The Sacramento River Cats are a Pacific Coast League (PCL) team, and are the Triple-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. They are also sharing their ballpark for this season (and the next two as well) with the Athletics, who are taking up temporary residence in Sacramento until their new ballpark in Las Vegas is ready.
And for five games this season, the River Cats will become the “Gold Diggers.”
[This idea lasted for one day, but we’ll leave the original coverage here.]
According to the team, the new caps and jerseys are “Inspired by the regional history of the California Gold Rush,” and “this new identity offers a connection to the significant impact of this era when Sacramento grew as the closest major city to the gold fields. In classic Minor League Baseball fashion, the naming of this brand and the logo suite brings playful and cheeky elements to this identity.”
Unfortunately, the name also carries a double entendre, and the team made no effort to hide that fact in a rather cringe-inducing video — at least the first half. The second part of the video gives us some views of a name/numberless jersey (obviously those won’t be worn on the field) as well as a new cap.
A new era is unearthed. Introducing the Sacramento Gold Diggers.
Music Produced by DJ Epik & Marques Murray. pic.twitter.com/dZPPteZEqL
— Sacramento River Cats (@RiverCats) April 10, 2025
The new cap has a black crown with a gold bill. The logo approximates a dollar sign by combining an “S” (for Sacramento) with a pickaxe whose handle is a baseball bat.
The jersey is also black, with gold pinstripes. On the front of the jersey is a SACRAMENTO over GOLD DIGGERS in white with thin black and gold outlines, and the workmark/crest is accompanied by some hypocycloid design elements. A small front number in white (also with black and gold outlining) sits on the left side of the jersey below the wordmark. Each sleeve has a logo.
Per the team, “The primary logo features Dugg, a miner with a gold tooth and sly wink that leans into the opportunistic element of this brand concept, while the color base pays homage to the Gold Rush history and the romanticized goal of striking it rich. As a reference to the high-class suiting trend for the professional and wealthy popularized in the late 19th century, the new uniform is highlighted by gold pinstripes on an all-black jersey.”
They don’t mention the second logo (which is that of the Tower Bridge, which also happens to be similar to the A’s sleeve patch).
To further explain the cap, the team notes “The on-field cap artwork plays on the dollar sign, with the “S” also representing Sacramento. The logo subtly incorporates a pickaxe with a handle made of a baseball bat. It was not uncommon for prosperous mining communities to field small-town baseball teams to compete against other gold mining towns, as baseball was the pastime sport of choice.”
The pants will be white (and are not created specially just for the five games the team will wear the alternate caps and jerseys). Here’s a look at the full uniform.
Interestingly, for a uniform with a relatively short shelf life, the River Cats have done quite a bit of storytelling.
Word salads (and cringey double entendres) aside, I rather like the jersey. For some reason I am a sucker for black/dark pinstriped uniforms (though I could do without the stealth script), and I’ve yet to see one that I haven’t liked a lot. But the reason I liked those were because they were full uniforms. I’m not so sure I’ll get the same feeling for these, since they’ll be paired with the team’s home white pants.
I dig the logos (“patches”) as well, and I think the team might have been better served by using either one as their cap logo (as those alternates have).
The Sacramento “Gold Diggers” alternate identity will debut on Saturday, April 19, followed by four additional games throughout the season including May 15, June 26, July 26, and September 4.
Your thoughts?
It reminds me a lot of the Vanderbilt unis worn in the College World Series, which were some of my favorite in the tournament that year.(link)
Yep! I even referenced them in this article.
Glad to see they’ve finally trashed the old “Athletics” name now that they are officially a minor league team!
The wordmark on the jersey looks tiny and like some sort of child’s replica. A shame because otherwise this is good and fun.
Yeah don’t get your hopes up for quality jerseys in the minors anymore. They do so many rebrands and alt identities and special unis and alternate unis, most of them are entirely sublimated onto that crummy shiny fabric without much thought going into how it looks in the end.
MiLB jerseys look so cheap, especially when they go with sublimated graphics and shiny fabric. Are proper patches that much more expensive? I can understand the budget restraints in the lower minors and Independent leagues, but this is a triple A team.
I think I’ll go out and yell at some clouds now.
Forget the double entendres, am I the only one seeing this as a huge dig (heh) on the A’s? Vegas gold, stars, going where the money is…
I dated one of those once.
Sweet uni though
This is better than RiverCat – at least it makes sense.
And I say lean all the way into the double entendre nature of the name and make sure people are there by inviting the Real Housewives of Sacramento to throw out the first pitch.
The quality of the fabric looks awful.
If the A’s wanted to do a joint Vegas-Sacremento City Connect, they could just repurpose these.
And the RiverCats have already ditched the gold digger identity. Only took one day.
I think this would work as a rebrand for Sacramento. River Cats is just too generic. If they would fix the word mark on the jersey and use a better quality fabric they’d look so much better. They could even have an alt gold jersey!
I want a gold digger jersey…. Where can I get one?