MLB Changes 2015

[gmoore1203]

that is one of the reasons why I hate the high cuffed look, when teams do it you will end up with 2-3 different styles of socks outside of throwback games. If you go high cuffed you need to wear the same socks as the rest your team mates or you won't be allowed to play or be fined. The NFL has the same problems with their socks but atlas their players get fined when they want to be different than everyone else and put their own style above the team.

[phutmasterflex]

I wrote a blog post about all the different A's socks that have been worn in the past several seasons

http://butattheendoftheday.com/2015/04/07/a-look-at-the-recent-history-of-the-oakland-athletics-socks/

It's a lot of different options. Standard solid gold, high stirrups, stirrups with logos, mismatching green stirrups and the two we've seen from the past two games.

Gotta keep an eye out if Hahn says where he got his. Because Sogard found the the striped socks he and Sonny wore. (Also seen on Billy Butler couple days ago) But I also remember when Rajai started wearing his. I believe he found them and asked the A's to get them for him.

I have a pair of the 1969 throwback socks and I assume Vuc just got them from the same company just with the darker shade of green. As for Hahn, I do wonder where he got his and if there is a rule about how many different sock designs are allowed during a season, let alone during a game.

[Buster]

The D-Backs are going with matte helmets for 2015.

Not a fan of matte red...looks like it's made of Play-Doh.

The Pirates' matte black looks great though.

[The_Admiral]

The problem I have with the Giants' alts is that I don't think teams should render their name in two different uniform scripts. It's the same problem as the Cubs' horrendous road alts.

I completely agree. What do you think about the fact that the main Giants wordmark is in a different typeface than the road San Francisco wordmark?

In most cases, if you can make them match, you should. I liked when the Giants did so in the '90s, but the precedent for the classic block lettering works out: they look as they did when they first moved to San Francisco. In the case of the Mets, the Tuscan "New York" script never felt right to me. With the Reds and Cubs, you can't really make those match.

[FiddySicks]

I'm normally against this, but I've warmed up to the idea of the Giants ditching any attempt at putting San Francisco or SF on the roads (even though I do like both) in favor of just going with a grey version of the home set, similar to what the Cardinals do. It wouldn't be absolutely ideal, but what they have now isn't either, and their home set is strong enough to carry over to the road set IMO.

Truth is though, they'd be best served just going back to the road set they had in 2010, squished word mark and all. That was as close to effect as they've ever been.

[Jungle Jim]

that is one of the reasons why I hate the high cuffed look, when teams do it you will end up with 2-3 different styles of socks outside of throwback games. If you go high cuffed you need to wear the same socks as the rest your team mates or you won't be allowed to play or be fined. The NFL has the same problems with their socks but atlas their players get fined when they want to be different than everyone else and put their own style above the team.

I agree. Uniforms should be uniform.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

that is one of the reasons why I hate the high cuffed look, when teams do it you will end up with 2-3 different styles of socks outside of throwback games. If you go high cuffed you need to wear the same socks as the rest your team mates or you won't be allowed to play or be fined. The NFL has the same problems with their socks but atlas their players get fined when they want to be different than everyone else and put their own style above the team.

I agree. Uniforms should be uniform.

I love high cuffs; but players should not be freestyling on the socks.

The uniform would be uniform if we had a rule that players had to cuff their pants anywhere between the top of the calf and the top of the Achilles tendon (there can be some room for variation there), and had to wear only the team's standard-issue stirrups.

[kestrel79]

Dbacks matte helmet reminds me of a cherry flavored Dairy Queen Dilly Bar.

[Silent Wind of Doom]

Do the Cubs still have the horribly ugly road alts, or have those been dropped?

I'd meant to comment on the Angels the other day, but my quotes all got lost because I had a computer crash. Let me just say this: the Angels should wear their city name on the road jersey. And no, I don't mean "Los Angeles", or "Los Angeles of Anaheim". Just accept where you're from already.

I know most of you don't give a tug about the Rockies, given that there are 6 mentions across 73 pages in this thread (I read the first 20 pages, started out on the side of brown for the Padres, got annoyed to the point where I hate the idea of brown for the Padres, and gave up actually reading the thread for about 50 pages, just using Ctrl + F "Rockies" to check).

