MLB Logo&Uniform changes

[TheOldRoman]

For the people who commented the Nats should have worn a DC hat full time, I disagree. The team name is Washington Nationals, not DC Nationals. DC is fine as a sleeve patch, but most of us are in agreement that a city initial needs to go on caps with a few exceptions (White Sox, Orioles). No team wears a W hat, so it wouldn't be any less distinctive. If the hat from the mysterious cameraman photo was legit, that would have worked well. However, the old wordmarks (especially the road) looked too muttled to me. I am looking forward to seeing what they do and hopefully it is a cohesive identity.

The city we commonly refer to as Washington, DC hasn't officially been named Washington since 1871. The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 merged the city of Washington, the city of Georgetown, and Washington County with the District of Columbia to create one single entity, the District of Columbia. Seeing as the capital of the United States hasn't been named Washington for 139 years, a DC cap would have been fitting.

I realize that, but the team is still billed as Washington, as are the DC area's other pro teams. To me the DC cap would have been just like the Twins' TC - an alright and meaningful logo, but kinda "meh" as a cap logo because it doesn't represent the city/state name.

[Bouj]

Are the interwebs broken?! How has no one screamed "FAKE!" or "obvious photoshop!" yet?!

I'm only partially kidding (considering how skeptical most of the board is), but that is either a very nice upgrade for 2011 or a hell of a DIY jersey.

[BRice16]

Are the interwebs broken?! How has no one screamed "FAKE!" or "obvious photoshop!" yet?!

I'm only partially kidding (considering how skeptical most of the board is), but that is either a very nice upgrade for 2011 or a hell of a DIY jersey.

I think the reason there aren't skeptics about its authenticity is that the OP stated it was a prototype he picked up, not that it was definitely the new design. I am fortunate enough to own a few Majestic prototypes that were created for MLB and other teams, some that became the design, some that did not, and the tagging on the placket of the jersey is exactly how Majestic tags prototypes.

I'm certain it's a prototype created by Majestic for the Nationals. Whether that's the design they go with or not, that's anyone's guess. I think the "Natstown"-style wordmark could be one of the other options. The tagging on the pictured jersey indicates that at least two prototypes in this set were made, this being tagged as option two. No idea how many or what the differences may be.

[Brian E]

Are the interwebs broken?! How has no one screamed "FAKE!" or "obvious photoshop!" yet?!

I'm only partially kidding (considering how skeptical most of the board is), but that is either a very nice upgrade for 2011 or a hell of a DIY jersey.

I think the reason there aren't skeptics about its authenticity is that the OP stated it was a prototype he picked up, not that it was definitely the new design. I am fortunate enough to own a few Majestic prototypes that were created for MLB and other teams, some that became the design, some that did not, and the tagging on the placket of the jersey is exactly how Majestic tags prototypes.

I'm certain it's a prototype created by Majestic for the Nationals. Whether that's the design they go with or not, that's anyone's guess. I think the "Natstown"-style wordmark could be one of the other options. The tagging on the pictured jersey indicates that at least two prototypes in this set were made, this being tagged as option two. No idea how many or what the differences may be.

feel like giving us a run down on what you have that never came to be?

[Gothamite]

For the people who commented the Nats should have worn a DC hat full time, I disagree. The team name is Washington Nationals, not DC Nationals. DC is fine as a sleeve patch, but most of us are in agreement that a city initial needs to go on caps with a few exceptions (White Sox, Orioles). No team wears a W hat, so it wouldn't be any less distinctive. If the hat from the mysterious cameraman photo was legit, that would have worked well. However, the old wordmarks (especially the road) looked too muttled to me. I am looking forward to seeing what they do and hopefully it is a cohesive identity.

The city we commonly refer to as Washington, DC hasn't officially been named Washington since 1871. The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 merged the city of Washington, the city of Georgetown, and Washington County with the District of Columbia to create one single entity, the District of Columbia. Seeing as the capital of the United States hasn't been named Washington for 139 years, a DC cap would have been fitting.

I realize that, but the team is still billed as Washington, as are the DC area's other pro teams. To me the DC cap would have been just like the Twins' TC - an alright and meaningful logo, but kinda "meh" as a cap logo because it doesn't represent the city/state name.

I've heard this argument before, but it always seems the worst kind of semantics.

Yes, the name is formally the "District of Columbia". But it's not as though the city government itself doesn't continue to use "Washington" to refer to itself every single day of the year:

Sometimes they even leave "DC" off altogether.

"Washington" is perfectly appropriate.

[Matito]

I've always seen it as "Washington, D.C." being like "Tampa, FL." I realize that the District of Columbia is not a "state," but it seems okay to me to refer to the city as "Washington" much in the same way we refer to other cities as "Chicago," "Los Angeles" or "Dallas," not "Chicago, IL," "Los Angeles, CA" or "Dallas, TX."

[BRice16]

feel like giving us a run down on what you have that never came to be?

VERY minor changes from final designs. Differences on stripes on arms, patch placement, etc. I have a Red Sox jersey from their redesign that had sleeve piping, where the final version did not. A patch with inverted colors on another jersey, a couple of BP jerseys from the last redesign with slightly different underarm colors, stuff like that.

Anything super-radical never leaves the Majestic or MLB "family" or is just destroyed. That leads me to believe that this is very close to the final design for the Nationals. Wouldn't be surprised to see this design with the lowercase "N" from the "Natstown" wordmark, which would be a real shame, because i prefer the one here.

