Major League Baseball Tells Little Leaguers: We Own Uniform Rights

Southtown Star Reporting

TINLEY PARK-- The baseball uniforms for the Tinley Park Bulldogs look a little different this year.
Gone are the names of Major League Baseball teams that accompanied "Bulldogs" on the front of the kids' jerseys.

No White Sox.

No Cubs.

No Phillies, Yankees or Reds.

Why? MLB hurled a fastball at the heads of those who make the uniforms for the little ballplayers: Drop the big-league names or face a lawsuit.

For the Bulldogs, that means no more teams named after any pro franchise.

Because the Bulldogs' uniforms didn't feature official major league team logos, neither the league nor its uniform supplier, SportStation of Tinley Park, had paid a licensing fee for the uniforms.

Late last year, SportStation received a letter from MLB, noting that not only the logos but the team names were trademarked. The letter ordered the company to stop producing the uniforms.

"Does a league have a right to name a local team? Baseball is saying no. That's flying in the face of 100 years of tradition," said SportStation owner Dave Glenn, in business 35 years. "I go out of my way to make sure we use town names, so we make it clear this isn't a Major League jersey.

"Now we're told we can't even do that. What it boils down to is the interpretation of the trademark."

Sports are big business, and with billions of dollars at stake, organizations such as MLB go to great lengths to protect their trademarks.

Glenn said he'd never used baseball logos on team jerseys he sold, and ended three months of legal wrangling with MLB by signing an agreement stating he'd continue not to do so. In exchange, MLB promised not to sue over the previous use of franchise names.

At the same time, the many leagues Glenn serves had to adjust. It meant the Bulldogs couldn't use, for instance, the word "Phillies" on a Bulldogs jersey.

If they wanted to do so, they would have to buy jerseys from Majestic Athletic, the exclusive apparel licensee of MLB, which would have been more expensive. Those wouldn't say Bulldogs on them unless even more money was spent to imprint the word or the Bulldogs logo.

Some organizations have decided to abandon big-league names. Chicago Ridge's Little League organization went to college names. Bloomingdale went to generic colors.

"They're Bloomingdale Red and Bloomingdale Blue, and that's that," Glenn said. "That was their act of defiance."

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