However, I would like to chime in and point out a few things about the 2015 Rockies:

There is no black jersey option, except the BP.

There is no monogram black jersey option, except the BP.

Purple Mondays at home will continue this season, so the gorgeous black-on-purple jerseys will still make regular appearances.

The purple pinstripes are back for the white homes, with "Rockies" across the chest.

Three of the four caps (including BP) feature purple bills.

I'm pretty happy about all this, despite the black vests still holding a place in my heart. Anyone still arguing that Colorado is still too heavily black and not purple enough has no leg to stand on any more. PURPLE PINSTRIPES! To me, this is THE Rockies look and I hope they pair them with the all-purple alt caps as often as possible. The primary caps are still all-black, but without a black jersey option, that shouldn't be a problem.

Eh, it's been a quiet offseason for the Rockies, but as a longtime member they've often caused a great amount of kerfuffle as people debate whether they should go more purple, more black, drop the pinstripes, purple up the silver wordmarks, etc.

if the Indians added silver to their colors and outlined the C with silver it would be x1000 better than this. They could even make it a white outline and be better.

It would also be nice if they could find a more interesting symbol to build their friggin' identity around.

In a situation like this, particularly in a sport so rich in tradition as baseball, I don't think being creative is a good thing. Gold outlines worked perfectly because they are very subtle. It's still the team's home uniform, just with a small one-time tweak as a nod to the championship. But using gold characters against a white, or even worse - cream, jersey is such a departure that it's more about producing a random crappy alternate than paying homage to the championship. It looks ugly (they're okay with that), which means the fans are more likely to buy them because they're unique. Sure, gold-outlined championship jerseys are likely the same in being designed to sell more jerseys, but their subtlety would lead to less sales.

Plus, I think using the old wordmark is a swing and a miss. They're commemorating last year's championship by wearing gold characters (which they didn't use last year) and using a (really crappy) '70s wordmark they didn't use on their home or road jerseys last year? I mean, at that point, they're up to Nike-Speak in terms of contrived explanations for adding random bad elements. "The gold signifies the championship. The throwback wordmark represents the gritty toughness of '70s San Francisco that was showcased in the Dirty Harry movies. The black and orange remain unchanged."

1. I assume that there's an orange outline between the gold and white/cream. It appears that way to me in the image.

2. It's a classic wordmark, but they didn't just break it out of the closet. They wore it in an alternate for the entire last season.

3. It's a one-off, and... well... it's not meant to be tasteful. The Giants invented this back in the day. Since I'd read this post, someone already posted the Giants' original "World Champions" jerseys, and honestly if they win a fourth title next year I really hope they'd do that for their opening day game.

The D-Backs are going with matte helmets for 2015.

Err... uhh... I can understand matte with black, but... this color in matte looks like a McDonald's toy, or like the material they make the shoe cubbies out of.

It's definitely a balancing act when it comes to relocated teams, because we should both acknowledge history in the proper proportion while also realizing everything changes once a team moves, even if the nickname and uniform are similar. There isn't any recent spate of New York Giant world titles, San Francisco broadcasters have said finally breaking through in 2010 after more than a half century was special because it was "our" title. It's nice to carry over retired numbers, and make a ceremonial New York trip, but the SF Giants are still different than the NY Giants. The numbers of New Yorkers still interested in the old Giants is continuing to dwindle, along with living people who visited the Polo Grounds. I didn't hear about any New York celebration when last year's WS was over. And, the growing number of San Francisco fans can't be expected to appreciate players their grandparents didn't see from a team across the USA. When's the last time anyone saw a Mel Ott or Christy Matthewson throwback jersey on a 30 year old fan at SF home games? I'm guessing it's extremely rare.

It's great to see those old throwback NY Giants uniforms, just like the next time the Oakland A's do something with the old Philadelphia A's. But we just need to keep in mind the differences, sports franchises aren't restaurant chains. The city name is a huge part of the identity of the team, that's what makes sports different than other business ventures, and why there's such a sense of loss when that club moves.

