Grading Bird-themed Minor League Baseball Teams

Baseball's long, slow, hot, gorgeous season has begun, not just in those cities hosting Major League teams but smaller cities and towns across the country.  According to this list on Wikipedia, there are 27 minor and independent leagues in North America, many with teams named after those most endearing and non-threatening of mascots: birds.

You likely haven't heard of most of these teams unless you live in one of America's small municipalities or, like, did a project in school about minor league teams or something.  Well, friend, relax.  Let me save you the trouble of figuring out which teams have done a good job with their avian themes, and which ones are unworthy of their winged mascots.

AAA - INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE

Rochester (NY) Red Wings

So, they got their name in 1929 when they became the St. Louis Cardinals farm team (bonus points there), and a few extra bonus points for at least having a bird mascot - the NHL Detroit Red Wings aren't named for birds - but what the hell is this?  Why would they do this?  It's not a real bird, or even close.  Turn this in to a tanager or something, or a real hawk, then we'll talk.

Grade: D

Toledo Mud Hens

History has it (via Wikipedia) that the Toldeo Mud Hens were originally the "Swamp Angels" but they became known as "Mud Hens" because the swamp they played in was filled with American Coots.  A cool story, and an interesting bird to be named after, but this frigging thing doesn't look like an American Coot at all.  What even is this?  Why is this?

Grade: C-

AAA - PACIFIC COAST LEAGUE

Memphis Redbirds

This is the first athletic use of a cardinal mascot that doesn't have a yellow bill.  Do you hear that?  THE FIRST ONE!  Problem is, it's a fucking red bill instead.  Is there a shortage of orange?  What does everyone have against orange?  Adding insult to injury, the mascot has a yellow bill.  I love Memphis, but I'm furious.

Grade: B- 

Oklahoma City RedHawks

 I just want to check and see if teams are allowed to use birds that aren't red.  Is that permitted?  Did Congress pass something when I wasn't looking?  What the shit is a RedHawk and why isn't it two words?  It's not a bird ugghhh and that bat would break his beak this is the worst day of my life.

Grade: C-

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Making Avian Major League Baseball Logos More Accurate

God I love baseball.  It's the greatest American sport because it is a big fat apple pie baked with all the most American ingredients: quasi-athleticism, belts, anthems, expanses of green grass, bubble gum, sitting around, boozing, and fresh air.  It's the only sport I know where players can eat food while they're playing.   I've loved it forever.

Loved it longer than I've loved birding, in fact.  But that's another great thing about Major League Baseball - it treats birds pretty well.  There are three MLB teams named after birds: The Baltimore Orioles, the Toronto Blue Jays, and the St. Louis Cardinals.  First, these are great choices because they're specific.  No invented baloney "Thunder Falcons" or anything, not even generic "hawks" or "eagles." These are classic, small, passerines.  These are real birds.

In addition to the names of the teams, the logos do these birds justice.  For the most part they're accurate, ornithologically speaking.  For the most part, but not completely.

I wanted to take this opportunity to offer some edits to the logos of bird-named MLB teams, to see how different they'd look if given full respect to their avian inspirations.  Let's see how it'll look.

Toronto Blue Jays

The Blue Jays have a beautiful set of logos.  They'd tried to "toughen it up" a couple years ago, using logo showing an animated Jay angrily gripping a ball...but everyone knew it just wasn't them.  The side-facing Jay with the split blue and white lettering is the Blue Jays, and it came back to stay.  I grew up with them in powder blue, and I wouldn't mind it that came back full time.

Anyway, the Jays logo, frankly, takes few liberties with the actual Blue Jay.  The biggest difference - the only difference - is that the bill and neck stripe of the Blue Jay is black.  Well, the bill for sure.  The neck stripe is a bit tougher to see.  It's interesting, Blue Jays are such an easily-identified bird that field guides don't seem to pay much attention to the details.  It's tough to tell whether the neck is a midnight blue or a black, but most images see it as black, so I'll go with that.  A simple shift leads to a slightly different logo.

Interestingly, the Jays had shifted to black uniforms a few years ago, part of the "black for black's sake" (or BfBS) uniform trend highlighted by UniWatch.  The Jay's black uniforms were roundly criticized, partly because black wasn't a traditional part of their color scheme.  If the Blue Jays had simple changes their colors to more accurately reflect real Blue Jays, they could have adopted black uniforms with no problem.  Alas.