[TheOldRoman]

For the people who commented the Nats should have worn a DC hat full time, I disagree. The team name is Washington Nationals, not DC Nationals. DC is fine as a sleeve patch, but most of us are in agreement that a city initial needs to go on caps with a few exceptions (White Sox, Orioles). No team wears a W hat, so it wouldn't be any less distinctive. If the hat from the mysterious cameraman photo was legit, that would have worked well. However, the old wordmarks (especially the road) looked too muttled to me. I am looking forward to seeing what they do and hopefully it is a cohesive identity.

The city we commonly refer to as Washington, DC hasn't officially been named Washington since 1871. The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 merged the city of Washington, the city of Georgetown, and Washington County with the District of Columbia to create one single entity, the District of Columbia. Seeing as the capital of the United States hasn't been named Washington for 139 years, a DC cap would have been fitting.

I realize that, but the team is still billed as Washington, as are the DC area's other pro teams. To me the DC cap would have been just like the Twins' TC - an alright and meaningful logo, but kinda "meh" as a cap logo because it doesn't represent the city/state name.

I've heard this argument before, but it always seems the worst kind of semantics.

Yes, the name is formally the "District of Columbia". But it's not as though the city government itself doesn't continue to use "Washington" to refer to itself every single day of the year:

Sometimes they even leave "DC" off altogether.

"Washington" is perfectly appropriate.

So, are you disagreeing with me? Because it sounds like we are saying the same thing.

[Gothamite]

Sorry, I was intending to support your argument. As much as I respect Ice_Cap, I think he's way off base here. The city is still very much "Washington" in parlance, regardless of the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871.

[The_Admiral]

BallWonk was the biggest proponent of "There's no such city as Washington," hence my reference. I don't really care about the semantics of it, I just think the DC cap fit the set better than the Curly W did, and the W hat prototype was nothing special to me. And the Twins' TC cap is a sweet idea, if poorly executed.

I love those DC license plates. They're so catty. Someone get them a congressman already.

[Quillz]

I like both the "DC" and curly "W" cap. Are the Nats planning to drop one or both of them? I do think that "DC" works better, since "W" could be applied to a future Washington State or Wisconsin franchise or something like that. Most people would instantly know what "DC" means, not so much with a curly "W."

[McCall]

There's not gonna be any issue with anybody not knowing what team it is by just seeing the curly W. Washington state and Wisconsin have all the teams they'll get and there's no other possible locations that would begin with a W. Besides other letters are utilized by more than one team; P (Phillies/Pirates), C (Cubs/Reds/Inians alt), NY for both teams, A (Braves/Angels/ Diamondbacks/A's), T (Rangers/Jays alt).

[M59]

The heart of the problem with the original Nationals' set was the "look Ma, we can make bevels with our computers, now" aspect. This is how you wind up with the Potomac Nationals having better looking jerseys than the Washington Nationals do. Had they taken the original wordmark, rendered it in red/blue/gold w/o the bevels, and used MLB block numbers in the same scheme, sans bevels, it would have been a slick and modern set. However, they chose to make the beveling mistake and then add insult to injury with that ghastly, overdone number font...ugh.

Referencing the Orioles, at least the Nationals have enough sense to a) not try to run italicized script across a button-front placket, and not to have your script start huge and get tiny. If I was much, much better in Corel, I could fix the Orioles script so that it was very attractive. As it's currently rendered on the jerseys, it's a hot mess.

[FiddySicks]

Yawn. Well at least the Nats unis now match their play.

[BBTV]

The heart of the problem with the original Nationals' set was the "look Ma, we can make bevels with our computers, now" aspect. This is how you wind up with the Potomac Nationals having better looking jerseys than the Washington Nationals do. Had they taken the original wordmark, rendered it in red/blue/gold w/o the bevels, and used MLB block numbers in the same scheme, sans bevels, it would have been a slick and modern set. However, they chose to make the beveling mistake and then add insult to injury with that ghastly, overdone number font...ugh.

Referencing the Orioles, at least the Nationals have enough sense to a) not try to run italicized script across a button-front placket, and not to have your script start huge and get tiny. If I was much, much better in Corel, I could fix the Orioles script so that it was very attractive. As it's currently rendered on the jerseys, it's a hot mess.

Pretty much. I'm a fan of Radom's work, and I think the original set could have been really good, but the extra bevels and the number font with the weird 1s ruined it. If it was simplified to use either outlines or shadows instead of bevels, and they went with the DC cap, it would have been very nice.

[Don]

I live in Southern MD, so I'm kinda local to the area, and when I say we're going to Washington, its never Washington, its always DC. As in, "we're going to DC for the game" or, "heading to the DC zoo". Its never Washington, if that means anything. Personally I liked the DC logo, but I am a huge fan of the Curly W. Hopefully they incorporate DC somewhere into the new logo package cause it is part of the local lingo, if nothing else.

[Quillz]

As long as we're talking about the Nationals, I'm wondering what is the deal with this logo:

The only thing I can think of was the old Washington Senators might date to 1905, but even then they were in the AL and became the Twins.

[Sodboy13]

No one's been able to figure out the source of that "1905" since the move from Montreal. From what I recall, there were several decades of a nebulous period where the original Washington team insisted on calling itself the Nationals, but fans and the press called it the Senators anyway, and if that doesn't sum up pro baseball in the nation's capital, I don't know what does.

[Gothamite]

That's exactly it - the name "Nationals" was first used in 1905.

Silly thing to celebrate, but there you have it. Kinda sums up what was wrong with their first look.

[16kid]

sweet