We’re in the home stretch of the Salem Red Sox 2025 season. When they suit up next year, they’ll have a new team name. That name will not impact their affiliation with the Boston Red Sox, but the front office says it wants a moniker that better identifies with the region.
Salem’s front office said they want to build a new brand that captures the personality of the region.
A similar thing happened when the Mobile Bay Bears dropped that name upon their move to Madison, Alabama - near Huntsville, seven years ago.
A radio contest produced the new one, with eighty-five percent behind it. The Rocket City Trash Pandas, referencing the nearby NASA facility and some clever raccoons in that region.
Ricky Fernandez, who does marketing for the team, says the name has never stopped growing in popularity.
“I’ll see people in front of the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal," he explained. "When they go on trips, they wear their Trash Panda gear. We were the first minor league team ever that required international shipping for our merchandise.”
Since the 2020 minor league season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the team actually had its moniker before the Trash Pandas ever played a game.
“As time goes on, (the name) grows on you,” Fernandez said. “Then you see the logos, then we’ve got the top two selling hats in baseball, it was just great momentum.”
When a couple in Roanoke heard about those plans, they suggested the team adopt the name of a threatened salamander, native to Appalachia, that can grow up to two feet long.
Ben and Julia Strong say their campaign got over 200 signatures, hoping the Red Sox change their name to the hellbenders, part of a recent study by Virginia Tech researchers.
The hellbender is what's known as an indicator species, or especially sensitive to environmental changes. In 2024, the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed making it a federally endangered species.
“Their habitat has been degraded a lot in the last number of years, particularly with Hurricane Helene, damaging a lot of their ecosystem," Ben said. "They’re pretty rare, so you have to be lucky to be able to find one.”
The ballclub says it’s already decided on a different name, to be unveiled in November, but Julia said the Red Sox are not opposed to a few games with a hellbender theme.
“And so we’re hopeful that with a campaign to get the Salem Red Sox to adopt hellbenders as their name on special nights, that can really celebrate the amazing, unique, biodiversity found only in Appalachia," she said.
The Strongs say the best places to spot a hellbender in Southwest Virginia include the Clinch River and Holston Watersheds. It's often called by nicknames like "Allegheny Alligator' and 'mud dogs."
The Salem Red Sox play their last regular season home game on Sunday.
