Kinston, North Carolina, won’t miss a beat when it comes to professional baseball in 2025. The town lost its Single-A team, the Down East Wood Ducks, at the end of the 2024 season, when that franchise headed south to become the Hub City Spartanburgers. Before residents could miss having a baseball team, the independent Frontier League announced that it was expanding to include the Down East Bird Dawgs.
The new franchise’s logo features a detailed illustration of a muscular, anthropomorphic hunting dog with human arms and hands holding a baseball bat. An alternate logo has the dog holding a dead wood duck in its mouth, a pointed message to the town’s recently departed club.
The Bird Dawgs will take to the field in May 2025.