MOOSIC, Pa. — A name New York baseball left behind more than a century ago is returning to the final minor league stop before the Bronx.
The Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate unveiled its new identity Saturday at PNC Field, connecting the organization’s earliest Manhattan years with northeastern Pennsylvania’s wooded hills.
The change brings a familiar historical question into the present: Why did New York abandon a nickname that its top farm club now wants to embrace?
The answer involves a ballpark move, competing newspaper nicknames and a shorter word that gradually won over sports pages. The transition took years.
RailRiders become the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Highlanders
The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders are now the Highlanders, with the new identity carrying into the 2027 season. The club announced the name Nov. 7 at its fall festival.
Team president and general manager Shawn Reilly connected the change to the path players take through the Yankees’ organization.
“Once again, you are a Highlander before you are a Yankee!” Reilly said.
The name also reflects the landscape surrounding PNC Field. The Yankees affiliation continues, while the branding links local geography to the parent club’s history.
The franchise began as the Red Barons in 1989, became the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees in 2007 and adopted RailRiders in 2013. Highlanders becomes its fourth identity.
Why the Yankees gave up the Highlanders name
New York’s American League club played at Hilltop Park in Washington Heights from 1903 through 1912. The elevated Manhattan site gave Highlanders a direct connection to the team’s home.
The nickname also carried an association with early team president Joseph Gordon and the Scottish military regiment known as the Gordon Highlanders. Geography and a play on Gordon’s surname helped the name fit.
That geographic connection weakened in 1913. New York left Hilltop Park and moved into the lower-lying Polo Grounds, sharing the ballpark with the National League’s Giants.
By then, Yankees was already familiar to readers. Newspapers had used it alongside Highlanders for years. Shorter versions were valuable in narrow headline columns, where Highlanders required more space.
The move helped settle a competition between names already in circulation. Yankees became the lasting identity as Highlanders lost its connection to the club’s ballpark.
Historical accounts often summarize 1913 as the year of the name change. Newspaper evidence shows a more gradual process, with both nicknames used before that season.
Who first called the team the Yankees?
New York Press sports editor Jim Price is commonly credited with introducing the nickname; a 1943 franchise history assigns him that distinction.
The broader newspaper record reaches back earlier than the frequently cited 1904 origin story.
A letter published in The Sun on May 7, 1903, suggested Yankees or Yanks as an alternative to New York Americans. The writer signed the proposal Jersey Rooter.
The Dickson Baseball Dictionary also records an Aug. 6, 1903, reference in The Indianapolis Sun that called Willie Keeler a member of the New York Yankees.
By April 7, 1904, the New York Evening Journal was using Yankees in a spring training headline. The nickname subsequently spread through newspaper coverage.
Those records distinguish the editor traditionally credited with the name from its earliest documented appearances. Price helped define the familiar origin account, but the name was circulating in 1903.
Yankees also worked as a substitute for Americans, a label that distinguished New York’s American League club from its National League neighbor. It combined that meaning with the practical advantage of brevity.
The same year connects two naming changes
The RailRiders chapter began in 2013, exactly 100 years after 1913 became the conventional dividing line between New York’s Highlanders and Yankees eras.
The 2027 season will begin another chapter: 114 years after that transition, the historic name will identify the players one level below the Yankees.
The two clubs reached the name from opposite directions. New York’s move away from high ground helped push Highlanders aside. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre chose it partly because hills remain central to its setting.
What comes next for the Highlanders
The club’s new bear mascot carries hiking gear and a wooden bat, reinforcing the outdoor theme. Yankees fans will learn its name before the 2027 season. Longtime mascot Champ will remain.
The franchise announced plans to retire RailRiders in August. That identity covered the club’s 2016 International League championship and Triple-A National Championship, along with Aaron Judge’s time on the way to New York.
The Yankees’ top affiliate is scheduled to open its 2027 season on the road March 26 and return to PNC Field for its home opener April 6.
For the next group of Yankees prospects passing through Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Highlanders will be the name on their minor league stop before a possible promotion to the Bronx.
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