It's a matter of the magnitude of the franchise. The Giants, with eight World Championships in their history, now can say that only two teams (the Yankees and the Cardinals) have more titles. That's a huge point of pride. And the team dates back to the 1880s; again, a huge point of pride. The Braves recently showed a similar pride when they unveiled some logo item (I forget exactly what it was) that alluded to the franchise's founding in 1876.

To my mind, this tendency to embrace the entire history of the team is 100% laudible; there's no balancing act at all. The Giants are an old team with many World Championships; and acknowledging this is the right thing to do. It's right from the standpoint of history; and it's right because it increases the prestige of the team.

I think we'll in agreement about the importance of history, and every time we see a throwback uniform or an old retired number, that's a tribute to the history. My point is from a fans and accuracy perspective, location is still a huge factor in how we root for teams. No doubt, there's a small number of fans who had a generational connection to the late NY Giants, and never adopted the Mets or another team. But I think you'll find the number of SF fans who had NY Giant interest was much more common in the early 1960s, and today it's tiny. Talking about "franchise" the same way we talk about a business franchise just doesn't work. There's virtually no difference between the McDonald's in Seattle and the one in St. Louis. The San Franscico Giants deserve a ton of credit for the run they've been on, but the reality is they've won three world titles, and trail a number of other NL organizations in terms of accomplishment. Ditto for the Atlanta Braves, who were born in 1966, they have a lone WS title, that's separate from what happened in Milwaukee and Boston. If sports teams were all about the nickname, why is the city name so often a part of uniforms?

It's fine to increase the prestige of the team, but accuracy is the key. After more than a half century of frustration, the excitement in SF, was capturing the first title, not some kind of continution few people alive in California actually experienced. The Atlanta Braves were definitely not born in 1876, and they reality is very few Atlanta folks cared about the Milwaukee Braves until they became their team. When we start combining the histories of different entities, it's confusing, and feels inflated. I've always felt the smartest approach is to appreciate the past in the proper proportion with the respect due to the city/region where these memories took place. The reason you'll get a blank stare from the vast majority of San Franscisco fans when you bring up old NY Giants outside of Mays isn't because they're not good fans, but the fact it wasn't part of their shared experience. The pride is always most authentic when it's the same city, same team. Ditto for the Oakland A's, they have four world titles, and and even smaller group of fans who care about the late Philadelphia A's. Neither the SF Giants or Oakland A's are very old teams, but that's fine, they should be evaluated and judged for what happened during their existence.

It's a matter of the magnitude of the franchise. The Giants, with eight World Championships in their history, now can say that only two teams (the Yankees and the Cardinals) have more titles. That's a huge point of pride. And the team dates back to the 1880s; again, a huge point of pride. The Braves recently showed a similar pride when they unveiled some logo item (I forget exactly what it was) that alluded to the franchise's founding in 1876.

To my mind, this tendency to embrace the entire history of the team is 100% laudible; there's no balancing act at all. The Giants are an old team with many World Championships; and acknowledging this is the right thing to do. It's right from the standpoint of history; and it's right because it increases the prestige of the team.

Respect your opinion, but since we're all Americans, folks from the western states will automatically embrace our political figures, sports are different because of the many rooting interests. Yes, if a younger fan takes the time, they can learn about an historical player, but it's still different when it's not the same city or area. Carl Hubble and Frankie Frisch just don't have anything to do with the SF Giants, and I've never seen any data to suggest interest in obsolete teams surge as the years go by. It simply isn't happening, and we won't be seeing those throwback jerseys in SF anytime soon. Never said a person had to actually see all the historical events themselves, but baseball is a generational sport, and those stories are passed down in that particular region. Legions of young St. Louis fans have a connection with Stan Musial in this way, and it's a 180 difference in San Franscico and Mel Ott. The NY Giants aren't irrlevant, just a separate entity to the SF Giants, it's one of the costs of relocation. Continous teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals, Reds, Pirates, etc. just have more tradition than the SF Giants, and legions more fans with that historical connection, it's not even close.

