Earlier this offseason, we talked about how the San Diego Padres were the latest Major League Baseball team to look to the past for their new uniform, as San Diego will be once again decked out in brown and yellow next season. Toronto, Houston, and Baltimore Orioles started this trend, and now, add the Milwaukee Brewers to the list.
Just in time to mark the franchise’s 50th anniversary, the Brew Crew is going back to the “MB” glove look that the franchise used from 1978 - 1993, when they reached the World Series for the only time in franchise history (1982) with Hall of Famers like Robin Yount and Paul Molitor. It’s important to note that this is a permanent logo change, not just something for the golden anniversary season.
If you’re not familiar with the logo, at first glance, it looks like a mitt with a baseball at the center of it. However, a closer look will show that the fingers of the glove make out an “M,” and the thumb and palm of the glove (along with the outline of the baseball) make a “B.” Milwaukee Brewers. Clever, huh? It’s one of those things that aren’t apparent at first glance, but you can never un-see it once you notice it.
"I had actually been in the organization for probably five years before I figured it out," the Brewers' Ryan Braun admitted to reporters. "I don't think I actually figured it out but somebody told me, which was kind of a shock. But I'm glad that, after all these years here, I finally know what's going on."
Rodney Richardson of RARE Design, whom the club hired to design the new logo, found through research and watching many games at Miller Park that the old logo still resonated in the fan base.
“It’s such a tremendous mark, and the history and all it represents,” Richardson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “As we continued to explore, it continued to rise to the top as being the one that carries [the Brewers’] story in the best way.”
There are some changes to the logo that was used for 25 years, with the biggest one being that the navy blue color of the team’s previous logo remains (the old logo was royal blue). There’s also some additional webbing between the thumb and forefinger in the glove, and the baseball has some additional stitching.
The Brewers had three primary logos since the glove was put into mothballs after the 1993 season. The first was a diamond-shaped logo that featured crossed-bats and interlocking letters "MB." To mark the team’s debut in Miller Park in 2000, a script Brewers logo with a circle in the background that featured the city’s name and barley, representing the city’s history with brewing beer. That logo stuck for 17 years until it was swapped out for a mark that was previously an alternate logo – a simplified “M” with the barley beneath it in 2018.
See the Milwaukee Brewers logo history and team history.
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