The Chesapeake Baysox, Double-A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles in the Eastern League, unveiled an alternate identity and then immediately pulled one of the logos after a flood of online commenters pointed out something the team missed. The alternate identity, the Chesapeake Oyster Catchers, is meant to be “a tribute to the Chesapeake Bay’s rich heritage and thriving ecosystem.”
The suite of logos centers around an oyster catcher, a distinctive black-and-white shorebird with an orange beak that lives in the Chesapeake Bay. It is known for hunting shellfish, and per the team, “is a symbol of strength and ingenuity—qualities that define both the Chesapeake region and its passionate baseball fans.”
One mark, however, evoked perhaps a bit too much passion from baseball fans on social media, who commented with the decorum and nuance one can expect, that it resembled an intimate area of the female anatomy. The team quickly removed that particular logo from its social media posts, website, and online store, but at the time of this writing it can still be found in posts from Minor League Baseball.
All of this comes in the aftermath of New Era releasing and subsequently pulling Major League Baseball caps that inadvertently spelled slang terms for breasts in Spanish and other off-color terms, some of which can be found on eBay and other resellers for hundreds of dollars.
The Baysox have not announced dates for their Oyster Catchers games, but promise that they are coming soon.
