Padres AA team name revealed

Hot off the offseason headlines is the long-awaited announcement of the team name for the Padres’ AA affiliate now located in Amarillo, Texas.

You might recall the former AA affiliate San Antonio Missions announcing a move up to AAA a little while back. With the promotion the Missions took on a new MLB affiliation and the Padres paired up with the new franchise in Amarillo.

What will the Padres AA team be called? Wonder no more.

Amarillo Sod Poodles - @sodpoodles

The voters have spoken: the new Amarillo baseball team will be called the Amarillo Sod Poodles.

What is a sod poodle, exactly? A sod poodle was is cowboy/pioneer parlance for a prairie dog. The moniker was bestowed upon the diminutive rodent for its ferocity in guarding its home, most commonly a den dug into the earth.

The logos designed by Brandiose of San Diego are as TEEXAAAS as they are...sod poodle. The collector in me is thankful for the lack of black, which in design is an easy out (looking at you, Miami Marlins), though I can’t help but notice the preponderance of colors in the logos. Take a closer look and you got two shades of blue, red, white, and the prairie dog tan. How will the colors mix into the headwear and uniform look? Why no Swinging Friar nod featured in past and present Padres affiliate logos?

The jury might still be out on the overall name and look and this hat collector will wait until the hats drop to levy judgement (I do think the lack of a “swinging” logo is a miss). What do you think of the name and logo set? Too kitschy? Good minor league fun? Still trying to figure out what a sod poodle is?

UPDATE:

Let’s take a look at the hats recently released on the Sod Poodles shop:

Grid View

It appears that blue will be the primary hat color of the Sod Poodles with one red hat making an appearance. Most of the logos in the reveal made their way onto the hats.

There is one logo design that didn’t occur to me until Pog Lankford mentioned it on Twitter:

...now I can’t unsee it.