Alan Siegel comments in The Man Behind the MLB Logo
The Wall Street Journal: The Man Behind the MLB Logo
Every night when Jerry Dior sits down to watch the baseball playoffs in his Edison, N.J., home, the television reflects his life’s most enduring handiwork.
Forty years ago, Mr. Dior worked as a graphic designer at Sandgren & Murtha, a New York City-based marketing company. In 1968, Major League Baseball commissioned the agency to design an original logo. The mark was to serve two purposes: to signify that MLB was placing league-wide merchandizing rights under the auspices of a new umbrella company, and to commemorate the national pastime’s upcoming centennial.
" Baseball was going through a bad period," says Tom Villante, an advertising executive who helped choose the logo. " The NFL was gaining rapidly, and baseball was viewed as my grandfather’s sport. We needed something to give the sport a boost."