Best alternate jersey in MLB

[Sport]

Don't forget the whole "black-on-purple" aspect. Talk about illegible.

Wait, what can't you read?

The pictured jersey. From any distance it's illegible, particularly the wordmark. The inline wordmark the Rockies use is decent in theory but it never works. And I don't know how they could fix it while using purple and black together. Make the white outline comically large? Make everything white with a black outline? Then the black outline would get lost against the purple. Maybe they could do silver numbers with a black outline and a white outer-outline. It would be a little cluttered, but at least you'd be able to read it.

I think the jersey is legible enough. But from a distance, it almost looks like purple letter/number (with outline) on purple jersey. Your comment on white numbers outlined in black illustrates why I think black and purple is one of the worst color combos in sports. There's just not enough contrast. It's part of why I hate the Ravens look...the Ravens have mitigated the issue somewhat with the gold. The below photo highlights what I hate. There's not enough contrast for the helmet stripes to have any value. The purple drop shadow is probably necessary to not lead to questions of "are they black and gold or black and purple?" But it's not particularly visible from a distance. Admittedly, their purple jersey is not quite as bad, but the contrast is still not adequate. The black drop shadow still gets lost on the purple jersey and the gold is still needed to buffer it. But black and purple seems pretty well-liked. Northwestern and TCU both add black to their purple; I think both looked better at times where they did not have it. But I am in the minority.

To me, the Ravens and the Rockies are going to always struggle to create really nice uniforms for this reason.

I agree. When I was in Denver I tried to find any piece of Rockies apparel that wasn't disgusting and that proved to be extremely difficult.

I settled on a charcoal t-shirt with their logo in grayscale. Anything in their actual colors was gross.

Purple/black suffers from the same problem that blue/black do. If the color's not bright enough it becomes invisible against black. The problem with purple is if you lighten it up too much then you're dealing with lavender and not many male sports teams want to use that.

[TheOldRoman]

Purple is problematic in general because of the variations of it. For example, I saw the Vikings season finale vs. the Bears. The game was outdoors, so the players had UnderArmour and assorted cold weather gear on. Well, those purple compression shirts right next to the purple jerseys looked like two entirely different colors.

But yes, purple and black work together in theory, but only in practice when entire large elements are the different colors. For example, Northwestern's Rose Bowl set wasn't bad because the helmet and pants were purple while the jersey was black. (They were wrong because NU shouldn't wear black, but I digress). But just using outlines is not going to work. Unfortunately for baseball, the closest thing you can get to large swaths of different color are a black hat with a purple jersey, and we see how bad that looks. The Rockies should look good, but they don't. I don't know how they could be fixed other than dropping black entirely.

As for the Ravens, I pretty much hate their set but think it's a handful of tweaks away from being really good. That said, I don't at all mind the helmet stripes because I view them as superfluous. You don't need to see them because it's a black helmet and that striping doesn't appear elsewhere on the uniforms. So, if you see them - "Oh, hey. Purple stripes." and if you don't, it's still a solid black helmet like so many other teams wear.

[OnWis97]

Purple is problematic in general because of the variations of it. For example, I saw the Vikings season finale vs. the Bears. The game was outdoors, so the players had UnderArmour and assorted cold weather gear on. Well, those purple compression shirts right next to the purple jerseys looked like two entirely different colors.

But yes, purple and black work together in theory, but only in practice when entire large elements are the different colors. For example, Northwestern's Rose Bowl set wasn't bad because the helmet and pants were purple while the jersey was black. (They were wrong because NU shouldn't wear black, but I digress). But just using outlines is not going to work. Unfortunately for baseball, the closest thing you can get to large swaths of different color are a black hat with a purple jersey, and we see how bad that looks. The Rockies should look good, but they don't. I don't know how they could be fixed other than dropping black entirely.

As for the Ravens, I pretty much hate their set but think it's a handful of tweaks away from being really good. That said, I don't at all mind the helmet stripes because I view them as superfluous. You don't need to see them because it's a black helmet and that striping doesn't appear elsewhere on the uniforms. So, if you see them - "Oh, hey. Purple stripes." and if you don't, it's still a solid black helmet like so many other teams wear.

I don't really agree with that theory then. Yes NW's purple helmet was fine in a vacuum as was their black jersey* (forgetting the "school colors" issue, which I am with you on). The purple helmet and pants stood out nicely vs. the black jersey. However, that brings up an entirely different problem (though one that bugs me far more than most); the separation of the colors. If two colors belong together they really ought to be able to co-exist on the same article of clothing. The NW Rose Bowl jersey was black with plain white numbers. No purple (having googled it, it looks like the cat head on the sleeve logo is purple). The school color was not really on the jersey. And even if black and purple were equal colors (like with the Ravens), that they need to be separated to work makes it a pretty poor combo in my opinion.

*Actually after googling it, the black jersey was pretty lame.

[TheOldRoman]

They moved the cat logo to the sleeves to accommodate the Rose Bowl patches. However, during the regular season, they had Northwestern stripes on the sleeves with the logo on the shoulders (very busy). The Northwestern stripes did have a purple center stripe on both jerseys.

