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While I was down at Pirates Fest, I had the chance to talk with Pittsburgh Pirates President, Frank Coonelly briefly. One of the first things I asked him was :
"I've noticed over the past few years, that there's a been a shift away from the jolly roger logo of the McClatchy era to using the Scripted P logo. Are you guys planning on phasing out the McClatchy logo all together"?
Frank Responded and knew exactly what I was getting at :
"Yes, there's going to be a new jolly Roger logo in 2014. It takes 14 months for the submission process to go through and we are on track for a new jolly roger logo for 2014".
I nearly smiled the whole rest of the time I was at Pirates Fest after hearing this. I hate the McClatchy era logo. Nothing good has come with it. It's never seen a winning season and it's attached to an Owner in Kevin McClatchy that oversaw and approved of this organizations plummet to near rubble that the current Ownership/Management team has been trying to climb out of. Put simply, it's a "loser" logo. I want to see the Pirates be winners again, so anything that can help erase the identity of "losing", I am all for it!
I have for years refused to buy any Pirates merchandise that has the McClatchy era logo on it. I've wanted a newer Pirates jersey for years, but won't buy one as long as the McClatchy era logo is on there and they keep slapping it on the sleeve. Tervis cup? Has the "P" Script logo on it. Pennants? "P" Script logo. I have about 7-8 Pittsburgh Pirates T-Shirts and none of them have the McClatchy era logo on it. There's at least one person that is ecstatic about this. Besides, being a Graphic Artist, It will be fun to see what the next logo looks like. It can be ugly for all I care and it'll be an improvement over the McClatchy era logo.
Frank Coonelly didn't stop with those comments either. The guy seemed to know where I was coming from without me needing to say it :
"I know that there's been a lot of talk about the Logo being cursed and it being tied to losing baseball"
You're **** right, Frank!
We still have a full season of Baseball to go through before a new logo change is made but I will be curious to see how much less we see of the McClatchy Logo this year. It makes little sense to promote it too much and overuse it on Merchandise. I understand that some of the merchandise design is beyond their control but seeing how they have slowly phased it out over the years, I wouldn't be surprised to see much of the existing use of the logo be on things where the logo has existed for years.
So, now we can start the speculation.
1. Will the Pirates stick with Black and Yellow or move to a "Mustard" Yellow. Was the use of the 1970-71 uniforms a "preview" of things to come, color wise?
2. Will the Pirates go the route of the Baltimore Orioles, Toronto Blue Jays, & Houston Astros who have over the past 2 seasons, brought back old logos from the late 1960's and 1970's? Could we see the return of the beloved Pirates logo from 1968-1986 or a modernize version of it?
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3. Will the Pittsburgh Pirates go completely brand new and try and rebuild the brand around something completely new and original?
There's a lot of things to speculate on. Hopefully, since this Ownership Group and President apparently don't have the same strong love for the color "red", we won't see any Pittsburgh Pirates logo abused with that color (and hopefully never see another Pirates uniform abused by that color).
So there you have it! Hopefully I don't get an angry E-Mail from the Pittsburgh Pirates about leaking this information and that their angry E-Mail's hopefully only rightfully get directed towards Dejan Kovacevic
