Get ready to cheer for ... the Bathtub Donkeys?
Benjamin Hill travels the nation collecting stories about what makes Minor League Baseball unique. This excerpt from his newsletter is a mere taste of the smorgasbord of delights he offers every week. Read the full newsletter here, and subscribe to The Baseball Traveler newsletter here.
Benjamin Hill travels the nation collecting stories about what makes Minor League Baseball unique. This excerpt from his newsletter is a mere taste of the smorgasbord of delights he offers every week. Read the full newsletter here, and subscribe to The Baseball Traveler newsletter here.
What happens when a Rumble Pony morphs into a Bathtub Donkey? Binghamton, N.Y., baseball fans will soon find out.
On two occasions during the 2025 season, the Rumble Ponies -- longtime Double-A affiliate of the New York Mets -- will shed their usual carousel-centric identity in favor of, yes, playing as the Bathtub Donkeys. It’s a tongue-in-cheek salute to antiquated American jurisprudence, emanating from New York state’s Southern Tier region.
"We began to dig into the kind of laws that are just kind of bizarre and wacky, like Minor League Baseball is," said Rumble Ponies director of marketing and promotion Eddie Saunders, speaking during the Jan. 17 episode of MiLB.com’s The Show Before The Show podcast. "We found this law that in the 1800s, in Brooklyn. … you could not have a sleeping donkey in your bathtub on Sundays.
"The story behind it, there was a donkey that was sleeping in a bathtub and a flood came and washed the donkey and the tub away. And then they had to use a lot of resources. … to get the donkey back to its rightful owner and home. So that’s where we went with it."
A cursory internet search by this writer found that similar “donkey bathtub” laws were also passed in Arizona and Oklahoma, with the former state’s legislation often linked to a 1924 incident with uncanny similarities to what ostensibly took place in Brooklyn. A more ambitious scribe might wish to ascertain the specifics regarding these alleged ordinances and the surprisingly frequent occurrence of sleeping bathtub donkeys in general, but in the end, like so much else, it doesn’t matter. Minor League Baseball alternate identities don’t need elaborate justification, they just need to be fun. So here we are.
As regards the inspiration for this ass-inine identity, Saunders said that he and his team "gotta give a huge shoutout" to their Eastern League counterparts, the Hartford Yard Goats. Hartford’s Bouncing Pickles alternate identity, announced in 2023, referenced a Connecticut law that stated, in so many words, "that a pickle isn’t a pickle if it doesn’t bounce."
"Hartford is what inspired us to really dig down deep into this," said Saunders. "[Design studio] Brandiose is who created the Rumble Ponies logo originally, and we jumped on a call with [Brandiose] co-founder Jason [Klein]. … He was like 'I love it. It’s what Minor League Baseball is all about. We’re going to get right on it.'"
When Saunders and his colleagues saw the finished product, they "knew it was going to be something special." Contrary to what may be assumed, the donkey depicted is improbably using the bathtub for its intended purpose and therefore not breaking the law.
The domesticated equine wears a baseball-bedecked bathing cap and uses a bat as a backscratcher while situated within a claw-footed tub with baseballs in place of the "feet." The jerseys feature soap bubbles on the body and sleeves, while a secondary logo features a towel emblazoned with the Rumble Ponies primary "B" logo.
The Bathtub Donkeys will take the field on June 28 and July 30. Neither of these games is against Hartford, meaning an “obscure state law” alternate identity matchup against the Bouncing Pickles will have to wait. Saunders said that one of the dates will feature a bath towel giveaway and, "we may be trying to get a few donkeys here at the ballpark, because you can’t have bathtub donkeys without some donkeys."
Should the Rumble Ponies want to build on this weird legislation theme in future seasons, they have an idea at the ready.
"There is a law in New York that, on Sunday, you cannot carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket," said Saunders. "[We could] call ourselves the Southern Tier Scoops and have a little ice cream coming out of a little pocket."
Benjamin Hill is a reporter for MiLB.com and writes Ben's Biz Blog. Follow Ben on Twitter @bensbiz.
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