200 Years of Baseball in Staten Island: Garibaldi BC, Red Shirts, Reds, G's, T's, etc

[20_range]

1984.


In a era of 50s nostalgia and success for the parent club Mets, the tomato returns, and for the first time the team is finally officially named the New York Tomatoes.


The strident revolutionary 60s logo is now seen as dated, and, regrettably, American attitudes are shifting to the right again, although the old logo continues to appear as a counterculture symbol, on shirts, stencils and graffiti.


Here is the home run tomato!

But I don't think we are done with anthropomorphic nightmares in this series..

[omniart]

I think this series is great! The minimalist 70s logo is pretty good. In my opinion, the 70s era logos are more challenging to design than other eras. You can't cut-and-paste together a good 70s logo: you have to do some original art! I wish that I was more of an artist and that I could design more 70s-looking logos.

I like the way that you're not just trying to make logos from different eras but also adapting the team's iconography to the different cultural climates.

You had me in tears when I reached Joey Tomato in the 1950s.

Great fun! I look forward to the rest!

[20_range]

1995. They change the name to make it more xtreme.



My heart's not really in this one, it's so awful. I overlaid our tomato over the Rochester Red Wings logo from 1997. This was an era of screaming, muscly, teeth gritting logos with stretched text.



Is it worse with the face, or without?



Currently we are in an era of smirking logos - I don't know which convention I dislike more. I do have a pretty good idea for the Brandiose rebrand in the late 2010s that should actually justify the triangle smirk mouth.

[20_range]

1999: The team changes affiliation to the Yankees, like the real life Staten Island Yankees, who started play in 1999. This is their logo as a tomato. (Eventually I promise this team will rebrand away from all these tomatoes).



The location name once again reverts to Staten Island, the Yankees of course considering themselves the only team in NY.



Luckily their "classiness" means the end of the angry tomato.



** Also by this time the Garibaldi face logo from the 60s has become fully incorporated as a "capitalist rebellion" image, like Che Guevara's face, Calvin peeing, or the Oakland Raiders (in modern times, the Punisher logo, for example).



In this timeline I buy a Garibaldi's face tshirt in middle school.

[Jabez54]

Hey!!
That's a very unique and awesome looking logos, mate!
I like IT!

[20_range]

Thanks jabez for your constant support and omniart for being kind to my attempt

Can you guys think of any historical eras that have missed/ should try to do?

Upcoming styles I am planning include: the 2002 logo (hard to get right), corporate minimalist, Brandiose tough-cartoon, corporate representation (Copa de Diversion), and a couple joke rebrands and theme nights trying to replicate the modern minor leagues.

[Jabez54]

We're honored to have a unique logo artist among the midst of elite mods creators that we have had over the year, here......
Since you asked: I love the PCL association... Would love to see your take on this...

[20_range]

October 2001


There are very few ways for a cartoon tomato to somberly memorialize a recent historical event (I tried some). The team, still called the Tomatoes, would like to wear a special patch.



Their iconic past logo provides the answer. In this timeline, it's only a tier or two down in ubiquity from the Che Guevara image, so someone makes this poster, and the team quickly adopts it.



They change their name once again, the old moniker Red Shirts now representing 19th century firefighters (2002 old timey FDNY logo is next)



*I spared us all the United We Stand tomato (I was thinking maybe the anthropomorphic tomato saluting with its cartoon arms)

[20_range]

2002:


The team readopts their old name the Red Shirts. The new logo is a 19th century fireman in action, sounding the alarm from inside a FDNY lieutenant's shield.



This one really works I think. I have read that the first baseball uniforms are descended from firefighter's outfits, and of course firefighters and romantically outfitted soldiers like the Garibaldi Guard and Zouaves both were around in the Civil War era in NY. And also, the source of Garibaldi's red shirts are up for debate.


They could have been surplus butcher's clothing, or Argentine/Uruguayan gaucho garb, or they could be inspired by what firefighters wore during his 1850s stay in New York City.



