baseball team that is now known as the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, whose logo is represented on the right. The Foxes adopted this logo for the 1978 season, when they had a young general manager named David Hersh. Hersh was only 21 at the time and he was the boy wonder of the minor leagues, turning the Foxes into a promotional extravaganza. The team, which featured several players who would later play in the major leagues, most notably pitchers LaMarr Hoyt and Britt Burns, ended up winning the Midwest League that year and Hersh made quite a name for himself, even though the team didn't draw all that well. He was able to leverage his position to gain a controlling interest in a AAA team the next year, the Portland Beavers, and we never heard from him again. Last I heard he was still running a minor league team in the Tampa area (and no, I don't mean the Devil Rays).
The Foxes logo seemed pretty forward thinking at the time - the team was affiliated with the White Sox in those days and had typically worn hand-me-down White Sox uniforms prior to that point. The idea that a minor league team would try to establish its own identity and marketing image at that point was pretty unusual; while there were a few such examples generally at the higher levels, A ball teams usually operated like the Foxes did. The locals would get a regular dose of the Wausau Mets, the Burlington Brewers and the Quad Cities Angels in those days.
Minor league teams have now pretty much all established their own identities and logos, usually much more flashy than the somewhat prim Foxes logo. The Timber Rattler logo is significantly more attention-getting. It pretty much screams for attention; the Foxes logo, not so much.
My brother got me baseball caps for Christmas this year that feature both these logos (thanks, Pat!). The Foxes hat is very old school indeed; navy blue with the plain logo you see above. The Timber Rattler hat is a plum color a shade or two lighter than the maroon of the University of Minnesota, with a black bill. (I think that Dutch Boy paints offers a similar shade called "Dame Margaret" or some such. The names companies give to paint colors is probably worth another post, although I usually leave that sort of thing to a professional like Dorky Dad.) Having both caps is great; while I like modern images as much as the next guy, old school and retro looks still have their purpose. It's funny now, 30 years on, that the Foxes logo that was at the cutting edge of minor league fashion is now defiantly an old school look.
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