After the Modesto Nuts played their final season in the California League in 2025, the Pioneer League stepped in and announced it would have a team in the former affiliate city. Yesterday, that club presented its name for the 2026 Pioneer League season. |
The Modesto Nuts have been the Seattle Mariners’ farm team for the past eight seasons. At the end of the 2024 season, the city of Modesto announced it would end its partnership with the Mariners, which demanded the city pay for the upgrades that MLB is shoving down MiLB clubs’ throats. Modesto tried to keep the team because it asked the Mariners to contribute to the cost of the ballpark upgrades, but the MLB club simply refused. As a result, Modesto ended the partnership because it could not afford to pay the $32 million needed to upgrade John Thurman Field.
Both sides agreed to keep the Nuts in Modesto for the 2025 season so that the M’s would have a home for their Single A farm team before it moved to San Bernadino in 2026 to fill the void that would be left by the Angels farm team that would move back to Rancho Cucamonga to fill the void that the Dodgers would leave after moving their farm team to a brand new ballpark in Ontario.
The Mariners’ refusal to support the city of Modesto erases seventy-nine years of history in one fell swoop. The club became part of the California League in 1946 and in all but one year, 1965, the club was part of that league until the end of the 2025 season. The first two seasons the club was an independent part of the league, but from 1948 the club was affiliated with various MLB clubs. Although not affiliated with the Cincinnati Reds, the Modesto club was called the Reds twice: from 1946 – 1961 and from 1966 – 1974). Only twice was the club named after a parent club: from 1962 to 1964 it was called the Colts, and from 1975 to 2004 it was called the Modesto A’s. In 2005 the club adopted the name Nuts.
With the “independent” Pioneer League stepping in, Modesto won’t be without professional baseball in 2026.
The owner of the new team is Main Street Baseball, which also owns the Billings Mustangs (also in the Pioneer League), the Quad Cities River Bandits and the Wilmington BlueRocks.
The Pioneer League is based in the northwest of the US, mainly in the states of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Colorado. The league also has a team in Northern California, and until now, Oakland has been the league’s southernmost team. But that will change with the addition of Modesto.
A few days ago, the Modesto ball club announced that JT Snow, former MLB player and Gold Glove winner, will become the team’s manager. Snow was bench coach for the Oakland Ballers after they replaced the Athletics when it moved to Sacramento.
But now to the new name and uniforms of the new team. Yesterday the club unveiled its new name at the American Graffiti museum in Modesto. The club initially considered adopting the name Glow Riders, but this was widely criticized. As a result, the club went in a different direction and decided to name the new club Modesto Roadsters.
The Roadsters’ logo and name, which pays tribute to the city of Modesto’s deep association with the 1973 film American Graffiti, seems to be more in line with what fans expected. Directed by Modesto native George Lucas, American Graffiti uses roadster cars and Modesto’s 1960s cruising culture as the framework for its story.
The new logo shows a kit fox with clothes and greased hair that you might have seen a high school student wearing in the 1960s while driving a roadster car. Interestingly, the car’s license plate reads ‘CRUISER’, another team name that fans would have preferred over Glow Riders.
The new identity also includes a stylized version of the Modesto Arch, which bears the city’s official motto: “Water, Wealth, Contentment, Health.”
“This new team will be an integral part of Stanislaus County and the Central Valley for decades to come, so it was very important that we get the name just right,” said Dave Heller, owner of Roadsters. “After the Glow Riders were announced, we listened and learned a lot about this community, its culture and its people. I was blown away by the passion and pride that the people here have for baseball, their team and their history. We owed it to them to hit a home run with the new primary identity, and with the Modesto Roadsters we hit a grand slam!”
The new name encompasses the neon and bright colors of America’s Graffiti dining culture, as well as the community’s history with – and love for – classic cars and classic music. It also contains the San Juaquin kit fox, an animal native to the region. The team’s primary colors are candy apple red, egg cream malt and neon dinner blue, in addition to orange and black.
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