I tried to make this a historically minded logo that fits in with this series. While it's extremely likely that a NY sports team would adopt a firefighter theme in 2002, it is unlikely that it would be an 1860s firefighter theme. I did fit a gradient in there to honor the time period, but a real team would probably look something more like the 2005 Peoria Chiefs.




* again, since the original 2002 team in my notes was going to be a cartoon tomato never forgetting, I think things have worked out

[20_range]

2010


The team relocates to Brooklyn for one season due to stadium repairs, sharing a stadium with the Cyclones, and wears this special corporate minimalist/ hipster exploitation logo. Because after all the Garibaldi is also the name of a beard style. It's the dream of the 1890s: a "retro" barbershop.



This would have been a bad joke if I had made it at the time, but I'd like to think now, it's a historical joke. Let's exhale and reflect that at least the endless discourse about hipsters has not survived into this decade.


(I used the gentrification font, Neutraface, and so to really drive this additional bad joke home, the hat logo is the founding year in the style of a street number.)

[20_range]

Now affiliated with the Orioles!

[20_range]

Regarding the Orioles-tomato, which dates in this timeline from 2014 (when the Os went to the bird logo that I love), I don't think the New York Post et al would have accepted a branding that moved away from the firefighter theme. The headlines would have simply blared "TOO SOON". So I think the team's 21st century identity as the NY/ SI Red Shirts is pretty nailed on.



So this 2017 Staten Island Garibaldis edition is an alternate identity, as all teams in the minors do now, worn a few times a year, selling a few shirts, generating a few silly headlines. This is now part of baseball tradition (here is Robinson Cano in a Spongebob jersey).


The Garibaldi is also the name of a fish, like the beard, named after Giuseppe, in this case because the fish has the distinctive color of the Red Shirts. And so, for a few games a year, they play as the Garibaldis (the fish).


I have previously posted about how much I dislike the Brandiose-style triangular sneering mouth that is a feature of every one of their logos. I didn't actually put one on my fish, but it would fit, for once. Unlike a flying squirrel or a jumbo shrimp, the garibaldi fish actually is very fierce:


"The male clears a sheltered nest site within his territory; the female then deposits eggs within the nest. The male guards the nest area until the eggs hatch, which takes 19–21 days. During the time period that the eggs are developing, the male Garibaldi aggressively tries to keep all other fish away from the (very edible) eggs, and will boldly attack much larger swimming creatures, including humans, to the point of biting divers in order to try to drive them away from the area where the eggs are deposited."


so as you can see, he is protecting his baseball-eggs

[20_range]

2018: Staten Island Pizza Rats

no changes lol. worth it

[Ramzavail]

This is awesome! Super fun to read and super fun to see where you went with all this. I can't believe you found a link about SI firefighters and their inspirational attire.

Local tradition suggests that Italian liberator Giuseppe Garibaldi, who lived on Staten Island for a time, was influenced by this style of firefighter's shirt in dressing his force of volunteer soldiers in Italy.

[20_range]

Thank you, I've had great fun with it. And I still have four or five more!

[20_range]

2020

(Also relevant for 2023. Twice in the last few weeks I've had to keep my one year old inside and wear a mask due to poisonous air quality)

[20_range]

It's finally the offseason in my league, so I added a rookie league division for some of them

[20_range]

2021 and 2022


These are meant to be the Copa de la Diversion entries for the team, they honor Anita Garibaldi, born 1821 in Brazil


Thanks again to golem64, who compiled these logos, I have used them for years


eyeblack she means business

[20_range]

2023



this is my attempt to make a Wu Tang logo out of a 19th century red shirt it's the team's attempt to honor/cash in on the 30th anniversary of Enter the 36 Chambers by the borough's best known artists and noted baseball fans:



"I'm on the mound G, and it's a no-hitter
And my DJ the catcher, he's my man
Anyway he's the one who devised the plan
He throws the signs I hook up the beats with clout
I throw the rhymes to the mic and I strike em out
So it really doesn't matter on how you intrigue
You can't **** with those in the major leagues" Clan in Da Front

[20_range]

These sell out