I would agree with you the city/region is not important when those names aren't linked with teams, but that day will never arrive. Respect your NY area Yankee history, but we are comparing apples to oranges here, and the number of NY Giants followers will inevitably decrease in time. The small number of San Francisco fans will a generational NY Giant link will also inevitably decrease as the years roll by. And if it wasn't for Willie Mays, the level of interest would be even smaller in the late NY Giants. We just can't suggest transplanted teams with different experiences, different areas, and different fans have the same tradition as continous teams.

Wrapping up, we just can't deny these differences exist. Someone is free to say the Giants have "X" titles, but where is the meaning in that statement? The number of historical fans of transplanted teams is tiny, and will continue to go south in time. I would bet everything I own if the fans at the next SF Giants home game took a NY Giants test, they would fail. Ditto for the Braves and A's. There's simply no evidence of a growing embrace from transplanted cities of the old city. The current Giants and Braves are just looking up at more traditional NL teams, and even the hated LA Dodgers have been more successful. The passage of time just isn't kind for these late teams. When you stop playing, all that's left is memories, and those memories are diminished with relocation.

Baseball is built around history and tradition. I've heard people argue whether or not the Cleveland Browns, Winnipeg Jets, or Charlotte Hornets should claim the history of their previous incarnations, but never have I seen a suggestion that the San Francisco Giants aren't a very old team. The pointy blockletter print, the black and orange, these things come from their time in New York. Heck, the Dodgers still have their classic uniforms in continuous use, and the current Giants set isn't that much different from what they wore in the old days. As I mentioned earlier, their gold opening day jerseys are a tradition that goes back to the single digits of the 1900's. Heck, the hatred of the Dodgers all goes back to those times, when the two teams fought bitterly for their city and the pennant. How often have the two competed over the last 50 years?

But, that's all one thing. The Giants are one of the classic eight National League teams, one of the oldest and most respected franchises in the sports. Willie Mays's catch, "The Catch", happened in the Polo Grounds. What is often considered the greatest home run in the history of the sport, and is arguably the greatest moment in Giants history, is the "Shot Heard 'Round the World". The call is often emulated and homaged, including the call of the pennant-winning home run last year. I can see people arguing the relevancy of the Senators to the Twins, or the Expos to the Nationals, but the Giants, Dodgers, Athletics, and Braves did not become a different team. They took their names, their identities, their looks, their teams, and simply moved them. Suggesting that those past years mean absolutely nothing is incredibly ignorant and I hope that the youth that are coming of age don't forget where they came from. I'd rather not live in a world where the Dodgers treat Jackie Robinson like the Yankees treat Roger Clemens.

I've never thought this before - but do people who grew up in newer states that weren't a "thing" (sorry!) back in the colonial days really spend as much time learning about those guys, or would it be more about local historical figures that might have more relevance? Obviously there's basic US history that everyone learns, but I've kind of always taken for granted that Ben Franklin and George Washington and those others were always at the forefront of every American's schooling, but honestly does anyone in Alaska really care about Washington crossing the Delaware? Or Ben Franklin for anything other than his inventions? Or Texas, or AZ for example - do people born and raised there really feel any kind of connection to people or events that had no immediate impact on their home regions? Obviously what we know as the United States (including what is now Texas, AZ, and Alaska) would be much different today had the colonies remained under British control, but I doubt anyone in Alaska was even aware that there was a war taking place, and even if they were, I doubt that they thought it impacted them in even the slightest way, and I would expect (possibly incorrectly) that being tought about the US founding fathers would just be another thing you have to learn, not anything that actually resonates, as opposed to learning about them in a former colony or state/territory that was around back then.

I think that your understandable assumptions on the subject are due to you coming from Philadelphia. I could see a similar issue happening with people from Boston. There's such a great amount of overlap between local history and the roots of American history. I'm in New York, and in elementary school we spent a year or two learning about the Algonquin and the Iroquois, Henry Hudson's journeys, "Pegleg Pete" Stuyvesant and the colony of New Holland, Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys sacking Fort Ticonderoga, etc. Oddly enough, I never learned about General Montgomery, West Point, or the Newburgh Conspiracy until after I was in school, but that's besides the point. After that year or two, we alternated between American History and World History, learning the general view rather than a local one. Of course, the Valley where I live has a large revolutionary history as opposed to the City, which was held by the British and filled with Loyalists for most of the war. I assume it's the same across the country.

