New Jays logo dumps Canada

TORONTO, Sept. 3 (UPI) -- The Toronto Blue Jays won't look so Canadian anymore and it's front-page news across the country.

The American League team unveiled its new logo Tuesday and, to the horror of patriots, it was missing the once-trademark maple leaf and the color red.

The new logo features a stern-looking bird, staring aggressively from the left side of a large single word: Jays, the Globe and Mail reported.

It's the third logo since the team joined the league in 1977. Blue Jays President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Godfrey defended the latest look, particularly the omission of the color red.

"We didn't want to have every color in the rainbow in there," said Godfrey, deflecting the observation that the color red is associated with Canada.

The 2004 version of the bird is all business and the name appears in colors that the team describes as "blue, metallic silver and metallic graphite with black-and-white accents."