When logos go wrong
The Human League
It should not be too hard to render a fun, menacing, semi-realistic image of a real-life person like a pirate or Viking on a team logo. But many teams made it far harder than it had to be. Either they got too cute with the cartoonish elements, too cheap and sloppy with the draftsmanship, or just too weird with the material, but somehow they took a simple subject and made it baffling, ridiculous, or unintentionally hilarious.
Doing it Right: Pittsburgh Pirates, MLB, 1970s/1980s
This guy is the perfect pirate: tough but dashing. The hat and patch leave no doubt about his profession, and the tattered wanted poster effect is both a cute framing device and a reminder that this guy is bad news. The Pirates have generally had good logo taste — the current pirate is tough without overselling it, while previous logos showed more of a wily sea captain — but they got it completely wrong with the preceding guy…
Pittsburgh Pirates, MLB, 1960s
That’s not a pirate. That’s some dude from accounts receivable who got too drunk at the office Halloween party while dressed as a pirate. That look on his face shows that he has just been served with sexual harassment paperwork.
Still, our jowly, stubbly friend has nothing on these mind-boggling logos.
San Diego Conquistadors, ABA, 1960s
The indigenous people of Central America saw the conquistadors as horrifying warrior gods because of their different-sized hands: a teeny tiny one for poleax brandishing and an enormous one for palming a basketball. Also, since the picture establishes that human heads are made from ABA basketballs, Stabbie here may be crossover-dribbling a human skull, which sounds historically accurate. Everything about this ornery little cuss is a treasure: the insane detail on his armor, the snarling rage, the Gothic script, and the action lines at the tip of his weapon. Yes, this dude is in the act of stabbing someone when this emblem was taken.
Denver Nuggets, ABA, 1960s
This poor guy is giving himself a frontal lobotomy with a pickaxe while attempting a left-handed windmill dunk. Also, he is showing wayyy too much tongue, though considering the brain damage he is self-inflicting, it is understandable. There is also some M.C.Escher optical illusion going on with his feet, which do not appear to exist in Euclidean space. All in all, it is for the best that this cartoonist did not attempt to interpret a “nugget.”
Washington Senators/Nationals, MLB, late 1950s
The Founding Fathers all wore tricornered hats to hide their grotesque macrocephaly. Also, they smoked cigars while exerting themselves because they were the original government fat cats. Why they wore two completely different shoes remains a mystery.
San Diego Mariners, WHL, 1960s
The lifelike draftsmanship is what takes this emblem into the loony category. The mind can accept a cartoon penguin playing hockey wearing a little scarf, but an anatomically-correct penguin with skates and a stick would freak us the hell out.
Similarly, Captain Tobacco here is all maritime business on top, all puck-handling down below, leaving us to wonder whether it is a good idea for a ship’s captain to be skating around with a hard object in his mouth
New Orleans Buccaneers, ABA, 1960s
He only has one ear. There is a blotch on his torso which appears to be either chest hair or congealed, uneaten chocolate pudding. His belt buckle takes up his whole abdomen. For the perspective in the drawing to work, his right arm must be eight feet longer. Best of all, the word “”Buccaneers” is tilted at an odd angle along his outline circle, to accommodate his sword, which is its own marvel of scrambled perspective. But at least his basketball has “New Orleans” on it, so you know what city to avoid if you don’t want to see him.
Kentucky Colonels, ABA, 1967
Yes, the ABA is really taking it on the chin in this segment. It was a rinky-dink league, but the Colonels were no rinky-dink team: they were one of the league’s best teams for most of its history, and they narrowly missed the cut during the NBA-ABA merger.
In later years, the Colonels adopted a cool, stylized K-C logo. But in their first year, they opted to represent themselves with Uncle Si wearing a bright green uniform while getting chased by a puppy. The dog is Ziggy, a Brussels Griffon and the family pet of team owners Joe and Mamie Gregory. Ziggy actually attended owners meetings and had a front row seat for games, making him like the Reds’ Schotzie in the 1980s or the Cowboys’ Stephen Jones today.
A Brussels Griffon is hardly a fitting dog for an old-fashioned southern “colonel,” and while such a colonel might indeed own some prized horses, he would not run around waving a horseshoe in his hand. Throw in the droopy uniform, and you have what appears to be a good ol’ boy rushing from an outhouse while being chased by a fuzzy rat. No wonder they missed the merger cut.
Head on over to SportsOnEarth.com to see the rest of the tragic logos we have seen throughout the decades of sports history.