MLB to youth: You're out

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 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."

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 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.

"That impacts us," said Steve Bowles, president of the 700-player Bulldogs organization. "We can't have a (Major League) team name or logo on the uniform unless we buy it from Majestic. And when we did a cost comparison of what we had versus that, we can't do it for the same price."

Professional and college sports teams and leagues protect their trademarks vigorously because they're worth billions of dollars.

Illegal use of the trademarks has declined in recent years, said Howard Smith, MLB's senior vice president of licensing.

"We're sensitive to this matter. Some parents say, 'Baseball is screwing us,' but we've never, ever sent a cease and desist letter to a youth organization. We want our kids wearing our stuff."

Smith noted that MLB has a royalty-free jersey it sells through Majestic, calling it, "nothing fancy. It says Yankees, but no pinstripes." A Web search found Majestic-made MLB-logoed T-shirts starting at $13.99 at www.hitrunscore.com.

The Bulldogs board decided to put the names of Major League cities on its uniforms and buy an official cap to match. So a kid on the Royals wears a Kansas City Royals cap and his jersey says "Kansas City" next to "Bulldogs." That seems to have worked.

"I think everybody's happy we stuck with the traditional names," Bowles said. "It's always, 'Can Joey be on the Cubs? Or the White Sox?' You want the kids to have fun."

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