Born in 1988, the Boston Men's Baseball League (BMBL) has grown to become the largest amateur baseball league in New England.

In 2022, the league will showcase 41 teams competing across four divisions. The league's footprint has outgrown its cleats.

Over three decades, the BMBL has expanded beyond Boston to metropolitan areas north, south, and west of the city. The league has welcomed ballplayers of all genders, not just men. It was time for the league name to reflect this growth and be more inclusive.

Heading into the 2022 season, the BMBL was renamed to the "Boston Metro Baseball League" in order to better represent the larger geographic region of play and multi-gendered competition.

Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend

Women have graced the baseball diamonds of the BMBL for at least two decades. Any athlete with the ability to play competitively has suited up, and therefore the word "Men's" within the league name has become inaccurate. While the majority of league members are in fact men, this is not exclusively the case, and hasn't been for ages.

In 1997, Janet Miller joined the BMBL with the Newton Red Sox. She continued to play in the league through 2017, accumulating more than 200 games played.

In 2002, the Boston Blue Sox joined the Age 30+ Norman Division. The squad was led by Donna Mills, a member of the United States Women's National Baseball team. Donna was the starting infielder at the 2004, 2006, and 2008 Women's World Cup of Baseball.

Recognized with MVP honors at the 2006 World Cup, she donated her batting gloves to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, where they are currently on display in the "Diamonds and Dreams" exhibit. A total of 17 women were rostered on the Blue Sox squad that defeated entirely male teams four times over the course of a 25-game season.

From 2012 to 2013, Lilly Jacobson played for the Boston Senators and Boston Cutters.

In 2015, another member of the U.S. Women's National team signed with a BMBL squad. Marti Sementelli joined the 28+ Newton Red Sox and quickly made an impact. In her rookie season, Marti compiled a 3-0 record and led the league with a 0.91 ERA, allowing just 15 hits in 23 innings. She continues to play with Team USA in 2022.

Also in 2015, Haley Chandler joined the 18+ South Shore Grays, racking up a hit and a run scored in her first game with the squad. By 2017, Haley was a member of the United States Women's National Team Development Program (NTDP). She remains an active player on the 18+ South Shore Giants heading into the 2022 season.

Go West, Young Man

Since the beginning of league play, the BMBL has always played in the city of Boston and its surrounding suburbs — north, south, and west of Boston.

In 2015, the MetroWest Adult Baseball League joined the BMBL to form the 28+ MetroWest Division. The division played and continues to play its games along and beyond the Route 495 belt in towns such as Framingham, Marlborough, and Worcester.

The BMBL understands that it will need to continue expanding even further beyond Boston in order for the league to continue to grow.

Now that the MetroWest is where the west was won, it is time to consider expanding to the north and south of the city. To support this growth, the word "Men's" has been replaced with "Metro."

Chris Currie is the Commissioner of the MetroWest division, and prior to the league name change, he felt that his division was an outlier based on the previous league naming. He was all in favor of a name change to incorporate metro areas beyond Boston.

"The name adjustment will clearly make everyone feel more included and connected within the organization state-wide. I hope the league's outreach can include more leagues so that we can continue to grow and solidify the nation's largest amateur baseball organization", said Currie.

A New Logo is Now Batting

With a new league name comes a new logo for the Boston Metro Baseball League. In designing a new logo, the league strived to achieve three goals:

• Have "Boston Metro" stand out to reinforce the organizational shift.
• Include an image that reflects the Boston area, and one that can't just be replicated as a baseball logo in another city.
• Is true to the existing league colors, so a new league website design is not required.

Noman Saddal, a graphic designer from Pakistan, crafted the new BMBL logo while achieving these objectives.

For those interested in history, the logos of the BMBL have a storied past:

1988

In 1988, the Boston Baseball League was founded by Jon Diamond as the local affiliate of the Men's Adult Baseball League (MABL) and Men's Senior Baseball League (MSBL).

When the Boston MABL joined the Boston MSBL in 1993, Jon needed business cards, so his daughter designed the first logo for this purpose. In later years, this logo was featured on the Boston Baseball League letterhead and league stickers.

1996

On April 4, 1996, the league website, bostonbaseball.com, went live for the first time. The original file used to create the business cards could not be located, so webmaster Brett Rudy leveraged the initial logo to create the blue variation with the same city of Boston backdrop.

2003

At the end of the 2002 season, Jon Diamond resigned as league president. With Jon's departure, the league was legally obligated to change its name to something other than the Boston Baseball League (BBL) — and that's when the name Boston Men's Baseball League (BMBL) was born.

The league was also legally required to change the logo, so League Webmaster Brett Rudy gave his best shot at putting together a new logo in January of 2003, but quickly realized that he was not a graphic designer. The new design concept was never used.

Instead, Tom Deveau, a pitcher with the MABL Mariners who was a professional graphic designer, gave a new logo his best shot.

The requirements were that the new logo be unique to Boston, represent a new league (BMBL) to replace a previous league (BBL), and lastly, be true to baseball. Tom opted to leverage the Zakim Bridge in his design — the newest landmark for the city of Boston at the time, which opened in 2002.

Tom scoured the web for images of the bridge to leverage for his design. A print by local artist Keith Francis inspired his work. According to Keith, "the interpretation of the bridge poster is influenced by two French artists of the 1920s, A.M. Cassandre and Roger Cartier, and has a modern, stylish aspect to it."

By the end of January 2003, Tom had completed the league's new logo.

2005

Leading up to the 2005 season, artist Keith Francis contacted the Boston Men's Baseball League and claimed that the league logo was too similar to his work, and asked that the design be changed, so the league complied with his wishes.

Jon Banchick of the MABL 18+ White Sox, a designer who has been published in Beckett Monthly on multiple occasions, took a stab at a new logo.

His initial concepts were a deviation from the Zakim Bridge, instead opting to position the BMBL as a broader Massachusetts league, not just one for individuals living in Boston.

Ultimately, the league opted to go with a new logo similar to the initial bridge design. The belief was that the initial logo was strong and already had recognition within the baseball community. The league also felt that the new logo should appear as an update, and not an entire redesign.

So in January of 2005, after several iterations, a new logo was born yet again.

Never entirely pleased with the angle of the Zakim Bridge, former League President Steve Wolf felt the logo looked like a "Peace Sign", so in February of 2005, he took a stab at his own design.

Although his logo designs never made it on the league website, they were used on the league baseballs and league tee shirts for the 2005 season.

2010

In 2010, the league officially moved to its fifth logo, once again designed by former League President Steve Wolf. This version of the logo was used for the next twelve years throughout the 2021 season.

2022

For many years, current league webmaster Dan Field has been petitioning for a new logo. He felt the longstanding logo did not really fit well with the new website redesign.

Additionally, heading into the 2022 season, the league had opted to discontinue their affiliation with the MABL/MSBL national organization, and therefore the logo was going to require a redesign anyhow.

For those reasons, the 2022 season seemed like an ideal time for the league to come up with a new logo. And the rest is history.

So there you have it. Batting 6th is the sixth primary logo to be used in the 34-year history of the BMBL — now called the Boston Metro Baseball League.