Silent Wind of Doom

The Reds are one of a few teams that have two perfect identities and I wouldn't be mad at either. Either the Big Red Machine set or the pinstriped 90's and 60's vest set. Either would be beautiful. Or perhaps the whole skyline... Frasier alts coming this year! If it was meant to be over three seasons, doesn't that mean they planned for 10 uniforms in a season? So it wouldn't be too out of left field.

Here ya go, @maxwasson! Sorry in the intervening time things didn't go well. Especially since my final was Kansas vs. Marquette.

This describes a lot there, and is a reason why many have wished for a change.

Huh... So the US has always had overly "cutesy" looks over classic, huh? I agree with the earlier calls. The US for its role in the history of the game should have a very traditional look. The only problem with the simple block linked letters that they should have is that the Dominican has already planted their flag there. I think something more classic with a star can work well, but then you step on the Astros' toes.

I don't know what it is. Maybe I just finally got used to the helmet and I've seen so much of Seattle, so I wasn't focused on taking them in. Somehow I only just now noticed Houston's awful navy pants. I don't mind the pattern too much elsewhere, but it looks miserable there, just sort of fading away.

I thought the GB moniker was used in some international competitions because in those Ireland competed as one team, like Korea has done numerous times. I loved the old China mark, but I think the new one fits better. I think Blackletter should be used for a European nation with a lot of cultural stuff going on at the time such fancy lettering was used. Germany seems like the immediate choice given the whole Gutenberg thing, but I think whoever said Italy is on the money. Rennaissance powerhouse. Has a bland letter that's hard to make a good logo out of (although the red-outlined one was not bad). Perfect. Not that the cursive I wouldn't be bad. I never had a problem understanding Cleveland's old caps and... I doubt they want to try enforcing any ownership of that mark. But I think the Blackletter is better. I saw the Canada jerseys in action and thought "They just went with the Toronto Canada Days? And then I saw the Israel blue jerseys and said "Oh, there they are. They just did Toronto." And when at the start it was said the Dutch unis looked familiar, I thought we were all on the same page that they looked like they were stamped on butter cookies.

@JerseyJimmy, not a problem at all! Just took me a few secs. Top award per season is usually how I do it.

I wish they just took the gold off the last set.

I fully appreciate the sarcasm. Expertly done. But I don't agree with the underlying point. The hyperbole has gone a bit strawman. The Blue Jays took the past and went forward with it. The Brewers too, although there's not total unity on the success of the "cover all bases" nature. The Padres sort of mixed all their past identities to bring them into the future. But what if the Blue Jays unveiled their current set and had filled in the gaps in the middle of the lettering? It would look weird. Football teams have been putting their wordmark on the front for years. It's not out of the ordinary. And block is block. If they rolled out in numbers that looked like the Ravens', you would look at it weird. It's not even the color. It's just that it's a thin and wispy wordmark as @MJD7 mentioned. The Phillies have chonky letters. The Reds have a drop shadow. The Twins look like they're screaming for something. Perhaps the Royals and Dodgers don't look as naked because the closed letters make the wordmark look like it has more mass whereas "Twins" is all open letters and lines? Perhaps it's because save for the Dodgers' number their jerseys only have one color in it. Meanwhile, these have a third color that's not featured in the wordmark? The old navy alts had different color numbers, but the numbers and wordmark used the same two colors, just flipped. Hm. I suppose in the overall look you're right. Honestly, I just really love the red crowned caps of the Carew Twins and the Fisk Red Sox. Thick colorful stripes are also nice. But I've never actually seen the Twins version in practice or in anything but a Carew baseball card. The issues in my mind are wholely with the wordmark and number, so I didn't even think of the totality in that way. The fact that the cap worn with their home whites was an alternate cap and not their standard cap made me irrationally rage-filled. In the end, it was just unnecessary and wasn't an appealing color to many. Take it away and you had a beautiful update of the Killebrew set. A single red navy outline would not be illegible an actually make the wordmark pop more. But, in the end, as I mentioned in my original post (which was mainly stream-of-consciousness as I tried to figure out what was a gut feeling), this is new and new things feel weird. So, perhaps we'll all get used to it. This is the way the human brain works. Also, on the other conversation going here, I've no problem with not perfectly matched helmets as long as its design works with the uniform. For instance, the Athletics and Orioles have at times worn two different caps on the home and road to match their jerseys and feature less white with their no-white road uniforms. It looks silly when they then wear helmets that match the home cap on the road.

A funny thought that popped into my head looking at the pics posted of the 2020 Seattle helmet. I think what they were going for was one of two things: 1. The logo has a lot of features and details and colors, and making one of those many colors the background may have caused it to disappear or detail to be lost or the colors to meld. 2. (My favorite, which I hope is real) The white is meant to be a transparent layer of sorts. The navy jersey is meant to be the sea, and the white isn't supposed to be there at all, representing negative space as the serpent rises up from the sea and roars.

