

- Curve (Eastern)*

*= wildcard to even out the total number

[mantleisthebest7]

I've seen this a few times, but where i'm from we used MLB teams all the way up. In T-Ball, for example, I was on the Athletics and the rest of our league was the Yankees, Royals, Cardinals, Pirates, and I believe Mariners. In my brothers coach pitch league they had his team: the Blue Jays, then a random team called the Cougars, and then the Red Sox and Braves. In my mustang league I was on the Phillies, and we played the Marlins, Devil Rays, Dodgers, Diamond Backs, Astros, and Cubs. See what I mean? Yeah its weird in Utah, minor league teams are all we have yet we dont even represent them in Little Leagues. Sad........

[Discrim]

heh, here's the directions I'd go:

1-Tulsa Drillers-black shirt, BP black or alt copper cap, white pants

2-Birmingham Barons-black shirt and cap, gray pants

3-Lansing Lugnuts-red shirt, black cap, white pants

4-Lake Elsinore Storm-red shirt and cap, gray pants

5-Las Vegas 51s-blue shirt and home cap, gray pants

6-Norfolk Tides-blue shirt and cap, white pants

7-West Tenn Diamond Jaxx-green cap and shirt, white pants

8-South Bend Silver Hawks-black cap, green shirt, gray pants

9-Lancaster JetHawks-navy blue shirt and cap, white pants

10-Lehigh Valley IronPigs-navy blue shirt and cap, gray pants

11-Lakeland Flying Tigers-navy cap, white shirt, white pants*

12-Tucson Sidewinders-gray cap, white shirt, gray pants*

*I had a hell of a time finding another orange team that didn't use a location-specific cap (otherwise, the Fresno Grizzlies would've been my 12th team), and there are almost no other teams in MiLB that wear teal to any great extent.

[Mac the Knife]

We used MLB names during my year at the minor league level in Little League (I played on the Mets). Teams were named after corporate sponsors when I moved up to the 'major' level; I sponsor one of those teams now, which is kind of cool - while some kids play for "Patton's Sparkle Market" or "Zisky's Auto Parts," the kids I sponsor get to play for "Mac and the Mavericks." Sounds like a bad bar band, I know, but the kids seem to like it.

[BallWonk]

I would push this idea pretty hard if I were still involved in youth ball. For one thing, a lot of kids (and parents!) take big-league team names waaaay too seriously. In some leagues I've known, you can tell the quality of a coach by the name of his team -- which is to say, the evil coaches really do make a big deal of getting the Yankees or Red Sox team names, whereas your Rangers or D-Backs tend to be coached by the good coaches who aren't in it to win at all costs. And you get kids on the Yankees or the local MLB team's name getting all superior to kids whose teams are stuck with losing MLB teams' names, like the Royals or whatever. So switching to MiLB team names would go some way to curing that -- kids and coaches would have to build team identity on their own. Plus the names, logos, and jersey scripts are just better.

The other reason I would push for this is because I spent five years playing for either the Astros or the Padres. If you want to bring out the absolute worst in pre-teen boys, get them together to play a game but dress half of them in rainbow shirts. Not that the switch to brown and orange was a huge step up in terms of boyish dignity. With so many more choices, MiLB team names offer a more aesthetically pleasing palette of team uniforms; if an MLB club opts to look like crap for a few years -- and a few always do at any given moment -- the kids don't have to suffer for it.

As to orange, I'm pretty sure the Grizzlies do have a bear-with-ball logo, which is what I would use. And there were a ton of teams I absolutely love that I didn't put on my list because I didn't think kids would like the names. Kernels, Mud Hens, Lookouts, Bicsuits, and a few others. But I haven't been a kid in longer than I'd like to admit. So maybe kids today would be cool with some of the less obviously kid-friendly names.

I also left the Beavers off the list for parent sensibilities -- I think you can get away with the Nuts, but not the Nuts and the Beavers. Plus the Beavers don't have a mascot-only cap. That's my official excuse.

[-kj]

I don't know if you could get away with the Nuts, but leaving out the Biscuits is a glaring oversight.

[Luigi74]

As a kid the teams I played on were all officially named after the sponsors but pretty much everyone called the teams by the MLB team with the closest color scheme, so when I played on a team that was blue and orange everyone called us the Mets, when we were orange and black everyone called us the Orioles and so on.

[BallWonk]

As a kid the teams I played on were all officially named after the sponsors but pretty much everyone called the teams by the MLB team with the closest color scheme, so when I played on a team that was blue and orange everyone called us the Mets, when we were orange and black everyone called us the Orioles and so on.

I like that system, but it makes me wonder. My very first little-league team, back under the awesome Coach Berg in Wayne, PA, wore yellow jerseys and yellow caps with no logo and we were sponsored by the local Wawa (free pop after every game!). Yet we were the Mets. Go figure.

[Fjm]

Not completely relevant...

When I was in little league, every team had the same uniform -- powder blue jerseys and powder blue pants with red letters and numbers. (You can guess the time period---late 70's/early 80's.) You turned the uniform back in each year. The only thing different per team was the cap and socks color, which we got to keep. Teams didn't have official names, kids referred to each team by their cap color "the red hats", "yellow hats", "blue hats", etc. Good times.

[slapshot]

I'm surprised no one mentioned the Vermont Lake Monsters. A very good design, and a dinosaur-looking logo should go over well with younger kids.

[winters in buffalo]

I played for "Town Food Mart"... sigh.

[AndrewPF]

i love the topic subtitle by the way.

[BallWonk]

i love the topic subtitle by the way.

[bulldogbarks55]

The concept of Little League teams wearing minor-league team names isn't new. Back in the late-'70s we had a Little League in Rochester, NY use the old International League team names for their T-shirt division. We had the Red Wings (Rochester), Bisons (Buffalo), Jets (Columbus, Ohio), Chiefs (Syracuse), Marlins (Miami), Bears (Newark), Mud Hens (Toledo) and Suns (Jacksonville). The kids loved the names.