St. Louis Cardinals

One of the oldest and most storied franchises in pro baseball, St. Louis has been making cardinals cool for decades.  Northern Cardinals are an interesting case, they're not an intimidating or tough bird, but they're so colorful and common that they're one of the few birds that everyone knows.

As I've covered before, despite their ubiquity Northern Cardinals are frequently misrepresented in broader culture.  No one can seem to get the colors right, mostly insisting that they have bright yellow beaks.  They don't.  They just don't.

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Ornitholgical Accuracy of the New Orleans Pelicans

When the Atlanta Thrashers packed their sweaty skates and headed to Winnipeg to become the Jets in 2011, the Bird-Named Big 4 Sports Team Club was down a member.  Last year 11 of the Big Four teams ran behind a flapping mascot:

• NBA's Atlanta Hawks
• NFL's Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles, Atlanta Falcons, Arizona Cardinals, and Seattle Seahawks
• NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins and Anaheim Ducks (I don't count the Chicago Blackhawks, who were named for a leader of the Sauk tribe, or the Detroit Red Wings, who were apparently named after a Montreal Cycling Club), and
• MLB's St. Louis Cardinals, Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays

Much to my surprise, though, events conspired over the NBA winter to restore the club membership to an even dozen.  Back in 2002, the under-attended Charlotte Hornets shipped their franchise to New Orleans.  Just two years later, however, all was apparently forgotten and Charlotte unveiled a new basketball squad, the Bobcats.  Well, the Bobcats suck, and worked a deal with New Orleans to bring the Hornets name back to Charlotte, where people still hardly give a crap.

That left the New Orleans team nameless, and after contemplating Mosquitoes (haha ok), Swamp Dogs (ughhhh), Bullsharks (cool) and Rougarou (what), the team owner went with the New Orleans Pelicans.

Fantastic!  I love this for so many reasons.  First, as I've said before, I just associate Brown Pelicans with Louisiana and always give bonus points for teams named after local birds (see: Baltimore Orioles).  Second, I also love it when teams pick birds that aren't typically "fierce" like hawks or eagles.  Third, the Pelicans name has New Orleans roots, once being the name of a minor league baseball team with this adorable logo.  Good times all around.

The Pelicans unveiled their logos a couple months ago, and I think now that the initial excitement about the name is over I want to look at these items with a critical eye.  Frankly, from an ornithological perspective, the jury is out.

The concern here is that they're not using the correct species.  There are two species of pelican in these United States: the American White Pelican and the Brown Pelican.  While White Pelicans can be found in Louisiana, it's usually in the winter, when they huddle in big groups in the middle of big lakes and reservoirs.  I've seen it.  They're cool birds all, but they're pretty pathetic in the winter time, and certainly not worthy of naming a cool NBA team after.

The New Orleans Pelicans need to be modeled after Louisiana's state birds, the Brown Pelican.  These are the cool pelicans: the ones that hang out at the beach cruising low lookin' at babes, the pelicans who will tell you they hung out with Dr. John before he went to med school.  If you know what I'm saying. [Below photo shows a Brown Pelican on the above left, and an American White Pelican below, with its feet in the water]

Looking at the logos, I'm not sure.  The baseball logo, linked to above, shows a white pelican, but it's old and colorless so I don't know.  The logos shown above are ambiguous.  The underwings don't match either species: White Pelicans are white and black, while Brown Pelicans are (mostly) just brown.  The face, shown head on, is white for both species, so we're good there.  The beak, I suppose, could match either species, but the red coloring in the logo looks more like a breeding Brown Pelican than the orange of a White Pelican.  Deal.

I just want to make sure everyone knows that it's a Brown Pelican, not a White.  Grantland's recent post on nicknames for the Pelicans illustrates the thing with a White Pelican.  I was unsuccessful in conveying jovial sarcasm when pointing this out to the author of the piece, but hey, it was his mistake, not mine (and who doesn't check the photos that go with the post?)

[Also, a not on the cap photoshopped onto the pelican in the linked-to blog post above: that isn't listed as an official logo or in the NBA team store for the Pelicans.  I don't know where that hat came from but if it's real, it's a White Pelican and completely inaccurate, speaking from a birding perspective.]

All in all, I'm thrilled to have the Pelicans in my life.  Louisiana's got a great birding history and reputation, and I look forward to seeing LA birders crank around Grand Isle in Pelicans gear.  I hope it's also used to teach non-birders about their state bird: a big cool bird, a survivor of hurricanes and oil spills, and just the kind of goofy mascot the an eccentric populace can get behind.  Go Pelicans.