As for questions of whether or not we've learned of the west, our history books still cover Jayhawks, Santa Anna's seige of a humble mission, Seward's folly, and Princess Liliuokalani. I'm more interested in differences between our education and the South's when it comes to the Civil Wa- er... "War Between the States"

EDIT: I was told I had used too many quotes, and in trying to clean them up I accidentally screwed up some of the formatting. I hope no one minds if some things get twisted together. I'm sure everyone understand what I'm talking about and who I'm talking to.

[The Golden One]

I wrote a blog post about all the different A's socks that have been worn in the past several seasons

http://butattheendoftheday.com/2015/04/07/a-look-at-the-recent-history-of-the-oakland-athletics-socks/

It's a lot of different options. Standard solid gold, high stirrups, stirrups with logos, mismatching green stirrups and the two we've seen from the past two games.

Gotta keep an eye out if Hahn says where he got his. Because Sogard found the the striped socks he and Sonny wore. (Also seen on Billy Butler couple days ago) But I also remember when Rajai started wearing his. I believe he found them and asked the A's to get them for him.

I have a pair of the 1969 throwback socks and I assume Vuc just got them from the same company just with the darker shade of green. As for Hahn, I do wonder where he got his and if there is a rule about how many different sock designs are allowed during a season, let alone during a game.

With the new socks though. It sounds like Sogard just bought them in offseason on his own and handed some out. And with Sonny's tweet. It looks like Sogard got them from EBay.

[jrodsep]

if the Indians added silver to their colors and outlined the C with silver it would be x1000 better than this. They could even make it a white outline and be better.

It would also be nice if they could find a more interesting symbol to build their friggin' identity around.

I'm talking about the specifically about the caps. I would say that grand majority of MLB caps (home, road, alt, special occasion, etc.) use a letter on the cap. If they plan on sticking with the block "C" they can make some alterations to it. Like this:

[damnyoutuesday]

if the Indians added silver to their colors and outlined the C with silver it would be x1000 better than this. They could even make it a white outline and be better.

It would also be nice if they could find a more interesting symbol to build their friggin' identity around.

I'm talking about the specifically about the caps. I would say that grand majority of MLB caps (home, road, alt, special occasion, etc.) use a letter on the cap. If they plan on sticking with the block "C" they can make some alterations to it. Like this:

We all know someone is gonna b*tch about this and how it's "offensive." But I like it. It's unique

[TheRicSlick]

It's feathers on a C, hardly offensive.

[Tigers6884]

if the Indians added silver to their colors and outlined the C with silver it would be x1000 better than this. They could even make it a white outline and be better.

It would also be nice if they could find a more interesting symbol to build their friggin' identity around.

I'm talking about the specifically about the caps. I would say that grand majority of MLB caps (home, road, alt, special occasion, etc.) use a letter on the cap. If they plan on sticking with the block "C" they can make some alterations to it. Like this:

Now that's a billion times better than what they currently use!

[Tribe4477]

I don't believe this has been mentioned yet but the Indians have also changed the shade of blue on their alternate jerseys as well.

[phutmasterflex]

I don't believe this has been mentioned yet but the Indians have also changed the shade of blue on their alternate jerseys as well.

Yeah and it is really dark.

I know they changed the shade on the caps and it makes sense for the alt to match it. But wow, this looks really dark.

[TheOldRoman]

Wow. That looks terrible. Shades of the Mariners' circa-2000 "so dark it looks black" navy alt.

[FiddySicks]

I kinda like it.

[gmoore1203]

EDIT: I was told I had used too many quotes, and in trying to clean them up I accidentally screwed up some of the formatting. I hope no one minds if some things get twisted together. I'm sure everyone understand what I'm talking about and who I'm talking to.

did you really expect people to read all of that?

[CitizenTino]

That darker shade of navy on the Indians' hats and jerseys is *fantastic*. That's the shade the hats were until '03, and they never should have gone away from it in the first place. Getting the jerseys to match -- they were close in the 90s, but not quite there -- is an added bonus.