The Phillies made a small change to their logo, but the Cowboys-looking result led to confusion and complaints on opening day

Matt Rourke/AP

The Philadelphia Phillies made some small changes to their logo that normally would have gone largely unnoticed.
However, the changes caused the stars in the logo to look a lot like the star of the Dallas Cowboys, the most hated team in Philadelphia.
Fans on opening day were confused when the team started using the stars out of context.

The Philadelphia Phillies made some subtle changes this season to their logo that left some wondering why a Philly team was suddenly aligning with the hated Dallas Cowboys.

First, the changes.

Here is the old Phillies logo on the left, which was introduced in 1992, and the new logo, via Chris Creamer’s SportsLogos.net site. The big changes are the removal of the baseball field background and the change of the bell color from white to blue.

Chris Creamer’s SportsLogos.net

The color change is the important part. The result is the stars dotting the Is in "Phillies" now look a lot like the Dallas Cowboys star.

Chris Creamer’s SportsLogos.net

There is nothing Philadelphia fans hate more than the Cowboys, except maybe Santa (I kid, Eagles fans! Yes, it was 50 years ago. No, we’re not going to let it go.)

To make matters worse, they even appeared to reshape the stars in the new logo, making them more symmetrical, like the Cowboys’ star.

None of this might have mattered if not for how the Phillies unleashed their logo change on opening day.

In between batters, the Phillies used the star as a transition on the giant video board. Many wondered why the team was using the Cowboys star, without realizing the connection to their own team’s logo (via Reddit).

The white outline of the star, especially when used against the blue background, is what gives the star a Cowboys-like feel.

Interestingly, the outline has always been there. But in the previous seasons, the stars were most often positioned with a white background, whether it was on the logo, or in other places, such as the jerseys or batter’s circle. In these contexts — and with the less symmetrical shape — they just looked like run-of-the-mill blue stars.

Getty Images

This all seems like something that was a simple exercise that ended up with some unintended consequences. Or maybe the person who redesigned the logo was a Cowboys fan in sheep’s clothing.

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