Both the name and the logo of the Minor League Baseball franchise the Lakeland Flying Tigers were inspired by American pilots who trained at the field where the baseball team currently plays.
In the spring of 1941, the US sent a group of pilots to fight against the Nazis together with the Chinese military. The group, which was nicknamed the Flying Tigers, even received a logo from Roy Williams from the Walt Disney Company.
These and other pilots that took part in World War II had trained at the Lakeland School of Aeronautics, which used an airport called Lodwick Field located near Lakeland, Florida. In 1953, the Detroit Tigers bought the Lodwick Field and turned it into their spring training complex, Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium.
The logo of the Lakeland Flying Tigers baseball club is composed of two parts: a very memorable emblem with a stylized depiction of a tiger’s head enclosed into a frame with two smooth gold-and-white wings in a thick blue outline, and a sleek title case lettering in solid blue, written in a designer cursive with slightly narrowed characters and sharp cuts of the bars. The elegance of the inscription balances the aggressiveness and power of the graphical emblem, creating a very strong and bright badge.
Today, Lakeland Flying Tigers play their home games here. The Lakeland Flying Tigers logo reflects the connection to the local school of Aeronautics in its color palette and shape.