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Ruwisc · 09-03-2019, 01:39 PM

SAN BERNARDINO 66ERS
Logos/Uniforms (Imgur)

In a way, it's a bit surprising that there aren't any major sports teams in the Inland Empire. With over 4 million people, it's the 13th-most-populated metropolitan statistical area in the United States (according to Census Bureau estimates), basically double the size of the Pittsburgh metro and by far the largest without any Big 4 sports (next would be Austin at #30 - more on them later in this series). But it's also not that surprising, given its proximity to Los Angeles, despite being considered separately in some contexts. Still, if you think Southern California is a good part of the country to put another team, the Inland Empire is a place that could probably support one, I think.

There is currently a team known as the Inland Empire 66ers playing in San Bernardino, an Angels affiliate in the High-A California League. I really like the 66ers name, representing the city of San Bernardino's position on Route 66, and so it sticks. However, I'm going to pick sides and name the team for San Bernardino rather than for the whole Inland Empire. The fans in Riverside will learn to love the team anyway.

(The two cities are of comparable size; Riverside is a bit bigger, but the stadium is in SB.) The team had a neat road sign logo for its first 11 years as the 66ers (2003-13), but a 2014 redesign tried to take them as far away from that as possible, introducing a new logo set based around a mechanic swinging a wrench like a baseball bat. It's definitely not the worst look in the minor leagues, but it is very minor league, so we're going back to an updated take on the road sign. The one thing that sticks around from the 2014 redesign is the color scheme of orange, gray and light blue. Here we go:

I've only had to take a couple of creative liberties with the sign here, mixing together parts of a few eras of U.S. federal highway signs. Of course, the most blasphemous thing is probably rendering it in orange and gray, so maybe the Department of Transportation doesn't sign off on this design in an IRL scenario, but I have grown to love it. Props to the creators of the Roadgeek series of fonts, which are near-perfect replicas of the actual fonts used on highway signs nationwide. This particular font is Roadgeek 2005 Series D - a perfect match as far as I can tell.

Three different versions of the shield pretty much cover us on secondary logos - I haven't really seen the need to create anything else for this club because I think the shield stands pretty well on its own. The ones with backgrounds are on rounded rectangles to make them look like actual road signs. It's not lost on me that here in 2019, that makes them look like smartphone apps, but we'll try to look past that.

Jerseys and caps:

Three unis and three caps here. Each shield logo makes an appearance on one of the uniforms. Whichever way you choose, I recommend pairing them up in the order they're shown - white cap with white jersey, orange cap with gray jersey, gray cap with orange jersey. Gray cap-gray uni might be tempting but it's not a good match - a uniform in the team's actual medium gray is a little too dark for a typical away uni, and I didn't want to go full Diamondbacks with this team. So the gray cap probably sticks best with the orange alternate uniform.

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That's it for San Bernardino! In the next post, we go to the Upper Midwest and try to major-league-ify the team that kicked off the current trend of "unique" minor league names.

09-03-2019, 01:39 PM	#8
Ruwisc All Star Reserve Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Southwestern Illinois Posts: 610	SAN BERNARDINO 66ERS Logos/Uniforms (Imgur) In a way, it's a bit surprising that there aren't any major sports teams in the Inland Empire. With over 4 million people, it's the 13th-most-populated metropolitan statistical area in the United States (according to Census Bureau estimates), basically double the size of the Pittsburgh metro and by far the largest without any Big 4 sports (next would be Austin at #30 - more on them later in this series). But it's also not that surprising, given its proximity to Los Angeles, despite being considered separately in some contexts. Still, if you think Southern California is a good part of the country to put another team, the Inland Empire is a place that could probably support one, I think. There is currently a team known as the Inland Empire 66ers playing in San Bernardino, an Angels affiliate in the High-A California League. I really like the 66ers name, representing the city of San Bernardino's position on Route 66, and so it sticks. However, I'm going to pick sides and name the team for San Bernardino rather than for the whole Inland Empire. The fans in Riverside will learn to love the team anyway. (The two cities are of comparable size; Riverside is a bit bigger, but the stadium is in SB.) The team had a neat road sign logo for its first 11 years as the 66ers (2003-13), but a 2014 redesign tried to take them as far away from that as possible, introducing a new logo set based around a mechanic swinging a wrench like a baseball bat. It's definitely not the worst look in the minor leagues, but it is very minor league, so we're going back to an updated take on the road sign. The one thing that sticks around from the 2014 redesign is the color scheme of orange, gray and light blue. Here we go: I've only had to take a couple of creative liberties with the sign here, mixing together parts of a few eras of U.S. federal highway signs. Of course, the most blasphemous thing is probably rendering it in orange and gray, so maybe the Department of Transportation doesn't sign off on this design in an IRL scenario, but I have grown to love it. Props to the creators of the Roadgeek series of fonts, which are near-perfect replicas of the actual fonts used on highway signs nationwide. This particular font is Roadgeek 2005 Series D - a perfect match as far as I can tell. Three different versions of the shield pretty much cover us on secondary logos - I haven't really seen the need to create anything else for this club because I think the shield stands pretty well on its own. The ones with backgrounds are on rounded rectangles to make them look like actual road signs. It's not lost on me that here in 2019, that makes them look like smartphone apps, but we'll try to look past that. Jerseys and caps: Three unis and three caps here. Each shield logo makes an appearance on one of the uniforms. Whichever way you choose, I recommend pairing them up in the order they're shown - white cap with white jersey, orange cap with gray jersey, gray cap with orange jersey. Gray cap-gray uni might be tempting but it's not a good match - a uniform in the team's actual medium gray is a little too dark for a typical away uni, and I didn't want to go full Diamondbacks with this team. So the gray cap probably sticks best with the orange alternate uniform. -------- That's it for San Bernardino! In the next post, we go to the Upper Midwest and try to major-league-ify the team that kicked off the current trend of "unique" minor league names.