Off Topic: The Story Behind the Samurais name, logo and uniforms

Yesterday I was watching my beloved Angels getting beaten (as usual) but something curious happened after one my favorite athletes, Mike Trout wore a Samurai helmet after hitting a home run.

This gave me memories from the time was designing the Samurais logos and uniforms





The Year was 2021, mid-2021 to be more specific, I was thinking about ideas for a new identity for my GSL that had recently moved to Portland, there was only two things that I had in mind: The team would have the Oregon Flag colors and they must have a unique and iconic helmet.

I had a lot of ideias for names and uniforms, but no one fitted my concept of an original helmet

Here is where the Angels became part of the Portland Samurais history, around the same time Shohei Ohtani was having the epic American League MVP season, suddenly I had an an idea and started to think "How about the ancient Japanese warriors, the Samurais? They used to wear a unique helmet with wings or something like that"

And the rest is history, I incorporated a few elements from the Samurais Helmets into the Portland helmet, such as the wings, I also decided to use the Samurai Kanji was a secondary logo and a soft touch on the jerseys and helmets

It was something special to me seeing the Angels using the Samurai helmet as a home run celebration, a funny coincidence! They usually wear a cowboy hat after home runs (tribute to the team founder Gene Autry)

Always love a good back story behind team designs. We don't really know much for backstories in the GSL, so maybe we need a thread for that, because 'd love to hear more, and I could probably give a good backstory for the original 6 teams in the 2020 demo GSL (for some teams, the history dates back to 2006).

Baseball side of things, being an Angels fan has to be tough. You've got two of the best players in the league (the two single best players from some accounts) and an owner who won't take that opportunity to at least spend enough to win a title. As an Orioles fan (by growing up in the Baltimore area), and Pirates fan (by my parents gowning up in the western PA area) I know the pain of rooting for teams without a frivolous billionaire owner. But that's baseball.

Rafael Menoncin wrote:Yesterday I was watching my beloved Angels getting beaten (as usual) but something curious happened after one my favorite athletes, Mike Trout wore a Samurai helmet after hitting a home run.

This gave me memories from the time was designing the Samurais logos and uniforms





The Year was 2021, mid-2021 to be more specific, I was thinking about ideas for a new identity for my GSL that had recently moved to Portland, there was only two things that I had in mind: The team would have the Oregon Flag colors and they must have a unique and iconic helmet.

I had a lot of ideias for names and uniforms, but no one fitted my concept of an original helmet

Here is where the Angels became part of the Portland Samurais history, around the same time Shohei Ohtani was having the epic American League MVP season, suddenly I had an an idea and started to think "How about the ancient Japanese warriors, the Samurais? They used to wear a unique helmet with wings or something like that"

And the rest is history, I incorporated a few elements from the Samurais Helmets into the Portland helmet, such as the wings, I also decided to use the Samurai Kanji was a secondary logo and a soft touch on the jerseys and helmets

It was something special to me seeing the Angels using the Samurai helmet as a home run celebration, a funny coincidence! They usually wear a cowboy hat after home runs (tribute to the team founder Gene Autry)

Like this backstory! I would love to share mine for the CityHawks that I just recently found out about, that's for another time though.

As a lifelong Rockies fan, the only good thing that has ever happened to them was Rocktober, but that was all the way back in 07' and even then they got swept in the world series by the Red Sox, everything about the Rockies needs a refresh, and I mean EVERYTHING.

Austin Snelick wrote:Always love a good back story behind team designs. We don't really know much for backstories in the GSL, so maybe we need a thread for that, because 'd love to hear more, and I could probably give a good backstory for the original 6 teams in the 2020 demo GSL (for some teams, the history dates back to 2006).

Baseball side of things, being an Angels fan has to be tough. You've got two of the best players in the league (the two single best players from some accounts) and an owner who won't take that opportunity to at least spend enough to win a title. As an Orioles fan (by growing up in the Baltimore area), and Pirates fan (by my parents gowning up in the western PA area) I know the pain of rooting for teams without a frivolous billionaire owner. But that's baseball.

Being a Halos fan is an emotional roller-coaster, I'm always trying to see the bright side of things. I consider seeing Trout and Ohtani wearing Angels jerseys a privilege. It's rare to see the greatest players in franchise history and I'm actually grateful to be an eyewitness of their careers

On the other hand, there is a lot of frustration about wasting their talent and golden years with a team that every year fails at building a deep roster (especially the bullpen). Hope this year the Halos can at least reach a wildcard spot. That will be crucial to keep Shohei with us

Anyways, loyalty is what separates real fans from bandwagons.