Blue Jays logo voted best in MLB, according to online survey of 2,000 baseball fans

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This article was published 01/07/2021 (1601 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Toronto Blue Jays logo, which has been in and out of favour with fans since 2000, is definitely back in vogue.

In fact, according to an online survey of 2,000 fans across the U.S., it ranks as the best in Major League Baseball.

The survey was done for PlayUSA, a gambling industry news site, which also asked fans to rate team colours and uniforms.

“The Blue Jays logo is very recognizable. You won’t confuse it with any other team, so it wasn’t a surprise to see it rate so highly,” said Matt Zajechowski, content strategist with Digital Third Coast, the marketing agency that conducted the survey and released the results last month.

Toronto’s uniform ranked 20th. The Yankees’ jersey, which hasn’t changed much since 1912, was at No. 2 with the Cubs, whose uniforms have been virtually the same since 1958, taking top spot.

The Jays didn’t finish in the top five in team colours.

The Jays logo has undergone several alterations since the club’s inception in 1977, including the so-called dark era in the early 2000s. Its popularity seemed to dip and dive in unison with a team that struggled in the later years of the Interbrew ownership era (1994-2000) and the early years under Rogers Communications (since 2000).

With baseball still feeling the negative effects of the steroid era, the Jays logo took on the “angry bird” image, with perhaps its most unpopular version arriving in 2003. It lasted just one season. But that logo left a lasting impression on fans, who watched Roy Halladay win the 2003 Cy Young Award and Carlos Delgado hit four home runs in one game in September of that year.

Former Jays lefty Ricky Romero, who wore some of those angry bird jerseys in a Jays’ career that spanned 2009-13, remembers those logos as being part of his excitement over making the major leagues. He began noticing the evolving bird logos as his career progressed.

“We wore those (powder blue) Flashback Friday uniforms, and I remember guys were like, ‘I wish we could go back to this uniform and logo,’” Romero said, remembering the contrast of the powder blue Flashback Friday unis to the black jerseys the team wore when he broke into the majors.

“We had those black uniforms, and I guess I was confused a bit. I mean, I grew up in the major leagues with that black uniform, so I didn’t think anything until we started wearing those Flashback Friday uniforms. Then one time we had a World Series reunion, and we all wore those classic whites that they wore … (I remember) saying, wow, this is a great logo.”

Zajechowski said the PlayUSA survey was done in May, with the aim of “including people from everywhere there was a major league team. It was an online survey, and we wanted to get a solid representation of major-league fans.”

Teams can — and often do — enhance fan appeal and experience with additional uniforms and logos linked to third jerseys and historic eras in team histories.

Lesley Mak, a Toronto resident whose family has rooted for the Jays for over three decades, was not surprised the current logo ranked so highly.

“It surprised me that we beat the Yankees, but it didn’t surprise me that the logo is so widely recognized and respected,” said Mak, an assistant dean and registrar at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto.

“I think the Jays logo is a complex bird … To have the colours and graphics where you can present the Blue Jay in a recognizable way is challenging. It’s hard to do clean and crisp, but I think this (current logo) pulls it off beautifully.”

Mak, 42, said she and her brother were playing baseball and softball when she was five. Her parents decided then that “we are going to be a Jays family from now on,” and that started a love affair with the team that remains strong today.

With her mother operating a Kwik Kopy printing store for more than a decade, Mak said she became familiar with graphics and colours, and what makes them work. When the Jays updated their logo in 2011 for the next season, ushering in a positive change from the previous angry bird era, Mak knew the logo would be a success.

“I’m passionate about logos. When baseball releases new logos, I tweet them out,” Mak said. “When they came out with that new logo in 2011, it floored the fan base. I’m sure the merch sales went viral.”

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The current logo, now in its second season, directly hearkens back to the original from the 1977 team, which also included a red maple leaf.

Romero, now a father of three, still loves the powder blue jerseys and the logo from the Flashback Friday days in the late 2000s. In fact, he’s trying to find one for himself.

“I guess one regret I have is not having that powder blue, V-necked jersey with that logo,” Romero said.

“It’s from 2009, I think, with the logo in the middle of the jersey. I felt when I wore one of those jerseys, it paid a lot of respect to guys like George Bell and Dave Stieb, and all those players from back then.”

Mark Zwolinski is a Toronto-based sports reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @markzwol