The baseball franchise, known today as the Midland RockHounds was established in 1972 as Midland Cubs and renamed Midland Angels twelve years later. The current name and logo were adopted only in 1999 when the Midland RockHounds became an affiliate of the Oakland Athletics. Throughout its whole existence, the club has been the Double-A class member of the Texas League.
Meaning and history
Established in 1972 in Midland, Texas, the Midland Cubs team joined the Texas League in the same year, and won its first League championship already in 1975. However, the franchise had to wait for thirty years until they won it once again. Apart from the League and Division titles of 1975, under the Cubs name the club has only won two Second-half ones.
In 1985 the franchise got a new name — the Midland Angels, and changed their affiliation, yet stayed in the same league class. Now the Angles were a farm club of the Anaheim Angels, hence the new name. This partnership lasted until 1998.
The current name, as long as the new affiliation, with the Oakland Athletics, was gained in 1999 and is still active today. As the RockHounds the team started to win again, receiving five more League titles from 2005 to 2017.
In terms of visual identity, the franchise is quite stable. The logo of the minor league baseball franchise the Midland RockHounds features one of the team’s mascots, Rocky RockHound.
1999 – Today
Interestingly enough, the Midland RockHounds logo doesn’t contain any visual links to the parent team’s emblem. The dog seen on the logo is Rocky RockHound, which is one the club’s three mascots. The brown dog is holding a bat and a stylized white baseball with black seams. The word “RockHounds” in a custom sans-serif font can be seen on the forefront. The design is placed inside a blue ring.
Alternative emblems
One of the secondary logos sports Rocky RockHound between letters “R” and “H” against the dark blue background. On another version, Rocky is pictured behind a large “M” on the black background. The team’s wordmark looks exactly like the lettering on the primary logo, apart from the color scheme.
Colors
While the team’s official colors are blue, gold, and white, in fact, the Midland RockHounds logo also features two shades of brown, black, and a bluish shade of light grey.