On Monday, the Boston Red Sox Triple-A affiliate introduced the new team name for the Pawtucket Red Sox (a.k.a PawSox) as they move to Worcester. The new name doesn’t change much with the move as the new name will be the ‘Worchester Red Sox’ in 2021. While that will be the official name, the team plans to use the name “WooSox” more often. The “WooSox” name comes from the pronunciation of Worcester (“Wu-ster”).
“When we made it official, papers from Boston to Springfield proclaimed the team the WooSox,” said team president Dr. Charles Steinberg, who previously served as executive vice president of the Boston Red Sox. “We didn’t want to be presumptuous and say that was what the name ought to be. First and foremost, we are the Red Sox. It’s the name of the Pawtucket team and therefore will be the name of the Worcester team. So there’s been no name change, really. The nickname is what you’re changing, because if you say in Worcester that you’re going to a Red Sox game tonight, people would ask ‘At Fenway or at Polar Park?’ In Pawtucket they are the PawSox. We’re the WooSox.”
But choosing WooSox wasn’t necessarily an easy choice. According to Steinberg, 218 different names were submitted by over 1,000 fans. Some suggested names came from the city’s history, like Rocket Sox (Worcester is home of the liquid-fueled rocket inventor) or Wicked Worms (a play on the city’s nickname “Worm Town”). Other names were more related to the Boston Red Sox like Ruby Legs or Green Bananas (an unripened fruit, not quite ready for the big league team).
Also introduced was the team’s new logos which feature a yellow smiley face theme. The theme comes from Worcester being the place the iconic art was created. Another feature of the logos is a heart within the “W” which references Worcester being the “heart of the commonwealth”.
Once the team name was decided, the design team, Brandiose, had to come up with a way to represent the name. Jason Klein, of Brandoise, said they took two weeks debating what the name represents. Was it just about Worcester, was it Woo sound (like an owl), or was it someone wooing someone?
The smiley face theme was then brought into the discussion. The smiley face was first drawn by advertising executive, Harvey Ball, in 1963. They put the smiley face in red socks and gave it a bat with a heart-shaped W on it. The last thing they did was the pose of the smiley face. They decided to use Red Sox legend Ted Williams’ batting stance as the pose.
