A lower-level minor league baseball team says the National Park Service is trying to bully it into giving up its arrowhead logo, complaining that people might be unable to tell the difference between the federal agency and a baseball club.
Playing the role of David is the Glacier Range Riders, based in Kalispell, Montana. That leaves the park service in the role of Goliath, throwing the weight of the federal government behind its effort to bury the team under a mountain of paperwork and legal bills.
The battleground is a logo with the letters RR inside an arrowhead. The park service says the image is too close to its iconic arrowhead logo. It’s particularly troubling, the service said, with the team near Glacier National Park, regularly ranked among the country’s top parks.
“Someone in our government is deciding to use their time and authority for this, not for the good of the people,” said Chris Kelly, the baseball club’s president. “Instead, they’re targeting a business that tries to give 14-year-olds a summer job and families a summer memory.”
The fight made it into the halls of Congress on Wednesday as Rep. Ryan Zinke, Montana Republican, challenged Interior Secretary Deb Haaland over the case.
“I’m not aware of anything with the Range Riders,” she told the congressman.
She later added: “I am not allowed to comment on ongoing litigation.”
Mr. Zinke, who has served as interior secretary, told The Washington Times that the lawyer pursuing the case ought to be fired for wasting taxpayers’ money on a “frivolous” case.
“The Interior Department suing a family-owned minor league baseball team is the worst case of federal overreach and predatory litigation by the government I have ever seen,” Mr. Zinke told The Times. “This is why people outside the Beltway don’t trust the bureaucrats inside the Beltway.”
He was nonplused that Ms. Haaland was unaware.
“The secretary either has no idea what’s going on in her own department or is allowing the abuse to happen. Either way, not good,” he said.
The National Park Service’s public affairs office and the agency’s attorney on the case did not respond to requests for comment.
The team says the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has approved the arrowhead logo, which is on merchandise such as ball caps, jackets, water bottles and ice chests.
The Range Riders are part of the Pioneer League, which is affiliated with Major League Baseball. The league’s clubs are not tied to specific teams. The club picked its name and branding as an homage to the history of the nearby park, a unifying feature in an area with deep local rivalries.
Though the team plays in Kalispell, it counts on fans from other communities in the Flathead Valley, such as Whitefish, and the national park is something everyone in the region can admire. Range Riders were the park managers before the National Park Service was established.
In a letter to the team last year, a park service attorney accused the club of “false association” with the agency. The lawyer said the agency felt the company “purposely intended [to] trade on the goodwill that the NPS has built and sustained in the local community surrounding Glacier National Park and the nation at large.”
“To resolve this matter, the NPS requests that the Company immediately expressly abandon the Application and remove and discontinue any and all use of the Mark and the Design on all websites that the Company owns, controls or is affiliated with,” the attorney wrote.
The park service says it created an arrowhead logo in the 1950s and has two trademarks endangered by the baseball team. One is a white silhouette of an arrowhead next to the words National Park Service. The other is an arrowhead outline with images of a bison, a sequoia tree and a mountain range with the agency’s name inside.
The park service says the logo is used for maps, athletic apparel and advertising for park sites.
The battle mirrors a 2018 fight over the Vegas Golden Knights, a pro hockey team. The U.S. Army complained that the team’s name might raise confusion about men on the ice and its men in the air, a parachute exhibition team known as the Golden Knights.
The two sides reached a coexistence agreement, allowing each to use the moniker.
Mr. Zinke told Ms. Haaland on Wednesday that the Range Riders have spent $500,000 to fight the park service. He warned the secretary that her budget may suffer.
“When you ask me for more money and yet you prioritize this, I’m going to question it,” he said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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