Top 30 Logos: 1-10

Day 3/3 of our quest to find the best logo!  Unlike the other two days, I'll be counting in ascending order today.  If you haven't already, hop over to sportslogos.net and check out what they have to offer.  It's a great site, and this countdown wouldn't have happened without it.

1. Milwaukee Brewers, primary, 1978-1993
Was there really any other choice?  I mean, c'mon.  The brilliance and awesomeness of this logo is obvious.  In case you hadn't noticed--and I didn't until about a year ago--the glove spells out an M and a B, for Milwaukee Brewers.  I'll give that a minute to set in.  The ball in the middle of the glove, doubling as, well, a baseball and the hole in the lowercase "b," is pretty genius too.  This logo isn't just clever, it also has great colors.  I love the old Brewers color scheme.  I love whenever I'm watching MLB Network classic highlight shows and Paul Molitor or Robin Yount appears in the uniforms from that era.  They just looked so great, and this logo is a primary reason why.  A+'s all around.

2. New York Mets, primary, 1999-present
This says the Mets' current logo started being used in 1999, but it's really been around since the Mets' inception in 1962 (save for a few very subtle changes).  Anyway, maybe I'm just being a homer here, but I think this logo is really great.  The color scheme is classic, simple, and unchanged since 1962.  The way the circle is also a baseball is very smart.  The script is well done.  Perhaps best of all, the skyline and bridge are just wonderful representations of the "metropolitan" aspect of the Mets' real name.  It's not as good as the Brewers' logo, but it's damn fine nonetheless.

3. Baltimore Orioles, primary, 1966-1988
Before I loved the Mets I loved the Orioles.  (1997 was a weird year.)  One of the things I liked the most about this team and its history was the lovable cartoon bird that adorned the uniforms on the 1980s baseball cards I collected.  Let's start with the bird, who's obviously the centerpiece of the whole shebang: he's cute, fun, but he's also a baseball player.  It's hard to describe just how much the bird works here, so I won't even try.  Other things that are good: the colors.  It's very clear that simple = better, as none of the top three teams try to clash their colors or add non-team colors to their logo.  The text is also very large and easy to read, something that's not always a given with these circular, text-wrapped-around logos.  If the Orioles still had this logo during my one season of fandom, perhaps I'd still be rooting for them to this day....

4. Montreal Expos, primary, 1969-1991
Another clever logo, though this one's a bit more... French?  Yes, that's right--the red, white, and blue M spells out eMb, équipe de Montreal baseball (or "Montreal baseball team" for you non-Francophones).  This logo loses a few points for its dull color scheme and the odd integration of "expos" below the M, but those are minor quibbles.  This was a great logo, and it's a shame the Expos were forced to flee to the interesting logo-less Washington, DC.

5. Toronto Blue Jays, primary, 1977-1996
O Canada!  What is it with you and great logos?  This logo just looks... great.  My favorite part of it is the font, which is so distinctive in a good way that few other fonts are.  The eponymous blue jay is remarkably detailed, though not distracting.  Somehow, it just adds to the overall atmosphere of the logo.  The red baseball in the background adds a nice touch of color, though I honestly could have done without the maple leaf, as I feel it just gets in the way a little.  Still, though, I love this logo, and I can't get enough of the Joe Carter WS-winning clip in part because of the great uniform he's wearing.

6. San Diego Padres, primary, 1969-1984
This is another logo where I have to plead guilty to a childlike love of the mascot representation and the colors.  The Swinging Friar looks kind of like a cross between Homer Simpson and Fred Flinstone, but that's part of his charm.  I'm still amazed that anybody ever thought it'd be cool to put a monk on a major league sports team's logo.  The script "Padres" on the bat is a nice touch, as is the yellow ring--again, it's all about having your team's colors in a non-obtrusive and meshable way, and this logo does that perfectly.  This logo screams 1970s, but unlike many other uniform- and logo-related creations from that era I actually give this one a big thumbs up.

7. St. Louis Cardinals, primary, 1922-1948
This one really boils down to the bat doubling as a tree branch, which I for one think is pretty neat.  The "Cardinals" script (well, it's not really script, but you know what I mean) is a familiar but distinct typeface, which is always appreciated.  Even though the logo features a lot going on, it still only has three colors--red, yellow, and brown.  That's tough to pull off, and this one does it quite well.  Also, while the birds sort of look like raccoons, it's always nice to see teams put a well-done visual representation of their team name on their logo.  This one may not have that much to it, but I just love it.  Besides, who wouldn't want to be reminded of Stan Musial every time they look at a logo?

8. San Francisco Giants, primary, 2000-present

What is a giant, anyway?  (The very tall human thing, I guess.  But why?  Anyway...)  This logo sure isn't going to tell us!  No, this logo isn't here because of its visual skill--the team name in front of a baseball, ho hum--but rather because of its elegant color scheme.  The ball is that perfect orangey off-white that is the base of the Giants' home uniforms.  I love that color.  The stitching on the ball is orange, and the black "Giants" is outlined in orange.  This is just a very simple, elegant combination of the Giants' colors, resulting in perhaps the best "basic" logo.

