The Oklahoma City RedHawks, newly minted triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers, may soon become the Oklahoma City Dodgers. The team has a big announcement planned for their “Dodger Day” celebration tomorrow, and a name change is all but assured.
Big news coming during Dodger Day tomorrow! You're going to want to be there to hear it first! #dodgerdayokc pic.twitter.com/Bm7BXxNuqE
— Oklahoma City Dodgers (@okc_dodgers) December 2, 2014
When I spoke with the team’s media relations director and play-by-play broadcaster Alex Freedman for our Story Behind the Nickname series last month, I asked about a potential change to the RedHawks brand.
“With the Dodgers brand, we’d be foolish not to explore it,” Freedman said. “What that will mean is yet to be determined, but we’ll just have to wait and see. I know we’re going to incorporate it somehow.”
One clue indicates that the team will adopt its new parent club’s moniker. Some sleuthing by SportsLogos.net’s founder and editor Chris Creamer turned up this nugget: According to public information on Whois.com, the domain name OKCDodgers.com, which is not yet a live website, was registered in October by Curtis Herrmann, the same individual who registered the domain name OKCRedHawks.com in 2000.
An article published online earlier today in The Oklahoman paraphrases new team owner Peter Gruber, who is also a minority owner of the LA Dodgers, as saying “a nickname change was likely since RedHawks didn’t fit the ‘Dodger Blue’ image that dates back to when the franchise originally was located in Brooklyn.”
We’ll know for sure tomorrow whether the RedHawks will be the Dodgers or something else—we know some fans are still holding out hope that they’ll switch their old name, the 89ers, but that seems unlikely. One thing we can be sure of—whatever the team name, the logo will be blue.
UPDATE:
LA Times reporter Bill Shaikin confirmed our suspicions shortly after we posted this article:
Can confirm Oklahoma City #Dodgers will be name of LAD AAA affiliate, as @sportslogosnet says.
— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) December 3, 2014
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