Ben's Biz MiLB roundup: New logos unveiled

This is an excerpt from the latest edition of the Ben's Biz Beat Newsletter, bringing Minor League Baseball business and culture news to your inbox each and every Thursday. Check out the full newsletter HERE. Subscribe HERE.

November is always a big month for Minor League logo unveils, and one of the reasons is because it’s beneficial for teams to have new merchandise for sale in advance of the holiday shopping season. What follows is an overview of recently released logos, which, come to think of it, could double as an impromptu gift guide for the tapped-in Minor League Baseball fan in your life. Maybe that tapped-in fan is you.

We begin with 2023’s only full-scale rebrand, announced on Nov. 16. Rome, Georgia's longstanding South Atlantic League team, previously known as the Braves, has begun its reign as the Emperors.

I spoke with Emperors GM David Lane about the impetus for the rebrand, which further solidifies the connection between the Georgia locale and the esteemed city for which it was named. Combining a Roman Emperor with an Emperor Penguin gives the team a kid-friendly mascot to build around while still referencing various ancient Rome motifs. Lane, for his part, said that they didn’t want to build a look around a “Little Caesars-looking dude that walks around with a golden metal helmet.” So, a penguin it is.

READ ABOUT THE ROME EMPERORS AND THEIR NEW LOOK HERE

For more Rome-related ruminations (or Rominations, as I sensibly call them), make sure to check out Episode 432 of The Show Before the Show podcast. Veteran logo designer Dan Simon, who brought the Emperors brand to life, joined myself and longtime logo fiend Tyler Maun for a wide-ranging conversation.

LISTEN TO DAN SIMON ON THE SHOW BEFORE THE SHOW PODCAST HERE

The Lake Elsinore Storm have long had one of the most well-known logos in the Minors: a pair of menacing, forever unblinking eyes. This eye-conic look remains a big part of the Single-A San Diego affiliate’s identity.

However! The Storm have updated their primary logo, featuring a cleaner, crisper wordmark. The lettering, previously black with a red outline, is now red with a white outline. As for how a team named the Storm came to be associated with disembodied eyes, it’s because the original logo, in use from 1997-2001, featured them embedded in a storm cloud (the eyes of the Storm, as it were).

Continuing with the theme of “red, black, white and menacing,” the Erie SeaWolves released a “Dead Red” version of their Howling Dead identity.

The Howling Dead logos and uniforms, unveiled in November of 2022, were described by SeaWolves president Greg Coleman as “our team’s take on the familiar Jolly Roger flag. It lets our opponents know they’re in for a battle.”

Given this description, one might think that the SeaWolves are part of the Pirates’ system. They were initially, from 1995-98 in the New York-Penn League, but since 2001 the Double-A Eastern League club has served as a Detroit Tigers affiliate.

The Winston-Salem Dash, historically a sartorially conservative organization, changed things up last season with their Hyphens and Flights alternate identities. Their latest new look is the Golden Age Collection, featuring an “on-field jersey and cap worn for all Saturday home games in 2024.” This uniform combo was “inspired by the golden era of Winston-Salem” which, judging by the duds seen above, seems to have been the 1920s.

In the perennial stadium anthem “Jump Around,” Everlast raps that he’s “got more rhymes than the Bible’s got Psalms.” Replace “rhymes” with “alternate uniforms” and that’d be a pretty good description of the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. Their latest is, like Winston-Salem’s Golden Age Collection, a Saturday-specific get-up.

Specifically, these are Pennsylvania Dutch and hex-inspired uniforms, which celebrate the superstitious hex signs placed by the Pennsylvania Dutch on barns, homes and various other buildings. The hex wards off any enemies who may be trying to enter, which in the case of the IronPigs means International League rivals like the Syracuse Mets.

On Nov. 20, five days after unveiling their Saturday uniforms, the IronPigs revealed what they will wear on Sundays.

The IronPigs are the Triple-A affiliate of the Phillies, and what you see above is the 2023 iteration of their long-running Philadelphia-themed uniforms. It pays tribute to the “style and colorways” of the 1970s and ‘80s Phils. Close your eyes and imagine Manny Trillo decked out in one of these uniforms. It’s easy if you try.