9. Seattle Mariners, primary, 1980-1986
This loses points for not being descriptive in the least, but I still just love something about it.  Maybe it's how the M doubles as a trident?  Yes, that's it.  Also very good is how the M is outlined in the cheesy yellow, spicing up a logo that had great potential to be boring.  Making a star as the background seems unnecessary, but it's not distracting and prevents the logo from looking too barren.  Good job, team.

10. Colorado Rockies, primary, 1993-present
Somebody's taking "purple mountain's majesty" a bit seriously, eh?  This logo suffers from many traditional pitfalls--too many colors, too much going on, a broken up name--but it's in my top ten because of those aforementioned mountains.  I love the way the baseball looks like it's been hit over the mountains, and the light lavender of the letters compliments the purple of the mountains very well.  Also, I'm a big fan of purple, and I think the Rockies' use of it is pretty exceptional.

Top 30 Logos: 20-11

Continuing the three-part series started yesterday, here's the second installment of the thirty best logos, one from each franchise. As I said yesterday, many thanks to Chris Creamer and sportslogos.net.

20. Texas Rangers, primary, 1984-1993
Like about half the logos on this list, the only thing I can think of when I see this is "Nolan Ryan." Anyway, I've always had a soft spot for this logo.  There's something so calmingly retro about it, I just can't explain.  I'm confused as to why the state of Texas is bulging due to a huge baseball in the middle of it (they really couldn't have fit the ball within the state's normal borders?), but there's nothing bad about this.

19. New York Yankees, primary, 1913-1946
Babe Ruth.  Tradition.  Lou Gehrig.  Aura.  Mystique.  Sorry, I got carried away there.  This logo gets props for being "classic" in a way that's actually not bad.  The interlocking NY is admittedly iconic, and they've more or less kept it the same since the early 20th century.  Also, this logo gets points for not being the Yankees' only other logo--the terrible one with the hat.

18. Boston Red Sox, primary, 1976-2008
Ha, the Red Sox beat the Yankees!  Take that, Aaron Boone!  This is another classic-seeming logo (though it's only actually been around since the 1970s, apparently).  I like the socks on the baseball, though I actually prefer it with the team name surrounding it (as opposed to this earlier model).  Honestly, this logo's kind of boring, in that there's nothing particularly exciting about it, but I can't find any flaws with it.  Solid job.

17. Minnesota Twins, primary, 1976-1986
There are a number of variations on the Minnie & Paul theme, but I like this one the best.  The "Win! Twins!" theme is hokey in a very cute way, and the whole concept is just a lot of fun.  That said, it's way too busy to be a really effective logo.  It strikes me more as a cartoon that the Minneapolis Star Tribune would have run in the 1960s.  This is probably ranked too high (as in, closer to #1), but I'm just a huge fan of the friendly twin city embodiments.

16. Houston Astros, primary, 1975-1993
Whoever thought to put the Astrodome on this team's logo was either an idiot or a genius.  Honestly, though, it works pretty well.  I don't like how it distracts from the team (they should be the focus, not their stadium), but the Astrodome was such a key part of the Astros' identity that it makes some sense.  The atom symbol doesn't though.  Just because a team is related to space doesn't mean that they get to envelop everything science related.  This logo is so dated that you can't help but love it.

15. Chicago Cubs, primary, 1979-present
At first I chose this logo for the Cubbies, and then realized I was making a huge mistake.  Similar to the Sox logo above, this one seems so familiar that you don't realize it didn't exist in its present form until 1979.  That being said, I just love it.  Again similar to the Sox logo, there's nothing particularly great about it, hence why I can't rank it higher, but I like it a lot nonetheless.

14. Philadelphia Phillies, primary, 1992-present
There's a lot going on in this logo.  Unlike with some other logos, however, that's not that much of a problem, as it all goes together pretty well.  We have a baseball diamond, a liberty bell, and the team name with stars dotting the "i"s, but I don't have any big problems with it.  The red, white, and blue is a bit conventional--but what did you expect from a team with a liberty bell on its logo?--and they don't always go well together.  In fact, there's so much of each of these colors that it can get a bit distracting.  Still, this is a classy logo.

13. Detroit Tigers, primary, 1961-1993
This (cocaine using?) tiger isn't the fiercest--though it's better than this--but it's a good logo nonetheless.  It gets to the point: here is our name, here are our colors, here is a visual representation of our team name.  They lose a little bit, but not that much, due to the sloppiness of the tiger.

12. Pittsburgh Pirates, primary, 1968-1986
I really like this.  Rather than make the pirate seem too fierce, as this team's been known to do, they have a simple drawing of a guy on what looks like a wanted poster.  The team name is a little bit on the small side, and the drawing is perhaps too complex--ideally, you'll want your logo to be easily drawable by kids--but I can overlook that.  I love how the "paper" is tearing around the edges, as well as the nails in the corners.  Good stuff.  (Side-note: does anybody else think the pirate looks like Jim Palmer?)

