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The Athletics were far from the only baseball team in Sacramento, California, receiving criticism at the start of the season.
The minor league organization in town generated some heat last week.
The Sacramento River Cats were set to partake in a recent minor league baseball tradition – changing their team for a period of time to promote their alternate identity. For example, the Somerset Patriots played as the Jersey Diners, and the Lehigh Valley IronPigs are set to compete as the Lehigh Valley Tomato Pie, just to name a few.
The River Cats were set to play as the Sacramento Gold Diggers, seemingly a throwback to the California Gold Rush. The city of Sacramento was a haven for gold miners in the late 1840s and was turned into a thriving community and incorporated into California in 1850.
“Inspired by the regional history of the California Gold Rush, this new identity offers a connection to the significant impact of this era when Sacramento grew as the closest major city to the gold fields,” the team said in a news release Thursday, via The Sacramento Bee.
The team released a video showcasing the team name but also leaned into an old trope as it showed two women with dollar signs on their eyes when they saw a player.
The video, which has since been deleted from the team’s social media pages, caused some outrage and the organization reversed their decision on the name.
Sacramento Bee columnist Robin Epley ripped the rebranding as a “misogynistic joke on women.”
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“Our recent marketing campaign for an alternative identity clearly missed the mark,” the team said in a statement. “Our intention was to creatively reference the rich history of Sacramento and gold country, but our approach was wrong, and we are sorry for the mistake. We will no longer be using this identity.”
The River Cats are an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants.
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