Toronto Blue Jays Logos

What's the story of the Toronto Blue Jays name and logos?

After narrowly missing out on the San Francisco Giants relocating from California to Toronto for the 1976 season, the American League announced plans to expand to Toronto along with Seattle in March of 1976. Surviving opposition from U.S. President Gerald Ford and MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, the city of Toronto got set to finally welcome Major League Baseball for the 1977 American League season.

The Toronto Blue Jays got their name after holding a name-the-team contest during the Summer of 1976. Out of 4000 suggestions "Blue Jays" was chosen likely due to the connection with owner Labatt's Breweries "Labatt's Blue" brand of beer. Fans despised the new name right out of the gate, local politican Paul Godfrey even claimed the fans would never accept the name and would just refer to the club as the "Toronto Blues". The original logo was designed by Toronto-area graphic design company Savage Sloan, Ltd. and was unveiled to little-to-no fanfare in the Fall of '76. This core brand lasted unchanged until 1996 when a modernization was carried out by Major League Baseball for the 1997 season. The team switched to an alternate logo featuring a muscled bird around the letter 'T' as their primary brand for 2003 before undergoing a graphic overhaul in 2004. Designed by Toronto designers Brandid, the new logo removed any reference to the "Blue" from the team name, introducing black and graphite as the primary colours.

After eight years of fans vocally expressing a desire to bring back blue into the colour scheme the club finally relented, bringing back a modernized version of the original 1976 logo and the 1989 uniforms for the 2012 season.