This past Saturday, the Madison Mallards invited the public back to the Duck Pond for “Take Me Back to the Ballgame,” where they unveiled their new logo and merchandise. The rebranding celebrates the connection the Mallards have with their Madison community.
The new logo pictures the Mallards’ mascot, Maynard G. Mallard, up to bat at a swiss-cheese-style home plate with his left wing pointing toward the north side of Madison. Maynard is also standing astride the isthmus, one foot in Lake Mendota and the other in Monona.
The logo uses a vintage color scheme and design that recalls classic bird-based major league logos.
Vern Stenman, the President of the Madison Mallards, noted in an interview with Madison365 that the team has taken a hard look at the question: “What can we do to make the logo connect more with the city?”
“[We wanted to] be reflective of the community that we live in and we’ve always done that in practice with things that we’ve done with community organizations or even promotional nights or whatever it might be, but somehow we kind of missed that mark to some degree with our branding,” Stenman said. “So what better time than now to kind of roll out this vintage-feeling fun duck that had a really interesting story to tell about its connection with the city.”
The event began with the presentation of the new logo on the stadium video board followed by the new mascot character ziplining from the Duck Blind suite seats across the field to home plate.
Following the unveiling, attendees were invited to check out the new team store containing updated attire as well as a variety of Madison Mallards themed products designed by local artists including Beer Caddies; baseball bat muddlers handcrafted from authentic Wrigley Field stadium seats; hand-made spoons from Sylva Spoon; painted postcards from Expressively You; mugs from MadebyDirtbag; hand-carved mini wooden baseball bats from Dingbats Brand; decorative baseballs from Tossed and Found Art, cheese home plate-shaped soap from The Soap Opera; and candles from Fandlemonium.
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway also spoke at the event, thanking her constituency for getting the COVID-19 vaccine and encouraging those who haven’t to do so as soon as possible.
“I am so pleased that we can be here tonight outside together safely and I want to say a huge thank you to all of you because you are the reason that we are able to be here…because Madison is doing such a good job of getting vaccinated,” she said.
Earlier in the day, the Mallards awarded 5,900 little league hats to various little league teams around the city, each of which had the Mallards name written on the side and their respective little league team logos on the front.
Ticketing information regarding the Madison Mallards 2021 season can be found here.
