Maybe you’ve met him.
Maybe his slanted eyes and piercing blue eyes have crossed your timeline. His silly grin is probably all over your TikTok. If you follow baseball or your algorithm thinks you like livestock, you’ve probably come across Danville Cow Daddy’s muscular mascot, Mike Remy.
The muscular bull, with a bright pink nose and wearing blue jeans and a “DD” belt buckle but no shirt, rested one hoof on his hip and the other resting on a bat at his feet. His opener went viral, providing rare exposure for a college summer baseball team from the Old North State League, an unincorporated Virginia city of 42,000 people.
But this is no accident. Danville Dairy Dads know exactly what they are doing.
There’s a story behind their name, a thought process behind their color palette, and an award-winning designer behind their logo. Such has been the case with many of the oddball team names that have cropped up in minor league and college summer leagues in recent years. The magic lies in the quirks that tie the club to its community. The fun comes with winks, nods and Easter eggs that the team incorporates into their branding, telling locals, “Hey, we know what makes this town special, and we’re working on it.”
That’s part of the reason a topless bull represents a team in Pittsylvania County, home to three of the five largest dairy farms in Virginia. The Dairy Daddies moniker was originally suggested to general manager Austin Scher as a potential name for Danville’s first college summer team in 2021, the Otterbots. Not when he learned that the local connection was undeniable, the divination of the dairy dads and their main man, McRemy.
“Even though it’s a little weird and silly and a little tongue-in-cheek, there’s a very real community connection there,” Scheer said. “Blue and pink were designed to induce a sense of freshness, new life, and rebirth. When you see these two colors together, you might think of a gender reveal party or a daycare. And then you look at this muscle Well-developed cattle, you think, ‘Well, that’s not a baby. That’s very mature. Danville and all of southern Virginia are in the midst of this massive resurgence.
Good morning, family. pic.twitter.com/a11eFunPhT
— Dairy Daddies (@DairyDaddies) February 29, 2024
Each component of McCrimy conveys the character of his community. Paul Caputo, host of the Baseball Design podcast, explores the origin stories of minor league nicknames and sees the same qualities in team names across the country.
“You can tell the story of America by understanding why a minor league baseball team has a name like that,” he said.
The Dairy Papas are just the latest in a long line of lower-level baseball teams that have eschewed traditional names in favor of more eye-catching identities. It’s difficult to pinpoint the origins of this trend—you can trace it all the way back to the late 1800s, when Pensacola, Fla., had a team called the “Dudes”—but the recent surge in this stupidity stems in part from Major League Baseball is downsizing. Had to rename. Former Rookie League teams like the Burlington (N.C.) Royals and Pulaski (Va.) Yankees resurface as the Sock Puppets and River Turtles to play college summers in the Appalachian League Contest.
Teams that maintain ties to Major League Baseball (MLB) have also jumped on the trendy name train in hopes of revitalizing their brands. Choose from almost any level, any league, and there’s always a nickname or logo that will make you stop and gape. Carolina Disco Turkeys. Alabama Montgomery Biscuits (formerly the Orlando Rays). Minot (ND) Hot Kids. Rocket City (Ala.) Trash Bearcats (formerly Mobile Bay Bearcats). Wichita Chili Bread (another incarnation of the Wichita trend).
Without the constant media coverage and cash flow that MLB organizations enjoy, lower-league teams have to get creative to generate engagement, increase exposure and keep their franchises afloat.
“I saw pictures of people visiting the Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal, and they were wearing trashy panda shirts while they were visiting,” said Rocket City marketing director Ricky Fernandez. “Someone said ‘We’re going to the Eiffel Tower today!’ and it blew my mind. I better put on my best raccoon astronaut T-shirt so I can take a selfie!
Eiffel Tower📍
Paris, France🇫🇷https://t.co/5tFZEz6w5X pic.twitter.com/A88VZCgBdQ— Rocket City Trash Panda (@trashpandas) June 23, 2022
Even with a local connection, accepting unusual names can take some time. Take Jacksonville Shrimp, for example. The Triple-A affiliate of the Miami Marlins played as the Suns from 1990 to 2016, when new ownership took over. Although the new team name was related to the local shrimp fishing industry, the public did not immediately accept it. Noel Blaha, vice president of marketing and media for the city of Jacksonville, said the backlash was expected and they planned disclosures accordingly.
“We purposely had some elementary school kids sitting in the front row of the press conference because if things were to turn around and people were throwing tomatoes, they wouldn’t be chasing these kids,” he said.
Despite this, someone started an online petition calling for the name to be changed back to the Suns. Five thousand people signed it within two hours.
“We’ve seen angry posts on Facebook. We’ve gotten some really rude emails,” Braha said. “People are angry and vocal.”
