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Hogs? Toast. Stay tuned
Baseball team's new name, logo coming Dec. 4
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Published: November 25, 2008
The new team name, logo and uniforms for the former Winston-Salem Warthogs will be revealed next week, a spokesman for the baseball team said yesterday.
The spokesman, Kevin Mortesen, would not hint at what the new name might be.
Mortesen said that the name will be announced at what the team is calling "Baseball New Year," which is set for 11:30 a.m. Dec. 4 at the Millennium Center, 101 W. Fifth St.
The new name will be introduced at 12:15 p.m., Kevin Terry, the president of Mandalay Baseball Properties said, in an e-mail. Mandalay is the management company for the team.
Mortesen said that the team wants to make the announcement a community celebration -- the team is offering free food and contests similar to those the team will hold during its home games. The ceremony is open to the public.
In June, the team said it had culled a list of 3,000 names suggested by the public down to five: Aviators, The Dash, Racers, Rhinos or Wallbangers. The team had previously said it would not be bound by any of the public's suggestions based on popularity.
"The main focus of Baseball New Year is we will be announcing the new name of the team and unveiling the uniforms, the hats, all the logos, the colors -- all of that stuff," he said. "And to make it fun for everybody and make it the celebration that it is, we thought we'd make it like a New Year's party."
Mortesen said he couldn't comment on ownership negotiations that have slowed construction on the team's new $22.6 million ballpark at Peters Creek Parkway and First Street downtown.
"We have an ownership issue that is being worked out, which is in the final stages of being worked out," he said. "Everything is moving forward in our opinion and from our standpoint."
Construction has continued on the park, but has slowed.
Mayor Allen Joines has said that the team's co-owners, Billy Prim and Andrew "Flip" Filipowski, were negotiating a buyout. Filipowski has said he did not understand what Joines meant but has declined to go into any detail about his ownership of the team, and whether it might be changing or how.
Prim has referred phone calls to Mortesen. Mortesen said the team believes that construction on the stadium will be finished in time for the April start of the 2009 season.
"Everything's going to be done," he said. "It's just a matter of getting it done."
■ Laura Graff can be reached at 727-7279 or at lgraff@wsjournal.com.
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