Myrtle Beach Pelicans

19

Myrtle Beach is one of the handful of minor league baseball cities I've been in. I've never seen a game there (the team was still in Durham as the Carolina League incarnation of the Durham Bulls all of the times I was in Myrtle Beach), but nevertheless I have been there several times. As such, I ought to be able to comment on whether "Pelicans" is a reasonable name for the city. But I can't. For all the time I was in Myrtle Beach, I don't recall spending a lot of time at the beach.

Yes, I know what you're thinking: If you weren't going to go to the beach, why did you go to Myrtle Beach? And the answer is that I didn't go to Myrtle Beach so much as get taken there. I was a teenager and I was going with my parents, so it goes without saying that I wanted to be anywhere but there. There's more to it than that, though. I'm just not a beach person. Even when I'm near the coast, I'm not inclined to go to the beach. My wife and I went on a vacation to the Outer Banks last year, and if I'm remembering correctly I never managed to see the Atlantic Ocean. The Aquarium at Manteo? Yes. The Wright Brothers Memorial? Of course. Fort Raleigh? Mais Oui. The Bodie Island Lighthouse? Yes, sirree. The actual freaking ocean? Hell, no. I was within a couple of blocks of it and couldn't be arsed to make it all the way there. It wasn't high on my list of priorities. It wasn't even low on my list of priorities.

I'm sure I wasn't that bad at Myrtle Beach. I must have gone to the beach at least once. But my memories of the place seem to involve the playing video games in the hotel game room and going to the Ripley's Believe or Not Museum more than the beach itself. I certainly don't remember any pelicans. Then again, if I was at the beach then it would have been the portion belonging to the hotel. I assume pelicans would avoid that part since it would have been so developed. So even if there are pelicans in Myrtle Beach, they probably wouldn't be at the hotel beach part of Myrtle Beach. Oh, who am I kidding? If pelicans avoid the overdeveloped parts of the beach then they avoid Myrtle Beach altogether. Myrtle Beach is overdeveloped tourist-trap hell from start to finish. Overdeveloped trouist-trap hell is its raison d'être. There are parts of Chicago that are less developed than the beach in Myrtle Beach. If the team wanted to name themselves after an animal that still inhabits the area then they probably should have gone with "Myrtle Beach Pigeons" because that's about the only animal I can see willing to hang out in that place.

But hell, there used to be a team in Washington, D.C. called the Statesmen. There hasn't been one of those in the capital since a certain play was performed in Ford's Theater. If Washington can get away with that name, I suppose Myrtle Beach can get away with the name Pelicans.

The logo is not perfect, but it's pretty darn good. The pelican is a realistic rendering, not some goofy anthropomorphized bird swinging a baseball bat. The moon shining on the water in the background is a neat detail of the sort you rarely see in sports logos. The use of rope as a border around the circle is another good detail. Really, I see only two problems with this logo. First is the baseball bat. This is a very minor thing and I don't really blame them for it, but I would have preferred they simply put the pelican on a dock post. The other fault is the lettering of the word "Pelicans". Something about the thin yellow line inside the blue letters gives it a vaguely 80's vibe. The team, remember, didn't come to Myrtle Beach (and thus wasn't called the Pelicans) until 1999, so this isn't something that was trendy when the logo was designed and they never updated it; it's been out of date from the start. But all in all it's a log that's largely devoid of clichés, and even manages to depict a calm, relaxing scene. That means it truly stands out when compared to most logos, which try so hard to look dynamic. It also means, of course, that it looks nothing like any part of Myrtle Beach I can remember, but given my memory of Myrtle Beach, that's a good thing.

Final Score: 19 points.
Penalties: Script, 7 pts; Scenery, 11 pts; Equipment, 13 pts.
Bonuses: Logo, -12 pts.