Friday, November 1, 2013

Picking a New and Distinctive Emblem

When Donald L. Barnes and his associates purchased the American League Baseball Company in 1936, they decided among other things, to identify by a new and distinctive emblem, everything pertaining to the Browns.

A nationwide contest was held to select such an emblem, and a committee of local newspaper men acted as judges. More than 2000 persons from the United States, Canada and Mexico sent in ideas and drawings. These included everything from animal symbols and elf-and-brownie legends to a simple sketch of a baseball.
 

The winner was Miss Helen Seevers of St. Louis who submitted a design of an equestrian figure atop a “Browns” baseball, with a shield of stars and stripes as a background. Each of the eight stars on the shield represents a member of the American League. The stripes are emblematic of the nine men on the field who make up a team in America’s greatest sport – Baseball.

The figure on horseback is St. Louis the Crusader, the illustrious King Louis IX of France. Clad in 13th century armor, he holds aloft his inverted sword forming the cross – the cause to which he devoted so much time, treasure and effort.

The equestrian statue from which the Browns emblem was developed had been presented to the city of St. Louis by the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company in 1906. From that time on, its design has been regarded as the official emblem of St. Louis.   v

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