Royals’ new Class A affiliate in the Quad Cities has unique stadium and team logo
Royals fans will have a much easier road trip if they want to see the team’s Class A-advanced team in the 2021 season.
On Wednesday, the Royals announced they offered invitations to four minor-league affiliates, and the Class A-Advanced team will be the Quad Cities, which is located in Davenport, Iowa, instead of Wilmington, Delaware.
Here are a few things to know about the Quad Cities team.
Nickname
Minor-league baseball teams are known for having unique names, and Quad Cities has one of the better ones: the River Bandits.
SportsLogos.Net talked with Dave Heller, one of the River Bandits owners, who said the name was chosen in a contest after the 2007. It was the team’s name from 1992-2003.
“With six finalists of names suggested, the River Bandits name took something like 82 percent of the vote,” Heller told SportsLogos.Net. “In a six-way race, that’s a pretty significant landslide, so we rechristened the team the River Bandits.”
Logo
A masked raccoon is featured prominently in the logo, which is one of the coolest in baseball:
“We wanted something that could be both friendly and fierce at the same time,” Heller told SportsLogos.Net. “And we thought a raccoon with basically a mask around its eyes already, was the ideal way to depict a bandit that could be both friendly and fierce.”
The Stadium
A few years ago, Modern Woodmen Park was voted by USA Today readers as the best in minor-league baseball.
The Mississippi River flows beyond the right-field fence, and the Centennial Bridge is a prominent feature.
Ballpark Digest said the park opened in 1931 as Davenport Municipal Stadium and has been known as John O’Donnell Stadium. It is the oldest stadium used continuously by a current minor-league baseball team for more than 50 years.
QC Drone shot video of Modern Woodmen Park at night:
The Beer Baseball Blog shared this more detailed look at the park:
This story was originally published December 9, 2020 at 12:28 PM.
