Major League Baseball today along with the host Washington Nationals unveiled the logo for the 2018 MLB All-Star game; a ceremony was held at Nationals Park prior to the Nats game tonight against the Milwaukee Brewers. The event was also livestreamed via MLB.com.
The logo features the freshly polished U.S. Capitol Dome as its centrepiece flanked by a set of six stars above, two stars below, and red and white stripes waving behind; the two stars at the bottom representing the two competing leagues while the three on each side of the dome for the three divisions per league. It’s a whole lot of U.S. patriotism on display, appropriately of course, for a game played in it’s capital city.
“We worked with the Nationals just short of a year,” Anne Occi, Vice President, Design Services for Major League Baseball told SportsLogos.Net. “We got involved with the club right at the conclusion of the 2016 All-Star Game, we start to move on a questionnaire, specifically to hone in on the reasons why the club is hosting the game, what do they want to get out of hosting the game, and the legacy they hope to come from it.”
In this case, “the Washington Nationals are extremely proud of bringing baseball back and being the club that represents the nation’s capital.”
The main feature of the logo is the U.S. Capitol Dome, an iconic D.C. landmark, designed here in an impressively high-detailed, almost photo-realistic manner.
“We did look at a more stylized version [of the Capitol Dome] as we started to go through our development and everyone felt very good about actually articulating it, not stylizing it, to really say ‘this is iconic, it’s patriotic’, and not just have it be an add-on,” Occi explained. “They have just cleaned the Capitol, and it is a very proud accomplishment to have now a pristine white Capitol”.
As was the case with the 2016 and 2017 games, there is a MasterCard logo on the official primary mark, this logo will not be present on any player uniform patch, it will not be used on the field logos, nor will you see it on any merchandise sold to fans.
“I know that Washington will be one of the best host cities because nothing could be more fitting, exciting, or appropriate than hosting the All-Star Game for the national pastime in the nation’s capital,” said Mark D. Lerner, Washington Nationals Principal Owner and Vice Chairman. “The logo conveys that spirit of celebrating one of our most beloved traditions in the city that uniquely belongs to us all.”
Let’s take a look back at how the new logo slots in next to the complete All-Star Game logo history of Major League Baseball (click image for larger version):
This will be the fifth All-Star Game to be played in Washington, D.C. but the first since 1969 when the Washington Senators (now Texas Rangers) hosted the game at RFK Stadium. It will be the first time in nearly 40 years that the Nationals/Expos franchise had hosted, the only other being in 1982 when Montreal’s Olympic Stadium played host to the first All-Star Game ever held outside the United States.
The 2018 MLB All-Star Game will take place at Nationals Park in Washington on July 17, 2018.
