Hartford Yard Goats reprise classic Rock Cats identity

The Hartford Yard Goats have been a fixture in Minor League Baseball for the last decade—so much so that it’s hard to remember a time when they were not part of MiLB’s logo landscape. But from 1995 to 2015, the franchise was located 16 miles to the southwest in New Britain, Connecticut, and went by the nickname Rock Cats. The Yard Goats announced today that they will play select games this season with an updated version of the Rock Cats identity.

The Hardware City Rock Cats debuted in 1995, with a logo created by Guy Gilchrist, a cartoonist and illustrator best known for his work on the Muppets, Fraggle Rock, and Nancy and Sluggo. (Gilchrist also created the iconic Portland Sea Dogs logo that is in use to this day.) The Hardware City Rock Cats logo featured a detailed illustration of a rough-and-tumble, rock-and-roll cat character named Rocky.

After two seasons as the Hardware City Rock Cats, the team changed its name to the New Britain Rock Cats in 1997 and Gilchrist created a simplified version of the Rocky logo. In 2007, the Rock Cats updated their logo to the one pictured above, developed by Dan Simon of Studio Simon. (You can read about the story behind that nickname, including my 2014 interview with Guy Gilchrist, here.)

The Yard Goats, Double-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies in the Eastern League, unveiled a Hartford-based version of the Rock Cats identity today. The updated Hartford Rock Cats brand features the 2007 version of the logo, set in the Yard Goats’ familiar blue and green (which is a nod to Hartford’s erstwhile NHL team, the Whalers) with the geographic signifier Hartford where New Britain once was.

The Hartford Rock Cats will take to the field May 27 and 28, 2026.