Modesto’s new baseball team is getting a new name, again.Main Street Baseball, the owners of a new Pioneer Baseball League franchise, said Monday that the team is changing its primary name to the Modesto Roadsters. The new team’s logo features a classic car driven by a kit fox named “Cruiser.” The change follows a backlash to a previous announcement that the team would be called the Glow Riders. Main Street Baseball said it’s not scrapping that name entirely but will instead use it as an alternate identity. The Glow Riders will take to the field once each week to “highlight local Latino-owned businesses and celebrate the music, art, and fashion rooted in California’s lowrider culture.”“This new team will be an integral part of Stanislaus County and the Central Valley for decades to come, so it was really important that we get the name exactly right,” Roadsters owner Dave Heller said in a statement. “After the Glow Riders were announced, we did a lot of listening and learned a lot about this community, its culture, and its people. I was blown away by the passion and the pride people here have for baseball, their team and their history. We owed it to them to hit a home run with the new primary identity, and with the Modesto Roadsters we’ve hit a grand slam.”The Roadsters identity is inspired by “American Graffiti diner culture” and classic car culture. The San Joaquin kit fox is native to the region. “Cruiser” also appeared in the Glow Riders design, along with an alternate Sugar Skull skeleton.The new Roadster logos were locally designed by Andie Kat and Greg Gallup of Slightly Obsessed Studios. The team’s name was initially put to a vote by fans, with the Glow Riders said earlier this month to have had the most “unique” votes from different people.The names Graffiti and Harvesters scored highest, but officials said at the time those names appeared to receive duplicate votes.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
Modesto’s new baseball team is getting a new name, again.
Main Street Baseball, the owners of a new Pioneer Baseball League franchise, said Monday that the team is changing its primary name to the Modesto Roadsters. The new team’s logo features a classic car driven by a kit fox named “Cruiser.”
The change follows a backlash to a previous announcement that the team would be called the Glow Riders.
Main Street Baseball said it’s not scrapping that name entirely but will instead use it as an alternate identity. The Glow Riders will take to the field once each week to “highlight local Latino-owned businesses and celebrate the music, art, and fashion rooted in California’s lowrider culture.”
“This new team will be an integral part of Stanislaus County and the Central Valley for decades to come, so it was really important that we get the name exactly right,” Roadsters owner Dave Heller said in a statement. “After the Glow Riders were announced, we did a lot of listening and learned a lot about this community, its culture, and its people. I was blown away by the passion and the pride people here have for baseball, their team and their history. We owed it to them to hit a home run with the new primary identity, and with the Modesto Roadsters we’ve hit a grand slam.”
The Roadsters identity is inspired by “American Graffiti diner culture” and classic car culture. The San Joaquin kit fox is native to the region. “Cruiser” also appeared in the Glow Riders design, along with an alternate Sugar Skull skeleton.
The new Roadster logos were locally designed by Andie Kat and Greg Gallup of Slightly Obsessed Studios.
The team’s name was initially put to a vote by fans, with the Glow Riders said earlier this month to have had the most “unique” votes from different people.
The names Graffiti and Harvesters scored highest, but officials said at the time those names appeared to receive duplicate votes.
See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
