Albuquerque Isotopes win best Copa de la Diversion identity

The Albuquerque Isotopes’ alternate Mariachis identity just keeps winning things. The Spanish-language brand won Minor League Baseball’s inaugural Copa de la Diversión, or “Fun Cup,” last year, and the team is at it again this season, beating out 71 other Copa identities in an online fan vote conducted by Minor League Baseball.

This year’s Mariachis identity expanded on the original red version by adding that most New Mexican of colors, turquoise.

“Adding turquoise to our logo was something we wanted to do to incorporate more of New Mexico than we already have,” said Isotopes Vice President and General Manager John Traub, quoted on MiLB.com.

In the final round of voting, the Mariachis beat out the Fresno Lowriders, whose brand featured customized vehicles that were popularized in Los Angeles in the 1940s. I point this out, at the risk of braggy bragging, because in March, when I wrote about my favorite Copa brands of 2019, I ranked the Mariachis number one, and the Lowriders second.

That’s me (on the left) with my fiancée (on the right) with one of the musicians in the ballpark on Mariachis night in 2018.

The Mariachis name celebrates a traditional Mexican musical style and the logo features Catrin, the male version of Catrina, who was born as a protest symbol of social inequality in Mexico and who has come to represent the Day of the Dead. The original Catrina, a skeleton dressed in the style of Mexican wealth, was etched in the early 1910s by Mexican printmaker and political cartoonist José Guadalupe Posada. Now, the likeness of her male counterpart is featured on the still-best of the now 72 Copa de la Diversion brands.

Albuquerque has just one game remaining as the Mariachis this season, on July 19.