- June 9, 2026
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Ever since 2014, West Orange’s Florida Collegiate Summer League baseball team, the Winter Garden Squeeze, has been known for its blue and orange colors — inspired by its original host school, West Orange High. The logo encompassed a baseball split down the middle and revealing an orange with the word “Squeeze” in the middle and topped with the iconic clock tower found in downtown Winter Garden’s Centennial Plaza.
Everything served as homage to the Squeeze’s home base.
But last season, the Squeeze’s home plate moved across town from West Orange to Horizon West, and the team of collegiate players dug their cleats into Horizon High’s infield mix.
Now as the team has kicked off its 13th year and second consecutive season at Horizon, it decided it was time for a refresh. Across the sporting landscape, including the professional leagues — NBA, NFL, MLB and even college teams — throwback jerseys or “City Connect” jerseys have become increasingly popular. Fans enjoy swag and a variety of merchandise they can purchase, and the Squeeze want to hone in on that, especially after seeing the success of its mash-up with Huey Magoo’s last season.
For the first time in the Squeeze’s history, the team has shed its traditional blue and orange and logo for a refresh to purple and orange, embracing the Hawks’ community and welcoming a new era.
“It was contrasting when you saw the blue and purple,” Squeeze General Manager Adam Bates said. “It just didn’t sit. (Purple) sits well in the dugout. It sits well on campus, it sits well in the community. … As many people saw in the first game of the series against the Orlando Snappers, that beautiful sunset with our uniforms on the campus all came together.”
Every home game, as the sun dips below the horizon, the ball park is filled with cascading purples and oranges. In the foreground lay the players with their white home-game jerseys, and behind them, the sunset begins subtle but slowly becomes more intense, turning the Squeeze players into golden figurines.
Bates said they had the idea of a refresh before going to Horizon in 2025, and as the season grew, they realized how special the venue was and knew they would be returning, so the refresh process commenced.
Jon Pinto and Scott Brown, from the Squeeze’s board and founder of the Mordecai Brown Legacy Foundation, met a few years ago and bonded over their shared love for baseball. Pinto, a freelance illustrator who has been designing apparel since 1995, had worked on a piece of artwork for Brown’s family, and Brown mentioned the possibility of rebranding the Squeeze’s uniforms.
That conversation happened three years ago, but when it came time to move forward with rebranding over the summer, the Squeeze turned toward Pinto.
“They wanted to try to incorporate a little bit of the history with the teams that played in Winter Garden back in the 1920s, ’30s, so forth, and if I could possibly incorporate some of that into the thought process, and working with a retro-type design, I think is always fun,” Pinto said.
He researched the old Washington Senators’ logos and uniforms, and even other non-related baseball teams to widen his scope of what he could work on and then got to work. Over two days, Pinto created the designs fitting the retro theme and purple, white and orange color scheme.
“It’s awesome,” Pinto said of working on his first baseball jersey. “As a professional artist, you don’t always work on stuff you like personally — it’s a job, so actually working on things that you’re also passionate about — those are dream jobs.”
The Squeeze team took one look, decided on their favorite and moved forward with it.
“Once we got the new logos and new uniforms and everything, at first I didn’t know what to expect, but once seeing the switch and seeing the purple on the field I honestly love it and I think it looks so good,” Squeeze social media intern Daniella DiSciullo said.
DiSciullo said the rebranding has been “super exciting.” The only adjustments she had as social media manager was updating all logos on the Squeeze’s socials and across the league, and making changes throughout marketing.
“Adam (Bates) keeps saying it’s a testament to what he wants to build at Horizon and into the community,” she said.
With Horizon West being an up-and-coming area, it doesn’t have the Garden Theatre like Winter Garden or the Little League park as well as major community amenities, which is why Bates believes the high school is the hub of the area. Recitals are held in the large auditorium that Horizon has to offer and even sporting events.
“This (change) just leads to the community partnership, because I believe also the high school is the hub of the area,” Bates said. “If we were somewhere else, we might have had a little bit of a refresh but not a color refresh and things like that. So hopefully, that shows our commitment to what we’re doing.”
Bates hopes the change will help to unite the entire West Orange community as a whole as well, bringing the Squeeze’s fans from its first year in 2014 to Horizon West and teach residents who have just moved that there’s a college team to watch.
“We want to be a steward to the Horizon West community, the greater Winter Garden community, the greater Southwest Orange community, and it was just time,” Bates said.
The outpouring of support from the community has been incredible, Bates and DiSciullo said.
The Squeeze hosted its first card trade night at Home State Brewing Co., where the team released its new logo and colors to the community. Bates said a couple of the local players such as Rylee Gibson, and a host family came to the baseball card night.
“Everyone’s initial reaction was like ‘Oh these are really good,’” DiSciullo said.
