Congrats to the rebranded Burlington Sock Puppets. They are led by Ryan Keur, the award-winning MILB executive.
No stranger to the Burlington Royals, Keur spent the 2011-2016 seasons with the Burlington Royals before heading down to Daytona Beach, Florida to serve as the Team President for the Daytona Tortugas. In March 2020, Keur acquired Burlington Baseball Inc. from long-time owner and legend of baseball, Miles Wolff. Wolff provided Keur with his first full-time job back in 2011 when Keur became the Assistant General Manager.
A number of Appy league teams are getting rebranded, explained here by Paul Lukas from Uni-Watch (his great post here).
Since 1963, the Appalachian League has been a rookie-level minor league, with the Appy League teams affiliated with various MLB parent clubs. But as part of MLB’s new reorganization of the minors, the Appy League has been redesignated as a collegiate wood-bat league. As a result, the league’s teams, most of which have simply used the team names of their MLB parent affiliates (the Johnson City Cardinals, the Bluefield Blue Jays, and so on), are getting new stand-alone identities.
One of those teams is the Appy League franchise in Burlington, N.C. Previously known as the Burlington Royals, they announced yesterday that they’re being reborn as the Burlington Sock Puppets — a nod to the city’s history as a stronghold of sock-knitting mills.
MUST WATCH: This will be the best 2 minutes of your day. This Sock Puppet scene may be nominated for an Emmy! And that ENDING 💯💯💯 pic.twitter.com/K9qTEMoOK3
— Burlington Sock Puppets (@GoSockPuppets) February 2, 2021
Ryan was our guest on the February 2019 Podcast when he shared plans for the 2019 Daytona Tortugas. You can listen to the podcast here.
