The Lynchburg Hillcats won the Carolina League championship in 2025, closing it out on Sept. 17 with an 8-2 win over the Columbia Fireflies. This turned out to be the last game the Hillcats ever played. Now, it's time to do the Monster Mash. The Howlers have arrived.
In 2026 and beyond, Lynchburg's long-running Minor League team will be known as the Hill City Howlers. The Single-A affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians announced its spooky new identity on Friday morning, bringing an end to three decades as the Hillcats. "Hill City," a Lynchburg nickname that references its location within the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, has now been incorporated into the team name proper.
City Stadium, Lynchburg's Minor League home since 1940, is located adjacent to the sprawling Spring Hill Cemetery. Proximity to the graveyard served as inspiration for the Howlers' name, which the team says is "a nod to the legendary monsters who came out of the [cemetery] tunnels to save baseball in Hill City." This supernatural assemblage is led by a literal Howler, a werewolf named Indy. He is joined in the team's logo suite by a quartet of classic monsters: Victor the Vampire, Gilly the Creature, Murray the Mummy and Daisy the Bride.
Dylan Narang, who assumed control of the Hillcats prior to the 2024 season, said that a rebrand was needed in order to increase interest in the franchise.
"I think doing something fresh, something that could excite our community, was important," said Narang, a filmmaker who previously owned a minority share in the Albuquerque Isotopes. "First it was a wolf, but why stop at wolf? Let's go to werewolf. And then why stop at werewolf? Why don't we do a bunch of monsters?"
The Howlers logos were created by Brandiose, a San Diego-based design studio that has worked with dozens of Minor League teams over the past two decades. The primary logo features Hill City in red and Howlers in blue, with the wordmark described by the team as "circus-inspired," and evocative of "classic game-night nostalgia." An additional, non-monster-themed logo features 434, Lynchburg's area code, depicted within a heart-shaped baseball. (A local twist on their state's "Virginia is for lovers" slogan.)
Lynchburg's new slate of monsters, all secondary logos, have distinct baseball attributes. Indy has a "keen sense of strikes and balls," for example, while Daisy the Bride is "the quiet strategist who helps turn close games into victories." Narang said that plans regarding how to incorporate the monsters into the gameday experience are still in the works, but these efforts will put Indy the Werewolf front and center.
"How can we grow our fandom past what it is now, maybe even past the city?" said Narang. "Maybe having a giant, awesome werewolf is the way to do it."
The Hill City Howlers open their season on the road April 2, taking on the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers. Their home debut is slated for April 8 against the Fredericksburg Nationals.