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During the middle of last season, the RailRiders front office held a major news conference.

At the event, co-managing owner David Abrams announced several items that were in the works for the organization.

Two of those items announced at the time was a glimpse at the future with a re-branding, and a look at the past.

But both have hit potential roadblocks.

In July, one of Abrams’ ideas for the re-branding was keeping the team’s name, but changing the logo and the uniform. At the time, Abrams said the uniform would be unveiled at the end of the season due to Minor League Baseball rules.

RailRiders general manager Jeremy Ruby said that due to restrictions with those rules and other agreements, that idea could not happen for this season.

“We found out that we have a three-to-five-year deal with minor league baseball and other licensing and we couldn’t do that,” Ruby said.

However, there are multiple changes taking place instead. The biggest addition has RailRiders players wearing fully blacked-out jerseys and hats every Friday for Glow-in-the-Park Fridays. As for the logo, Ruby said that a slight tweak was made to the team’s logo on the cap, but nothing major for now.

When talking about the past at the meeting in July, Abrams stated that he would like to somehow have a shrine of some sort at PNC Field remembering all of the professional baseball teams from Northeastern Pennsylvania. But part of that process is receiving items and memorabilia from those who would like to share.

Ruby said that there has not been much memorabilia received as of yet.

“We are getting very few items, so there’s nothing really to report on that front,” he said.

Montoyo gets the Hall call

For the third straight year, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre franchise will have ties to the inductees of the International League Hall of Fame when Charlie Montoyo and Hensley Muelens are enshrined this summer.

Before Montoyo joined the Tampa Bay Rays coaching staff for the 2015 season, he made a name for himself as skipper for the club’s Triple-A affiliate, the Durham Bulls.

In eight seasons with the Bulls, Montoyo led them to seven division titles and a league record six appearances in the Governors’ Cup finals, winning it the league titles in 2009 and 2013.

While he faced the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre twice in the Governors’ Cup championship series winning in 2009, his real connection to the franchise was as a player spending parts of two seasons with the Red Barons as an infielder in 1994 and 1995 playing in 206 games for the Barons.

Muelens, who was 1990 I.L. MVP for Columbus leading the league in home runs, RBI and runs scored, played in parts of five seasons for the Yankees from 1989 to 1993 playing in 159 games in that span.

His connection to SWB is not one the franchise is very fond of as he led the Clippers to the Governors’ Cup championship in 1992 when his team beat the Barons in the championship series in the franchise’s first appearance in the postseason.

Crain lands in Pawtucket

Former RailRiders president and general manager Rob Crain was named Vice President of Sales for the Pawtucket Red Sox earlier this month. A lifelong Red Sox fan, Crain led the SWB franchise from July of 2012 through January of 2015.

He was the main figure when the team played the entire 2012 season on the road while PNC Field underwent a massive renovation. He was also in charge of the team’s renaming from Yankees to RailRiders when the team returned to Moosic for the 2015 season.

Think Spring

Despite the dead of winter being upon us, Spring Training is right around the corner.

In a little over three weeks, on Feb. 18, Yankees pitchers and catchers will report to Tampa, Fla. The next day will be the first official workouts.

On Feb. 24, New York’s position players are set to report with the first full workout for all players being on Feb. 25.

The first home game for the team at George M. Steinbrenner Field will be at 1:05 p.m. on March 2 against the Tigers.

Minor league teams usually play their first games of the spring two weeks after the organization’s first Major League contest; minor league schedules typically don’t get released until next month, if they get released at all.

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By Dave Rosengrant

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Reach Dave Rosengrant at 570-991-6398 or on Twitter @tldrosengrant