Here's How Mickey Mantle Inspired New Team Name of Dodgers Affiliate in Oklahoma City

What do you get when you mix the thriving Oklahoma City community with an homage to the state’s baseball past?

The Oklahoma City Comets.

The 63-year-old minor league team in Oklahoma City is getting a rebrand this season. After being known as the Oklahoma City Dodgers from 2015-23, last season the organization used a placeholder – the generic “Baseball Club” – as it developed a new identity.

The Comets are the new name for the Oklahoma City team, which began play in 1962.

The organization unveiled the Comets name last October after a quest for a new name that lasted several years, team president and general manager Michael Byrnes told MLB.com at the time.

“The feedback we were receiving in focus groups, and when we worked with people in the community, they were coaching us on doing something that was very professional, that had a Major League feel to it,” he said. “There is sentiment, especially since the [NBA’s] Thunder got here, that Oklahoma City is a big league city.

“But we were also challenged to make it fun. There was a lot of history that we were picking up on as well.”

Part of that history encompasses the lore of National Baseball Hall of Fame member Mickey Mantle, who was raised in Commerce, Oklahoma, and was known as the “Commerce Comet.”

With that Mantle nickname, and Oklahoma’s growing presence in the aerospace industry, Comets proved a winner for the Pacific Coast League team.

And their logo design, while having a space-age feel to it, still plays tribute to the very traditional Dodgers, replicating the club’s blue theme.

The Comets are scheduled to open the 2025 season on March 28 against the Sugar Land Space Cowboys.