Hartford Yard Goats Unveil Logos, Colour Scheme

Perhaps it was more than just a coincidence the Hartford Yard Goats chose to unveil their logos at the former home arena of the Hartford Whalers.

It’s a green, blue, silver, and gold goat chomping on a baseball bat which will grace the caps of Connecticut’s newest pro baseball team; the new look shown off to the public for the first time earlier today at the XL Center in downtown Hartford. The Yard Goats, who announced their oft-criticized new name a couple of months back, will be the relocated New Britain Rock Cats of the Eastern League; they will be the Double-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies when they take the field in 2016.

“Royal Blue and Kelly Green make up the club’s new official colours, paying tribute to Hartford’s rich sports history”, reads the press release. Translation, though they never mentioned them by name, the colour scheme is that of the Hartford Whalers. They live once more, reincarnated as a baseball club with a goat as its mascot.

Logos were designed by Brandiose who are responsible for about 85% of the new logos in Minor League Baseball over the past five years. As is the case with any Brandiose design, it’s a solid look.

But about that name…

“A Yard Goat is a hardworking locomotive that moves trains from track to track, keeping the rail yard moving. A Minor League Baseball player is like that Yard Goat, working hard in his Minor League City to keep his Major League affiliate on track.”

Missing from this logo set: locomotives, trains, tracks, rail yards, minor league baseball players. Literally everything used as inspiration for the name. (You could say the same thing about the L.A. Dodgers though)

There was, however, one fantastic inclusion in this package relating to trains:

That font. A direct nod to the old New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad logo. Who’s idea was that? Give yourself a pat on the back and lobby your employer for a raise, you deserve it.

We haven’t seen very many alternate logos for this set (yet?) which is typically a staple of any Brandiose design (and no kids, not even a trace of “thing swinging a thing like a baseball bat” logo)

This graphic showing the five different ball caps (ah, there’s a Brandiose thing) gives us a look at all of the different alternate logos thus far. Standard home cap is far right (all blue), road cap is the all green beside it, the first three caps from left-to-right are various alternate caps.