Ranking the Minor League Baseball Logos of Texas, Part 1 of 2.
Sod Poodles, Flying Chanclas, and Hormigas, Oh My.
Minor league baseball teams come and go and shift affiliations fairly often, and last season was fairly seismic for Texas: the Nolan Ryan-owned Round Rock Express re-affiliated with the Texas Rangers (after two stints with the Astros), while the Astros responded by calling up Sugar Land from independences and bumping the club all the way to class AAA, just below the majors. (Affiliated teams run from there down to class-A and then Rookie ball.).
This year, the better to jibe with their affiliation as junior Astros and their residence at Constellation Field, Sugar Land swatted their Skeeters nickname and became the Space Cowboys, which gives us a chance to take stock of our minor league teams’ imagery – team names, uniforms, and logos.
For most of the affiliated teams, this includes a Hispanic alter ego: as part of La Copa Diversion (the Fun Cup), a mid-season celebration of Latin culture and contributions to beisbol, clubs play in alternate uniforms under names reflective of Tejano or Hispanic culture.
To help me out as a color commentator I enlisted Houstonian Mike Vance, a baseball historian, writer and stand-up comedian, among other things. We were going to attempt a ranking of all of them but after endless indecision on my end on what criteria to use and the fact that we totally polarized with our thoughts on several teams led me to ditch that idea. What follows is something like a ranking, from worst to first.
Team: Frisco RoughRiders
Affiliation: Rangers
Copa Diversion Name: Los Quesos Frisco (The Frisco Cheeses)*
Ruckus: One of my deals with sports teams is that their name should have something to do with their town. I think I was traumatized as a child when the New Orleans NBA team moved to Salt Lake City and became the Utah Jazz. That’s my problem with the Frisco RoughRiders. It makes sense in the abstract and it sounds cool, but Teddy Roosevelt had nothing to do with Frisco, Texas, ever.
Mike Vance: I don’t hate the jerseys. At least, I don’t hate the cream-colored home jerseys. Kind of like them actually. The nickname is another matter entirely. Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders are pure San Antonio – remember, he set up shop in the bar at the Menger Hotel to recruit these Rough Riders. His other big Texas tie was throwing a company of African-American soldiers in Brownsville under the metaphorical bus.
* When I think of cheese, Mexican food and north Dallas suburbs, I will forever be reminded of the Martyr of Allen, the early Covid pandemic victim of inadequate service in the Frisco-adjacent suburb of Allen.
Unaffiliated
N/a
Ruckus: I was prepared to hate these much more than I did on seeing them their look. I like the Visine-needing monster and some variations of the uniform are so understated compared to the tie-dyed one that they come to seem surreal by comparison.
MV: Let’s start with the positive. I do like the rat fink mascot. And I’m a sucker for tie dye ever since my old softball team, named Beats Working, had tie dyed uniforms. But it’s downhill from there. Enough with Austin and weird. Just like the concepts of cool or sexy, if you have to advertise it, you’re not.
Affiliation: Texas Rangers
Chupacabras
Ruckus: Train names are so generic and I have that old-school dislike of teams with non-plural names. This is better than “Spirit” or “Innovation” or whatever, but…
MV: The Express nickname is exempted because it is a nod to Nolan Ryan’s ownership, and the Chupacabras should be a Texas natural, a true cult item. But good Lord, did the GM let his third grade son design the Chupacabra jerseys?
It’s got dollar store toy written all over it.
Arizona Diamondbacks
Pointy Boots
Ruckus: At first I was charmed back in the ‘90s when all these minor league teams popped up with cutesy-pie animal names like this. (I think you can blame Toledo Mud Hen fan Maxwell Q. Klinger for that phenomenon.) And it was fine until seemingly every team in the minors came to call themselves something like “Trash Pandas,” “Rumble Ponies,” or “Sea Unicorns.” But come on, Amarillo, why not just be the Amarillo Prairie Dogs? Per marketing consultants, “Sod Poodles” is more “family-friendly,” that’s why.
MV: I wanted to hate this nickname and everything about it, but I must admit that I really like the jerseys. That even goes for the alternate blue one that was clearly done by the ad department at Miller Beer. The snarling poodle logo is top-notch, too.
Ruckus: To me Pointy Boots is the worst of the Copa Diversion names by far. You take a ridiculous fad from a decade past to “salute” an entire culture? It would be like if a Mexican ballclub’s American alter ego was the Tide Pods; a “laughing at you” and not “with you” thing.
Oakland Athletics
Matamoscas de Midessa
Ruckus: I did not know that geologists were called Rockhounds in the awl bidness. Why is the logo not a sciency-looking dude? Still, to me, it’s a perfectly fine team name.I also dig the Spanish name, which translates to “flyswatters,” and is one of two Texas minor league baseball teams to honor disciplinary tools used by mothers and grandmothers.
MV: Boring name. Even more boring jersey. Clearly they should have left the design in the hands of Odessa where there is much richer character. The flyswatters is a great name, but why did they steal the logo from poison control?
(Okay, I’ve hit the limit Substack will let me send out as a single email. Part 2 will go out almost simultaneously.)
Sod Poodles is almost sa bad as Cuero's high school team name, "Gobblers". And somewhere there is a school named "The Fighting Broccoli".