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
