The most popular Red Barons player of them all strode from behind the curtain, wearing a maroon hat that looked enough like the one he wore back in the early 1990s to make him long for the old days.
Greg Legg had his uniform number retired as a Red Baron, and when the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders officially launched into existence during a raucous announcement party at Genetti Manor in Dickson City, he was the first person to be seen wearing a RailRiders had.
He lobbed RailRiders shirts - complete with the "All Aboard" slogan on the back - to children in the crowd. He smiled. He laughed. He felt like a fan again.
"I love it," Mr. Legg said. "I love the name. I love the logo. It's our team. It's the peoples' team around here, and I think they're giving it back to us."
Amid the carnival atmosphere, where fire-breathers and balloon artists entertained children and adults stood in line for free food and beverages as music blared, the RailRiders became reality and Yankees became history.
Team President and General Manager Rob Crain made the announcement shortly after 6:15 p.m. in a packed Genetti Manor, where the fans who were lined up around the building just a half hour earlier filled the ballroom to hear the announcement and see the new team colors and uniforms modeled for the first time.
New York Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman, in a video address to the fans in attendance, said he had been pushing for a rebranding of the Triple-A affiliate here for several years. Mr. Cashman has theorized that using the same nickname at the Triple-A level as the one in the big leagues - especially one as associated with New York and the major leagues - was a drain on potential merchandise revenue in Triple-A.
With PNC Field undergoing a $43 million facelift in preparation for the 2013 season and an eagerness by the SWB Yankees ownership group to open the season with a fresh outlook on professional baseball in an area where fan support drastically dwindled from 2007 through 2011, this was seen as a perfect time to change the team's nickname.
"I think we picked the best name out of the whole group," Mr. Cashman said.
"I look forward to the top of the charts on merchandise sales, with people saying it loud and saying it proud. It's an awesome new stadium coming on line, a new uniform and rebranding it. And the association with the Yankees is as strong as ever."
Not everything related to the RailRiders focused on the future, though.
Mr. Crain, RailRiders president and general manager, said the new brand not only represents the future of minor league baseball in Northeast Pennsylania but also honors the area's rich baseball history.
He said the RailRiders name recalls the area's rail history, specifically pointing to the Laurel Line, which once connected Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, and the fact that Scranton had the first commercially successful and longest operating electric streetcar line in the United States.
The team unveiled five new hats - home, road, alternate, batting practice and a promotional hat - as well as home and road uniforms. The new team colors will be electric gold, rich maroon and Yankee navy, with the maroon a tribute to the old Red Barons uniforms and navy - along with pinstripes on the home uniforms - a nod to the parent New York Yankees.
"My dad always told me that you can't go forward unless you know the past," Mr. Crain said. "To rekindle the past in a new, modern way was very important to us. When we were rebranding the club, we wanted to make sure that we touched our roots."
The RailRiders won convincingly, Mr. Crain said, in the voting that came from the Name the Team contest. It distanced itself from the Blast, Black Diamond Bears, Porcupines, Trolley Frogs and Fireflies.
Although it didn't win after first-place votes were tallied, Porcupines appeared on the most number of ballots, Mr. Crain said.
So the RailRiders mascot will be a porcupine. On the alternate hat, a porcupine dressed as a conductor will be featured. On the batting practice hat, a porcupine will be displayed gliding down a set of train tracks. The porcupine conductor will be on the sleeves of both the home and road jerseys.
The road uniforms will be a noticeable tribute to the old Red Barons days.
The jerseys will be grey with rich maroon lettering, and the hat will be maroon with a modified SWB embroidered in electric gold.
"It was important to interact with the fans and give everybody the opportunity and the voice to have an opinion," Lackawanna County Commissioner Patrick O'Malley said. "We as the commissioners did not make that decision. Everybody had an opportunity to bring a name forward. I think everybody here is really thrilled with it.
"I think Lackawanna County had a rebirth today."
The logo was designed by Brandiose, a San Diego design company that produced top-selling minor-league logos for the Richmond Flying Squirrels, Lehigh Valley IronPigs and Omaha Storm Chasers, the franchise for which Mr. Crain worked as vice president before accepting the president's position with the RailRiders.
The development process for the logos and uniforms began in June, when Brandiose partners Jason Klein and Casey White met with fans, SWB staff and community members in Scranton.
"The birth of the trolley and the electric rail line is one of the great stories in American history," Mr. White said in a statement. "The RailRiders are the first professional sports team to honor the American porcupine, and we couldn't think of a grittier mascot to represent the region's fighting spirit."
Reaction to the announcement was, predictably, mixed.
In response to the announcement on The Times-Tribune's minor league baseball Twitter account, several local residents said they liked the name because it tipped its cap to the area's rail history.
"I ... love it," said one. "Spent my college days in the area. It's all about the Lackawanna Railroad!" Others, including most of the out-of-state respondents, panned the name as cartoonish and too focused on pleasing children.
"Almost as laughable as Scranton Council," wrote another.
Mr. Crain didn't much mind the back-and-forth from the critics.
With the ballroom packed and applause filling the room when the announcement was made, he counted the landmark event for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre baseball a rousing success.
"You can ask my staff. I said, 'I just hope there's a lot of people there,'" Mr. Crain said. "To have a line wrapped around Genetti's, and traffic all the way up Main Avenue, the community support was great. It really did just blow my mind. Spectacular."
Contact the writer: dcollins@timesshamrock.com