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 somehow not be able 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 an arrowhead logo with the letters RR written inside it. The park service says that’s just too close to its iconic arrowhead logo. It’s particularly troubling, the service said, since the team is near Glacier National Park, which is 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, the park service’s boss, over why her people picked the fight.
“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 himself served as secretary, told The Washington Times that the lawyer who is 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 also nonplussed 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 Times has reached out to the National Park Service’s public affairs office and the agency’s lawyer on the case.
The team says the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has approved the arrowhead logo, which has been slapped on merchandise ranging from ball caps and jackets to water bottles and ice chests.
The Range Riders are part of the Pioneer League, which is affiliated with Major League Baseball though its clubs are not tied to specific teams. The club picked its name and branding as an homage to the nearby park, which is a unifying feature in an area with some deep local rivalries.
Though the team plays in Kalispell, it also 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 original park managers before there was a National Park Service.
In a letter to the team last year, a park service lawyer 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 websites4 that the Company owns, controls, or is affiliated with,” the lawyer wrote.
The park service says it first came up with an arrowhead logo in the 1950s and it has two trademarks that are 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 all inside.
The park service says that 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 it feared the public might confuse the men on the ice with its men in the air, a parachute exhibition team that’s also known as the Golden Knights.
The two sides reached a coexistence agreement, agreeing that each could use the moniker.
Mr. Zinke, in the hearing with Ms. Haaland on Wednesday, said 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.