New Orleans Baby Cakes Announced as New Name for Zephyrs

The Cake Was Not A Lie.

The Pacific Coast League’s New Orleans Zephyrs today unveiled “New Orleans Baby Cakes” as their new name, the team also unveiled their new team logos and uniforms. The announcement came just a few hours after some poor soul who works for MLB or MiLB.com accidentally leaked the name and then had to spend the rest of the day trying to cover it up. It was a fun effort and it actually kinda worked.

So let’s skip right to it… what the heck is a “baby cake” and why is this the name of a baseball team from New Orleans? Well, apparently baby cakes are small plastic babies which accompany king cakes at Mardi Gras.

New Orleans Baby Cakes Primary Logo

“Our goal was to give the baseball fans of New Orleans a team and identity they can call their own,” said Lou Schwechheimer, President of the Baby Kings (heh) referencing that the Zephyrs name transferred to the city along with the team from Denver in 1993. “New Orleans is full of traditions woven into the fabric of the city, and this new tradition will be something local and iconic and celebrate what makes New Orleans and Minor League Baseball so great: family and fun.”

The logo, the name, and the colours give us that clear Mardi Gras vibe, the logo featuring a baby busting out of a king cake wearing a crown while swinging a baseball bat. It’s at this point regular readers of our site will recognize that the logo was indeed designed by Brandiose out of San Diego.

Alternate logo featuring a baby carrying a Mardi Gras ladder

Several alternate logos were also unveiled, most featuring the baby in different poses — including one where it’s carrying a “Mardi Gras ladder”. There’s an alternate shield logo I’m liking which pays homage to the previous ball teams to call New Orleans home, the Pelicans and the just replaced Zephyrs.

Six uniforms make up the regular rotation for the Baby Cakes, you got your standard home whites and road greys, there’s two navy blue alternates, and two throwbacks to the old Pelicans. The home whites feature “NOLA” across the front while the roads spell out “New Orleans” in that font oh-so familiar to the city. None of the six uniforms actually feature the full name of the team, one of the alternate jerseys comes close with “‘Cakes” across the front.

“Every New Orleanian we met spoke of the unique culture, resilience, family, and the importance of festivals,” Brandiose’s Casey White said in the official release. “Our goal is to make a Baby Cakes game the biggest party in the city every night.”

Whether you’re a fan of the branding here or not, you gotta love what the team also announced tonight — any child born in the State of Louisiana throughout the entire calendar year of 2017 will receive a lifetime pass to Baby Cakes baseball games and one lucky child will receive a full, four-year tuition to the Louisiana university of their choice on their 18th birthday in 2035. Now that’s something else.

The Baby Cakes, who are the Miami Marlins top-level Minor League affiliate join teams such as the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, Down East Wood Ducks, Florida Fire Frogs, and fellow Marlins affiliate the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp as Minor League clubs to announce new names for 2017.