But slowly, the tide turned.
“That led to incredible merchandise sales for the first few months of the season, and then the season started and we had record attendance that weekend,” he said.
The DubSea (Wash.) Fish Sticks (formerly the Highline Bears) experienced the same rejection-turned-revival after the new name won an online poll that ranked the Fish Sticks with the Seal Slingers as the two choices for the team’s name.
“Zero people are angry about the name Highline Bears. I have zero people excited about it,” team president Justin Moser said. “Before we rebranded, I don’t think we ever sold anything online. Maybe a Highline Bears T-shirt or two.
Despite social media comments calling the new name silly and “a disgrace to the region,” Fish Sticks have since been shipped to all 50 states and nine countries. They sold out five times last summer and announced a sellout for the June 1 season opener on April 23.
Fin Crispy Jr. is the mascot of the Washington State summer college baseball team DubSea Fish Sticks. (Photo: Blake Dahlin/Courtesy of DubSea Fish Sticks)
Caputo said teams that lack creativity in branding these days can look a bit stale.
“It feels very 1990s to name it after a local animal,” he added. “It feels old.”
This is where sports brand companies come into play. Team staff work with designers to brainstorm identities related to local history, industry, gastronomy, natural landmarks or traditions.
“Every community has a story waiting to be told, and our goal is that when you experience sports, especially minor league baseball, we want you to enter a completely different world,” said Brandiose co-founder Jason Klein. You get into a story that we call a nine-inning break, but that story is your hometown story.
The foundation of each team’s story is its logo, the protagonist of the story. Amarillo Turf Poodles general manager Tony Ensor knew that nailing the Texas League franchise’s logo would be key to winning over the naysayers, so he went to Buenos Aires with detailed instructions. Landis.
“I wish the mouth were John Wayne,” he said of the animated black-tailed prairie dog, “and the eyes Clint Eastwood.”
The Amarillo Turf Poodles are the Double-A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks. (Photo: John Moore III/Getty Images)
Scher, general manager of Dairy Daddies, made similar specific requests to Dan Simon, creative director of Studio Simon, when creating McCreamy. Simon imagined the bull had a daddy bod. The answer was “no”.
“They wanted to build him, but not by Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s very adaptable,” Simon said. “The bull will be a lady’s man. Or, in this case, the bull is a bull. So he is a bull man.
Inspired in part by Patrick Dempsey’s performance as surgeon McCremie on Grey’s Anatomy, McCremie also embodies the spirit of another beloved television character. Simon thought the bull was boasting about Joey Tribbiani’s charms from Friends, with a facial expression that seemed to ask: “How are you?”
These flirty, quirky, happy characters do receive some criticism for deviating from traditional logos or for their kitschy tactics in order to sell T-shirts. But Simon, Klein and the team, who proudly play sock puppets, trash pandas and turf poodles, dismiss the idea.
“Sports fans are going to the games no matter what,” Simon said. “These identities attract people who otherwise wouldn’t come, and hopefully when they come, they’ll say, ‘Hey, that was fun! I’d come again! It’s not that you attracted them with false pretenses. It’s not like you’re attracting them with false pretenses. It’s not like that. Little league and college summer baseball leagues, it’s fun to watch those games, so you bring in new fans and you attract new fans that want to come back.
Players, whether college athletes trying to get noticed by scouts or minor leaguers assigned to clubs by MLB organizations, also benefit from the increased exposure and participation.
“I’ve heard from several players that it’s like getting a taste of the majors before actually playing,” said the Junk Pandas’ Fernandez. “Before they moved, our old team had about 200 to 300 people per game. It was a little sad to watch because there were so many empty seats. Here, we led the league in attendance every season. We averaged 1,000 guests per night. 5,000 people.
Los Angeles Angels starting shortstop Zach Neto played 37 games for the Rockets (Madison, Ala.) on his way to the major leagues with a pair of custom Trash Panda sneakers , and said he still influences the team’s merchandise.
“We have to play in a great atmosphere every night,” he said. “To this day, I still think of myself as a trash panda.”
College students feel this way too. East Carolina catcher Ryan McCrystal, who spent the past two summers with the Burlington Sock Puppets, said the North Carolina community embraced all players but acknowledged it may take some effort to Convince friends and family that you are playing for a real team.
“They think it’s a joke, but I think it’s really cool because it’s easier to rally around a team with a name like that. It’s easier to build a community around a team name that brings people together,” he said .
“It’s the only sport where you can actually play it in a meaningful place. The game is small, but it’s beautiful.
(Illustration: Daniel Goldfarb/ Competitor; Top photo courtesy of Rocket City Trash Panda, Jacksonville Giant Shrimp)