I agree with your point. I think those jerseys are as close as you can come to making black and purple work together, but there are still glaring issues with the combo. From a distance, you have both colors there working together and not blending. However, it's bad up close. The pants have no black and the jersey has little purple. Something like those jerseys or TCU's (although the contrasting sleeves blend into the jerseys from a distance) are about as good as one could hope for when combining those colors.

[leopard88]

As for the Ravens, I pretty much hate their set but think it's a handful of tweaks away from being really good.

Out of curiosity, what tweaks do you have in mind?

[TheOldRoman]

As for the Ravens, I pretty much hate their set but think it's a handful of tweaks away from being really good.

Out of curiosity, what tweaks do you have in mind?

First off, I'd switch the helmet to the profile raven head logo they never use. It's not very good, but it's better than what they have. I'd add a thin gold stripe to the white pants between the black and purple stripes. I'd then bring back the second set of black pants (white-purple-white stripe) and add a thin gold stripe around the purple stripes. The black pants would only be worn with the white jerseys, and be matched with white socks that had the same pattern as their white pants (black-gold-purple-gold-black). Of course, this would require the team using the old style of pants to replicate metallic gold and not tan. I'd also add striping to the black socks like the new black pants. Finally, I'd either switch to a wider block font or keep the current crappy font and turn the dropshadow into a second outline.

[martymcfry]

I love the Mariners teal, I look forward to home Monday and Friday games because of it. I'd also have to say for my homer pick it would the new Sunday alternate. The Mariners were also successful using the navy jerseys, which automatically makes me like those to.

UNPOPULAR OPINION: I like the Rangers' red cap and jersey. I know most people hate it.

[AnPheitseog]

I love the Mariners teal, I look forward to home Monday and Friday games because of it. I'd also have to say for my homer pick it would the new Sunday alternate. The Mariners were also successful using the navy jerseys, which automatically makes me like those to.

UNPOPULAR OPINION: I like the Rangers' red cap and jersey. I know most people hate it.

I would love to see a game where Red caps and blue jerseys are worn with white pants

[spoz851]

Biased on these: Phillies creams...........

Unbiased:

Orioles orange

Blue jays blue

Athletics yellows

White sox grey

[leopard88]

As for the Ravens, I pretty much hate their set but think it's a handful of tweaks away from being really good.

Out of curiosity, what tweaks do you have in mind?

First off, I'd switch the helmet to the profile raven head logo they never use. It's not very good, but it's better than what they have. I'd add a thin gold stripe to the white pants between the black and purple stripes. I'd then bring back the second set of black pants (white-purple-white stripe) and add a thin gold stripe around the purple stripes. The black pants would only be worn with the white jerseys, and be matched with white socks that had the same pattern as their white pants (black-gold-purple-gold-black). Of course, this would require the team using the old style of pants to replicate metallic gold and not tan. I'd also add striping to the black socks like the new black pants. Finally, I'd either switch to a wider block font or keep the current crappy font and turn the dropshadow into a second outline.

1. I wholeheartedly agree on the helmet.

2. The change to the pants stripes and socks sounds good to me. I am partial to the white pants (partially because I generally dislike dark pants), but your change might salvage the black ones.

3. I like the numbers as is. Out of your options, I would prefer the latter.

Someone with actual design skills, make this happen . . . please.

[FamousAtticus]

[TheRicSlick]

Best current:

Best all-time:

[WSU151]

Pretty sure that teal Marlins jersey was their BP jersey, not a regular alternate.

[jrodsep]

Pretty sure that teal Marlins jersey was their BP jersey, not a regular alternate.

I was pretty sure it was an alternate but it seems that it was a BP jersey but it was used during regular games. Either way it looked good.

But I still prefer the sleeveless look with teal undershirt/cap/socks.

[TheOldRoman]

The only actual alternate of the teal era was the sleeveless home jersey. The Marlins never wore that in a game, which is a shame since it's amazing.

[johnnysama]

My faves:

The Mets blue jersey

The Mariners teal jersey

The White Sox black jersey

And, uh, that's it.

The Yankees.

Yes. and the Dodgers.

To be fair, the Dodgers DO have an alternate jersey now.

It's hard to call it an alt when it was worn more than the primary Los Angeles jerseys.

I've said this before, and I will say it again: Add a white outline to the Dodger script and maybe bring back that white-blue-white sleeve trim and you have a winner. (Although, why did they change from that after 1998?)

[Tigers6884]

Best all-time:

[JayMac]

Best current:

Best all-time:

I think that if the jersey were updated a little bit, the teal look could definitely work in 2015.

[lahaye7]

I love the Mariners teal, I look forward to home Monday and Friday games because of it. I'd also have to say for my homer pick it would the new Sunday alternate. The Mariners were also successful using the navy jerseys, which automatically makes me like those to.

UNPOPULAR OPINION: I like the Rangers' red cap and jersey. I know most people hate it.

I would love to see a game where Red caps and blue jerseys are worn with white pants

I'd say that's a 4th of July no brainer.

[Dbroalexander]

They've been posted a few times, but Oakland's yellows just look fantastic