Wayne Huizinga's Follies

By now, long removed from the days in which he owned the then-Florida Marlins, entrepreneur Wayne Huizinga is long gone - and his successor Jeffrey Loria not too far behind. With the Derek Jeter-era look of the now-Miami Marlins come mixed reviews. The extension of the Clevelander (or whatever it's supposed to be) in replacement of that ugly home run gimmick is a double bonus. The new identity though is middle of the road. Love the logo, not so much the color scheme. This was the scheme originally up for consideration during the expansion phase for the club in 1991. It was hip then. Now hardly although it is appropriate along the "modern" theme a lot of businesses are going for these days. I tried the look on both of the previous color swatches while fiddling around the green with the original teal black and orange.

  

I do like how the Loria-era look worked here, but wasn't sure that it would translate nearly as easily. So off I went with the teal. Imagine how awesome this would look if it were the NFL's Dolphins logo. The Marlins have change the look from very detailed to abstract in 2011. They pulled a Dolphins by quasi-updating the logo for this year much the way the Dolphins did earlier in the decade instead of the Dolphins being a little more bold.

 

I reverted the name back to the Florida locale in the anticipation that Tampa Bay may leave the market given the situation at the Trop. I thus had to create the location script on the jersey from the current "Miami" and "Marlins" scripts.With minor alterations to the home and road, I am using the originals in both cases. I was always really disappointed in the club for not wearing their teal batting practice jerseys regularly and also for their lack of using the accent orange (a complaint I have of many teams who don't utilize all of their accents in some fashion). I did also create the template for this project myself, so that felt gratifying. But I am going to tinker with it to see if it can be improved.

Crunching Together and Idea

As I have been known, I'm always on the search for a good logo (hence the BNGLHoF). This is probably the pinnacle of the indoor soccer ranks. I then thought about what it might be like if some of the indoor soccer teams translated to the NLL. Cleveland had a slight identity crisis with their soccer teams. The original team was named the Force in the old MISL When the NPSL was formed and the MISL on its way down, I believe they still held the rights, leading to the Crunch brand. the original logo was very bland and original colors of red, black, and yellow. They then went to a new logo in the form of the one below (which I altered slightly to incorporate lacrosse). After a little while longer, the color scheme became purple, green, and yellow. The NPSL went under in 2001 and a new upstart league to the remaining teams from the ashes including the Crunch. Ahead of 2004, the team re-branded to the Force which took the now-lapsed copyright until the team folded following 2008. The team won three championships in the 90s and was arguable the most successful indoor soccer team of the decade to close out the century and the millenium.

A new BNG template is being rolled out with this concept. I took the purple and green era logo and incorporated the elements based on a current look NLL jersey. My updated crunch logo to fit the sport would be the same as the one introduced in the mid 90s. The NLL's Buffalo Bandits have had the same logo since 1996 after abandoning the original logo from their inaugural 1992, so this logo would fit in just fine. Unlike in soccer, lacrosse and almost all other sports with goalies does not have goalies wearing different colored uniforms. But Elma, NY native Otto Orf is sampled on the alternate which probably would be the goalie kit for a soccer concept. Personal acquaintance Hector Marinaro currently coaches at John Carroll University where he has been for some time now. Zoran Karic was one of the big names from the MISL that still excelled in Cleveland upon arrival. This was an excellent team, one I was fortunate to see during their 1999 championship run and on Orf's birthday at then-HSBC Arena in 2001.

-Ricky