11. Los Angeles Dodgers, primary, 1958-present
Speaking of classic, the Dodgers haven't changed their logo since they moved out west.  It's easy to see why. The great Dodgers script is the best script logo in the game, and the shooting ball adds a bit of color (red) to the logo without overpowering the traditional blue in any way.  The logo is lively enough without being distracting in any way.  True, it's a bit boring like all "classic" logos are, but this one does it better than almost any of the others.

Top 30 Logos: 30-21

What I did here is took the best logo from each franchise's history (yes, Montreal counts for Washington) and ranked them.  Not much to it, really.

• Note 1: First and foremost, thanks so much to Chris Creamer's sportslogos.net.  This is one of the best and most fascinating sports websites, and if you've never visited it... you should.  Right now.
• Note 2: There's no real methodology to these.  If I thought the logo was boring, I ranked it low.  If I was particularly taken with it for any reason, I ranked it high.  Cheesy cartoons from the 1970s?  High.  Native Americans?  Low.  "Clever" logos?  High.  Logos that don't really do anything other than say the team's name?  Low.

30. Tampa Bay Rays, primary, 2008-present
Is there anything more boring than this logo?  The two things that are good about this one are the light blue shadow around the diamond and the ray of light in the middle of the "R".  That's still not anything that can rescue this from the bottom of these rankings, however.  The dark blue is very standard, and the lettering is nothing special (is the bottom of the "R" supposed to be like a tail? it's too subtle to be commended, if so).  A very weak effort for a team with such great color/logo potential, though they still have time.

29/28. Cleveland Indians, primary, 1980-present / Atlanta Braves, primary, 1972-1986
I... hrrm.  Okay, so I've never had a huge problem with the Native American logos.  They always seemed more playful than offensive, though that may be because I grew up in the sanitized, post-Chief Knockahoma era.  Anyway, the point is that these are clearly offensive on some level, and that shouldn't be tolerated.  I give the edge to the Braves' logo, if only because it has such close associations to Hank Aaron, but really.  Even if these weren't offensive, they'd still be very boring, and that's quite the logo sin.

27. Chicago White Sox, alternate, 1976-1990
There's really nothing to this logo.  The picture is weird, I suppose, but how is it unique to the White Sox?  (Answer: it isn't.)  This is just a dull logo for what was, by all accounts, a dull team.

26. Arizona Diamondbacks, primary, 1998-2006
I have fond memories of this logo based on the 2001 World Series, but it's clearly problematic.  I give a huge thumbs up to the color scheme, but the gold on purple is very tough to read.  Also, it's just an A.  There's nothing special about it, save for the line running along the left side.  Meh.

25. Kansas City Royals, primary, 2002-present
This is a typical "nice try, but still boring" logo.  On the one hand, the crown over the logo is both obvious and nice.  On the other hand, there's nothing interesting about this.  The "KC" and "Royals" aren't well integrated--they're even in a different typeface, I believe.  I'm not sure how this one can be improved.  Their alternate that eliminates the "Royals" part isn't bad, but at that level it's a bit barebones.  Who knows, I'm not a graphic designer.

24. Oakland Athletics, primary, 1968-1982
On the one hand, I love the colors and the hokiness of this.  On the other hand, it's a bit on the busy side, no?  I mean, why does it say  "The Swingin' A's" but then have a picture of cleats?  For that matter, why have the cleats at all?  I chose this to represent this franchise because I love the green on yellow, but there's just too much going on.

23. Cincinnati Reds, primary, 1972-1992
Who is that man?  Is it Mr. Redlegs?  No, he has a fun moustache.  Is it Mr. Met?  No, that can't be.  No, it's, umm... Mr. Red.  According to Wikipedia, he existed in sleeve patch form in the 1950s, only to then disappear until this logo.  Anyway, much as I love fun cartoons his appearance here is a bit random.  He's not an iconic mascot (heck, he's not even the most well-known mascot on his own team), and just distracts from everything else.  That said, all of the other Reds logos are pretty boring, and this one reminds me of the Big Red Machine.  I do like how this is their only logo to actually spell out Cincinnati though.

22. California Angels, primary, 1986-1992
Again, I like it, but... meh.  There's not that much to like, ya know?  The California in the background is nice, but makes this logo a bit busy.  Three layers might be one too many.  That said, it's a fairly simple logo, and I've always been a fan of the the "A" with the halo.

21. Florida Marlins, primary, 1993-2011
I admire the Marlins' inclusion of an actual Marlin on their logo, though I still have quite a few problems with this.  The lettering is way too small, and is barely able to be seen over the background (teal on light blue creates problems).  Also, the aforementioned marlin is just too big; you can have a fun drawing on your logo, but it shouldn't dwarf and distract from your team name.  The color scheme is too receded, though I just noticed how the baseball is lined with orange.  Anyway, this is a good logo in theory, but I think the execution is just a little bit flawed.  Hopefully they can flesh it out for the team's rebranding next year.  This alternate isn't so bad, though I didn't count it because I've never actually seen it in use (and it also looks a bit amateurish).