The Major League Baseball logo was designed by

Jerry Dior Jerry Nicholas Dior (May 14, 1932 – May 10, 2015) was an American graphic designer, best known for creating the Major League Baseball logo. Early life Dior was born in Brooklyn, New York and attended Abraham Lincoln High School. He then earned a ...

in 1968 and was included on all on-field uniforms of

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

(MLB) employees beginning in the 1969 season.

Creation

According to Dior, the logo was created in a single afternoon. Contrary to popular belief, the silhouette was not modeled on Hall of Famer

Harmon Killebrew Harmon Clayton Killebrew Jr. (; June 29, 1936May 17, 2011), nicknamed "The Killer" and "Hammerin' Harmon", was an American professional baseball first baseman, third baseman, and left fielder. He was a prolific power hitter who spent most of hi ...

, or any specific player but was drawn with reference to photographs of several players. The silhouette was chosen specifically because of its ambiguity: the batter could be right- or left-handed and of any ethnic background. The MLB "Batter" logo was commissioned by the Major League Baseball Centennial Committee, and was introduced by the new Baseball Commissioner,

Bowie Kuhn Bowie Kent Kuhn (; October 28, 1926 – March 15, 2007) was an American lawyer and sports administrator who served as the fifth Commissioner of Major League Baseball from February 4, 1969, to September 30, 1984. He served as legal counsel for Ma ...

, to be used in preparations for, and celebration of, the 1869–1969 Professional Baseball Centennial Celebration held July 21, 1969, in Washington, DC.

Controversy

For many years, the authorship of the logo was a matter of some dispute as two graphic designers laid claim to creating the piece:

(working for the marketing firm of Sandgren & Murtha) and James Sherman, who is probably better known publicly as a comic book illustrator. In November 2008,

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

writer Paul Lukas managed to clear the matter up and Dior's authorship is no longer in doubt. Upon closely examining the logo, Sherman declared:

That's not my logo, and I was totally unaware that it existed... The logo I created was very similar, but I designed it in the early 1980s. All I can say is that I was so sports-unaware that I didn't know about the earlier logo. I feel like a total idiot now that I didn't know about it. I'm flabbergasted.

Popularity and influence

The logo has not been changed in the years since its adoption, except for small variations in the shades of blue and red, and that individual teams sometimes alter the coloring to match their uniform colors. Since its adoption, the basic model of an athlete (or equipment used for the sport) in

silhouette A silhouette ( , ) is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the silhou ...

flanked by red and blue color blocks has also been incorporated in the logos of the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

(with

Jerry West Jerome Alan West (born May 28, 1938) is an American basketball executive and former player. He played professionally for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). His nicknames included "Mr. Clutch", for his ability ...

as its player model), Minor League Baseball,

Women's National Basketball Association The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is an American professional basketball league. It is composed of twelve teams, all based in the United States. The league was founded on April 22, 1996, as the women's counterpart to the Natio ...

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

, U.S. Figure Skating, Hockey Canada,

American Hockey League The American Hockey League (AHL) is a professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental league for the National Hockey League (NHL). Since the 2010–11 season, every team in the le ...

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also ...

National Lacrosse League The National Lacrosse League (NLL) is a men's professional box lacrosse league in North America. The league is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The NLL currently has fifteen teams: ten in the United States and five in Canada. The N ...

Indy Racing League The IndyCar Series, currently known as the NTT IndyCar Series under sponsorship, is the highest class of regional North American open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars in the United States, which has been conducted under the auspices o ...

, and

Major League Gaming Major League Gaming Corp. (MLG) is a professional esports organization. MLG is headquartered in New York City, New York and was founded in 2002 by Sundance DiGiovanni and Mike Sepso. MLG has held official video game tournaments throughout the ...

. It has also been parodied in Major League Eating.

Alan Siegel Alan Siegel (born August 26, 1938) is the CEO of Siegelvision, a brand identity consultancy. He is the founder and chairman emeritus of the global brand strategy firm Siegel+Gale. Early life Alan Siegel was born to Eugene and Ruth Siegel in ...

, who oversaw Dior's logo, deliberately based his NBA logo design off the MLB's in 1969 because NBA Commissioner J. Walter Kennedy wanted a family relationship between the sports seen as being All-American. Tampa Bay Rays infielder Wander Franco has the MLB logo tattooed on his neck.

References

{{MLB Symbols introduced in 1969 Trademarks Silhouettes