A mammoth of a logo

It’s likely that you have participated in a white elephant gift exchange during the Christmas season. I have, usually ending up with some cheap piece of garbage that I hold onto for 365 days, and then discard the next Christmas.

Though I have partaken in such festivities, I never really knew what the term “white elephant” meant. Actually, I don’t know if I ever gave it much thought. It’s just one of those sayings that someone came up with a long time ago and while the vernacular is still used, the meaning behind it has been lost.

I Googled the meaning and according to dictionary.com a white elephant is: “a possession that is useless or troublesome, especially one that is expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of.”

Philadelphia Athletics owner and manager Connie Mack had his own white elephant in 1902. At least that is what he was told. In his 1950 biography, “My 66 Years in the Big Leagues,” Mack recalled John McGraw jumping from the sinking Baltimore Orioles (which became the New York Highlanders, later the Yankees) to the New York Giants.

“When the sportswriters gathered around McGraw to fire a barrage of questions, one of the questions was, ‘What do you think of the Philadelphia A’s?’ ‘White elephants!’ quickly retorted Mr. McGraw. ‘Mr. B. F. Shibe (Athletics’ minority owner) has a white elephant on his hands.’

The white elephant became a rallying point for the Athletics, who won the American League championship that season (one year prior to the first World Series). In 1905 the Athletics faced the Giants in the World Series. New York won but Mack made sure McGraw remembered his remark and presented him with a white elephant statue prior to game one.

The Athletics and white elephant became synonymous from that point. Fans had a love/hate relationship with the pachyderm, which received credit for the team’s success and blame for its failures. The team made it an official symbol in 1909. After a decade-long slump, Mack had elephant patches sewn to the sleeves of his team’s uniforms in 1918. In 1920 an elephant appeared on the front of the Athletics’ jerseys and it remained there until 1928. The elephant reappeared as a sleeve patch in 1950 as the Athletics paid tribute to Mack’s 50-year managerial run.

The Athletics moved to Kansas City in 1954 and the elephant followed. The people of Kansas City were somewhat confused. The team’s nickname had morphed into the A’s over time, representative of their Philly uniforms which bore an Old English ‘A.’ Their new Kansas City uniforms featured “Athletics” on their jerseys with the elephant patch on the sleeves, leaving the hometown to wonder, “What are we?”

By 1959 local Democratic politicians were taking offense to the symbol of their opposition being sported by the local baseball club. It probably didn’t help that the A’s were terrible. Councilman Charles W. Fisher wanted the elephant replaced by a heart with Kansas City Slogan “Heart of America.” Councilman Charles Schaeffer suggested adding, “Farm Club of the New York Yankees.”

In 1961, new owner Charles O. Finley announced that he was retiring the elephant. Perhaps Finley was trying to appease the Democrats because in 1965 the elephant was replaced by a donkey (well a mule anyway). Two years earlier Finley changed the color scheme from blue and red to green and gold. In 1968 the team moved to Oakland but it took the elephant 20 years to travel to the coast. The Bash Brothers era saw a return of the elephant arm patch and it has remained there ever since. (Credit  toddradom.com for the Athletics elephant history).

So, after some thought I decided that this project needs a logo. I needed something extinct, just like the teams of which I’m paying tribute - maybe a dodo or a dinosaur. Then I got the idea for a mammoth.

There have been a couple of sports teams throughout history that have gone by the Mammoth(s) nickname. The most notable is probably Colorado’s National Lacrosse League team. Omaha had a Fall Experimental Football League team that went by the Mammoths (I’ll probably feature them some day). They lasted all of one season, as did their league. But both of those teams featured modern mascots and didn’t provide much inspiration for this project.

Perhaps pachyderms don’t scream athleticism, but they should get credit for their sheer size and power. The two most prominent elephants in sports belong to Alabama and the Oakland. Forgive my lack of originality, but obviously I was most inspired by the A’s emblem. And the story behind it was pretty good too.