With all the talk of past examples, there's a biiiiiig difference. The Houston and Cleveland examples worked, but they were THICK BLOCK letters. The Twins logo tapers and dances across the jersey and without the outline looks a bit slight in places because of it. But the BIG thing in terms of why this doesn't look right to me, and I think I just figured this out finally, is because the Minnesota Twins never, ever, EVER went without an outline. That's why this looks like it's a throwback to an identity that never existed. I originally said that in referring to how some throwback brands clean things up and thus make a retro-looking but very tightly manicured look. I think that's also a problem here. When the Twins came into existence, they had a much more chunky wordmark. This is a wordmark even more modern than any they've ever used being presented in a very retro style, and it doesn't work for me. The Washington Senators didn't have an outline for much of their existence, but they also used thick block lettering (as anyone who's debated the Nationals' identity knows well). This doesn't work as a modernizing of an old look, because from the very start the Minnesota Twins have always used an outline. I don't think the league has ever had a team with a cursive wordmark this large without an outline. Dodgers and Royals are longer names, and thus the lettering is smaller. The Mets have always had an outline. Of course, new almost always looks weird and we get used to it, so... we'll see? But I think the Twins' identity lives in two different eras: their 60's, Killibrew, birth era with the navy trimmed in red and TC cap that they've leaned into with the googie style of Target Field and the 80's/90's, Pucket, Homerdome era with the red trimmed in navy and M cap. This fits into neither and doesn't even go fully into the Carews which I think are a beautiful jersey and should be a regular throwback. I guess it just doesn't feel Twins to me.

Still haven't gotten used to the new Twins look yet. Without the outline, it looks like a throwback soda brand or something, trying to evoke the past but in an overly done way that never truly existed.

Whoa... Wait... Cattlemen's actually existed and is not a fictional steakhouse run by Randall Park?

I was very busy working on something yesterday, but as I was looking at the graphic and thinking about how Orlando's numbers were unique, but not terrible, and I suddenly realized that every single team has a unique number font. And I don't think any of them are bad. That's kinda impressive, although I don't know if it's sustainable for more than 8.

The slipping in of red accessories by players has really made me realize that if they do feel like making changes to the team identity, I would be perfectly fine with them either replacing silver with red or having red be the tertiary color and shuffling silver to fourth.

Honestly, the way the power dynamic seemed to be even before 2017, I thought the sad truth was that it was that way in Chicago. Also, no. I'll never forget watching you guys sweep Boston on the Diamondvision at the Stadium... before watching Randy Johnson and a relief spot by Al Leiter cough Game 2 up to the Angels.

Eh, it represents the high point of the franchise in the modern era. Maybe they'll get over the nostalgia when they pick up a World Series win. Wait...

I think their colors and identity are fine. The application is just weird. A weird logo cobbled together by tweaking an identity meant for elsewhere and then looking tiny on the helmet. light grey mixed into their home uniforms with no dark color between it and the lime. Also, I really want them back. C'mon. We'll take care of them. You can even put them in Red Bull Arena and name them "New Jersey". And okay... Now looking at them, the red lines in the Renegades' does help a lot. Even if it does make them reeeeeeeeeeeally look like the league is being petty over the Oilers lawsuit.

Perhaps the thinking was "Orlando doesn't have an identity besides oranges, swamps, and theme parks, so let's give them the generic name"? Now seeing the Orlando homes... those shoulders a bit rough. A secondary color stripe and a tertiary/light-colored shoulder can work, but when that secondary color is a light fluorescent lime? I don't know about that. Save for the helmet stripe and the color scheme (I do think two-tone green can work in certain markets), the Guardians' identity is a bit of a clunker. I know the Citrus Bowl is a good feather to have in your cap and is open. Can't they just give us back our team and expand a new team into Orlando if this league stays this time? San Antonio, on the other hand, does look a lot better at home. I would love to see them make yellow their primary color and change the grey to black.

Wow. I thought it possible there was a mixup and they wore some cheap practice pants or something, but no. That's so weird. I've seen baseball teams do this, but only to match the piping on their jerseys. The DC uniforms are the same, just palette-swapped. Why would they do that? Also, looking at this pic, I am not looking forward to the Renegades on the road. That may be my least favorite uniform in the league. All light colors on white.

The jagged stripes on the Guardians logo really messed me up. Looked like a badger's stripes on a big cat. Someone in this thread finally pointed out to me that it's just a panther. The lines on the old logo were stone embellishments on a gargoyle, but they just copied them over and stylized them without care for whether they made any sense or not. Kinda says a lot about the 2.0 to 3.0 rebrandings.

Honestly, when I think of the blue top I still picture Carlos Zambrano, so I think my perception is a ways behind. I always picture it with pinstripes too.

I'm not even so much talking about the association between the color and the city. There are plenty of random pairings there through sports history. I'm more concerned with the colors being associated with other locations that serve as rivals. Like if there's a distaste for Denver. I don't mind St. Louis. I'd normally be against skipping white, but I think grey works with their metallic aesthetic. Yeah, I give them a pass because of the shine. It doesn't look like they just screwed up and got the wrong helmets.

The Outlaw identity was beautiful. Whenever I played around with creating teams, I would use it. Not sure why they went the way they did on that. Looking at the Sea Dragons tonight... I don't hate the homes as much as I thought I would. I don't know if the orange fits the city, but with them going white pants at home, they look better than I expected. I think this color scheme really works and I like how the green pops off of the orange. But navy jerseys probably would have fit better.

I thought it was always a predominantly Sox thing given the large Irish populations in Boston and Chicago.