Salinas Spurs

The Salinas Spurs, based in Salinas, California, played in the California League from 1982 through 1987 and again from 1989 through 1992, the final professional baseball identity in a city that had hosted the league on and off since 1954. The Spurs spent their first two seasons with the Chicago Cubs and then four with the Seattle Mariners, and their most famous alumnus is Omar Vizquel, the future 11-time Gold Glove shortstop, who came through Salinas in the Mariners years.

The Spurs' second act was one of the strangest in minor league history. The 1989 club fielded seven Japanese players under a working agreement with Japanese professional baseball, and by 1992 half the roster was on loan from Japanese leagues, with the club at one point managed by Hidehiko Koga. Minor league lore also records that when new ownership took over the team in 1986, the franchise's physical assets amounted to two hot dog bun warmers, a broken popcorn machine, a malfunctioning hot chocolate warmer, and a stray cat.

When the Spurs left after 1992, the franchise moved to San Bernardino, and professional baseball has not returned to Salinas since.

Our design is adapted from original Spurs artwork from the team's own materials, featuring the spur-and-baseball S mark, a genuine piece of Salinas baseball graphics rather than a modern invention.