Spokane Indians

76

A few years ago (2005, to be precise), the Spokane Indians became the second team in Northwest League history to win the league championship despite having a losing record (37-39) in the regular season. Since they were the second, there must have been another team to accomplish the same feat. This is impressive, but it does make you wonder what the hell a team with a losing record was doing in the playoffs in the first place. One of the things I've always liked about baseball is how the regular season means more. In hockey and basketball, over half the league makes the playoffs even in the highest league (there have even been minor leagues in hockey over the years where every single team made the playoffs.) By contrast, Major League Baseball lets in a mere eight out of thirty teams, and most minor leagues don't let many more in. That's not to say baseball playoffs are perfect — most of the minor league have some silly "split season" format, which always struck me as rather silly — but you don't expect losing teams to make the playoffs. How did this happen?

Apparently, the playoffs in the Northwest League (from 1965 to 2009, at least) simply featured the East Division champion playing the West Division champion, the way the baseball gods intended. And as it turned out, in 2005 the East Division just sucked. The 37-39 Indians were indeed the East Division champions, while the West Division's third-place Everett Aqua Sox were 42-34. In 1982, it was even more bizarre. The Medford A's were the only team in the entire league who had a winning record (they were 53-17). The 34-36 Salem Angels were not only the North Division champions, they were also the second best team in the league. Or maybe they were the best, since (as previously noted) they won the playoffs. I'm sure the Medford A's didn't live that one down until the following year, and they only lived it down that year because they once again dominated the league and also managed to win the playoffs. Things weren't nearly so dramatic in 2005, but still: a team with a losing record won the playoffs. Odd.

So what do you do when you are so lucky that you manage to win a playoff series you didn't really have much right to be in? Most people, being superstitious, would change as little as possible. Not these guys. They chose that year to start working on a new logo — assuming, I guess, that they had just spent any luck the old logo could possibly bring them. Normally, they would avoid any native American imagery in the logo. This is apparently a tradition in Spokane, and just the sort of thing you expect a team to do when it's embarrassed by the political incorrecteness of its team name but doesn't want to change it because it's been using it for over a century. But this time the Spokane Nation approached the team about creating some sort of official connection between the two groups. As a result, the team incorporated two feathers into their logo. They also created a secondary logo which is identical to the primary logo except that it is written in Salish, and it doesn't have the feathers. I'd tell you what the words in the logo transliterate to, but I don't speak Salish. Neither, for that matter, do most Spokane under the age of 60, but hey, it's the thought that counts, right?

All in all the logo isn't spectacular, but given their hesitance to use any but the most subtle native American imagery, I can understand why. It's probably the best BIC* logo out there, not only because there's a valid reason for them to have fallen back on the BIC approach but also because it's a nice color scheme. Okay, so red, white, and blue isn't very original, but the reason it gets used a lot is that it looks good. Besides, the color scheme here is technically not red, white, and blue; it's red, beige, navy blue, and sky blue.

And be honest: how much originally do you really expect, or even want, out of a team that's been using the same name since 1903? Exactly. Give 'em a pass.

* Baseball in circle

Final Score: 76 points.
Penalties: Equipment, 13 pts; Letter, 24 pts; Irrelevance, 39 pts; .
Bonuses: None.