Hickory Goat Karts

S. Samek

Start your engines for the new alternate identity of the Hickory Crawdads, a Texas Rangers affiliate. For 2025 they are set to debut the Goat Karts as a new alternate nickname.

The name is pretty silly and on par with any other across Minor League baseball. Yet at first, I thought it had to do with similarly named Hartford Yard Goats. It’s not though as the logo has more red, green, black and yellow while the Yard Goats are more so blue and green.

Though the logo actually looks a bit like the goat is riding a lawnmower and not a go cart. Which I find to be funny. Yet it relates to a wagon, made by Hickory’s Piedmont Wagon company. The company had two models of wagon, the smaller of which was pulled by goats as more of a children’s toy. The bigger model of wagon was horse drawn.

It’s a cool tie in and a unique name even for all the similarities to the Yard Goats. I would give this name a solid B ranking. I think it’s about as good as their last alternate identity the Dickory Docks from 2023.

I can’t wait to see what other alternate identities MILB teams will announce this offseason.