Goodbye Visalia Oaks; hello Visalia Rawhide, as the High Class A franchise announced its new name and look yesterday.
Goodbye Visalia Oaks; hello Visalia Rawhide, as the High Class A franchise announced its new name and look yesterday. The new look from Dan Simon ties the team more closely the dairy industry of Tulare County: Dairy Day has become a top annual event for the team, and the Rawhide offers the Land O’ Lakes Cowbell Section, a group of 30 seats that each includes a free cowbell with each ticket purchase. When the current Recreation Park renovation project is completed by the end of the calendar year, a large red barn will sit beyond the right-center field fence, serving both as a groundskeeper’s shed and a salute to the dairy industry.
“We wanted to create a whole new identity that the people of this city could rally around and be proud of,” said team owner Tom Seidler. “We really feel that this name gives us a greater range of themes and tie-ins with the local community,” he said. “It invokes the agriculture and dairy industries’ prominence in Tulare County, it’s fun and family-oriented, and it even comes with a ready-made theme song. Not to mention that ‘Rawhide’ has always been a slang word in baseball; both baseballs and baseball gloves are made of rawhide."