Eugene Emeralds

50

Several years ago I wrote a review of the previous Eugene Emeralds logo where I lamented the fact that there wasn't an emerald in the team's logo. Indeed, I pointed out, there wasn't much of anything. And now they've put something in the logo, except of course that they've put a mythical creature in the logo, so basically there's still nothing in the logo.

I know I've probably got a reader or two who disagrees with that statement. I'm not going to spend a lot of time arguing this, but let me just make two points here: One, absolutely no evidence of Sasquatch has ever been found which wasn't later determined to be something else (like the hair sample that turned out to be from a black bear). Second, if Sasquatch was wandering around the Pacific Northwest, that would make it the only non-human great ape ever found in the Americas. It's just too far-fetched to be credible.

Anyway, it's not hard to see why the Emeralds decided to put a Sasquatch in their logo. As previously noted, they needed to put something in their logo even if that something was actually nothing. And while there have been Bigfoot sightings all over the U.S., they're focused in Washington and Oregon. There have apparently been nearly a hundred "sightings" of Sasquatch in Lane County (the county Eugene is located in). Granted, Lane County is huge (it's roughly three times the size of Rhode Island), but some of those sightings were near Eugene. So, sure, it's a local thing. Well, except for the part where it isn't really a thing at all.

That said, there's no denying that this is a ridiculous-looking logo. The Sasquatch looks not just angry but positively enraged. It's carrying a tree. And not just a tree that's been ripped out of the ground; this one has been cleanly cut down, based on how the bottom of the tree looks. Do Sasquatches know how to work a chainsaw? Or is there some subtle pro-monkeywrenching point being made here: the Sasquatch grabbed a fresh-cut tree and is now on a rampage to kill the lumberjacks that cut it down? Also, just how big is this damn thing, anyway? I'd estimate that tree at around sixteen feet (5m) tall, and at a minimum the Sasquatch is as tall as the tree is. I don't recall the folklore making it that big.

On the bright side, it's not holding the tree like it's a baseball bat. Indeed the logo is devoid of any gratuitous baseball references. So there is that. That's about all it's got in its favor, though. Tell you what, Emeralds: next time you decide to put something in your logo, make that something be an actual something. Your logo may not be much better than this if you do that, but it certainly won't be much worse.

Final Score: 50 points.
Penalties: Alliteration, 5 pts; Irrelevance, 39 pts; Logo, 12 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -6 pts.