2023 World Baseball Classic

[Anubis2051]

8 hours ago, selgy said:

The shade of green at Chase Field looks like the normal Chase field green which is a darker shade 

 

Tokyo dome was the same, I wonder if they took any dark green wall as "that's fine"

 

 

Taichung, who's normal wall color I'm assuming is navy, has the same Marlins green:

 

[BBTV]

6 hours ago, WestCoastBias said:

 

Yet still the best uniforms in the tournament.

 

All the different manufacturers are making the tournament look amateurish, USA is the only team that truly has a big league feel to its uniform.

 

I don't see the issue here at all.  Sure some of the designs are completely terrible, but it's not MLB, and I like that some of the countries brought some flair to it rather than have it be the American standard of white v gray with mostly conservative designs.  I'm surprised that anyone on these boards would be against teams having their own designers and/or manufacturers.  I also don't love the assumption that every team uses the "manufacturer" (who often times isn't actually the manufacturer) to do the design work, when even at the top-tier levels, that's not 100% true (even if Nike and the like push it hard.)

[FinsUp1214]

6 hours ago, WestCoastBias said:

 

Yet still the best uniforms in the tournament.

 

All the different manufacturers are making the tournament look amateurish, USA is the only team that truly has a big league feel to its uniform.

I turned on the Colombia-Mexico game yesterday, and for a few seconds I saw Mexico and thought “now THAT’S a professional looking baseball uniform.” And then the player turned around and I saw the cheap-ish looking NOB on a single line and a lacking number font. Mexico was SO close to nailing it! At least the rest of the uniform looks good enough for it to still stand out among a sea of bad ones.

 

This may ultimately be something the WBC doesn’t care all that much about, but I do view the poor quality of the uniforms across the tournament as a real problem for legitimizing the tournament. If they want this to truly be treated as a big, global-stage event, it needs to look like one. This isn’t a matter of big-name manufacturers vs. little-name; the FIFA World Cup has all sorts of manufacturers too. It’s about craft, execution, and quality, and no team participating in a major world baseball tournament should have a wordmark the size of an index card on the front center of the jersey or look like rec league teams. The single manufacturer uniforms of past tournaments looked so much more legitimate.

[BBTV]

7 minutes ago, FinsUp1214 said:

If they want this to truly be treated as a big, global-stage event, it needs to look like one.

 

If they want it to look like a global event, then it should look like an American one.  

 

I know that's not exactly what you said, but it kinda is (and what others have said).  

 

Some of the designs absolutely suck - Great Britain's tiny wordmark, Canada's everything, Taiwan's logo, Italy, and even Cuba.  But again, different parts of the world have different established aesthetics.  I thought it was cool that Cuba seemed to always wear mono red in international tournaments.  I think it's cool that the Latin-American countries are bright and colorful, which reflects aspects of their culture that are in stark contrast to the relatively conservative North American way of things.

 

To look like a "global" event... it should look like a global event.  

[WestCoastBias]

2 minutes ago, FinsUp1214 said:

I turned on the Colombia-Mexico game yesterday, and for a few seconds I saw Mexico and thought “now THAT’S a professional looking baseball uniform.” And then the player turned around and I saw the cheap-ish looking NOB on a single line and a lacking number font. Mexico was SO close to nailing it! At least the rest of the uniform looks good enough for it to still stand out among a sea of bad ones.

 

This may ultimately be something the WBC doesn’t care all that much about, but I do view the poor quality of the uniforms across the tournament as a real problem for legitimizing the tournament. If they want this to truly be treated as a big, global-stage event, it needs to look like one. This isn’t a matter of big-name manufacturers vs. little-name; the FIFA World Cup has all sorts of manufacturers too. It’s about craft, execution, and quality, and no team participating in a major world baseball tournament should have a wordmark the size of an index card on the front center of the jersey or look like rec league teams. The single manufacturer uniforms of past tournaments looked so much more legitimate.

Yeah Mexico was so close. I think they look their best with a green jersey so that the word mark matches the hat logo but for some reason they didn’t do that this year.

 

What’s surprising to me is that there’s only 2 Nike teams (USA and Great Britain but GB is worse than a high school team), 2 Adidas teams (Puerto Rico and Colombia, both meh), and 1 Under Armour team (Canada who also looks like a high school team). You’d think those big 3 would want to be more in this tournament or actually do a better job with the teams they do have. Mizuno (Japan and China) and New Balance (Australia) are cool additions to that group but they screen printed their jerseys which make good uniforms look cheap. 

[BBTV]

Here's some photos from the Venezuelan* major league.  Why shouldn't Venezuela's national team reflect the aesthetic of its major league?  I don't think anyone else should be held to the baseline that the US has set.

 

Ironically, the US's cap logo and flag-S are, IMO, just as silly as some of the other designs.  I'd much prefer a Yankees-inspired design, or some variation of some of the classic White Sox logos that intertwined S O X, but with U S A.

 

*just using Venezuela as an example - the point applies to all countries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FinsUp1214]

32 minutes ago, BBTV said:

 

If they want it to look like a global event, then it should look like an American one.  

 

I know that's not exactly what you said, but it kinda is (and what others have said).  

 

Some of the designs absolutely suck - Great Britain's tiny wordmark, Canada's everything, Taiwan's logo, Italy, and even Cuba.  But again, different parts of the world have different established aesthetics.  I thought it was cool that Cuba seemed to always wear mono red in international tournaments.  I think it's cool that the Latin-American countries are bright and colorful, which reflects aspects of their culture that are in stark contrast to the relatively conservative North American way of things.

 

To look like a "global" event... it should look like a global event.  

While I completely see where you’re coming from and also see where you would have interpreted my comments this way, these aren’t my primary concerns. I’m talking strictly about the execution of the manufacturing here, which is problematic across a few teams. While things like mono-red and contrast stitching on hats aren’t my cup of tea, I also understand some of those choices are cultural and is to be expected on a global stage (I’m also Hispanic/Latino and get the bright-color aesthetic, so again, not a problem there). That doesn’t bother me for these purposes. 
 

What bothers me is when word marks and numbers look like printing errors that either didn’t get caught in time or weren’t thoroughly inspected, or when a team like the Netherlands* are wearing something that looks like they paid the lowest price for from the neck down. There’s a cheapness to the overall look of this tournament that I think is permeating a bit too much here, and that’s where my objection is. Not cultural design choices of color or monochromatic combos.

 

*EDIT: The Netherlands - not teams like Venezuela - was who I was referring to with the “rec league” comment, for clarification.

[WestCoastBias]

6 minutes ago, BBTV said:

 

If they want it to look like a global event, then it should look like an American one.  

 

I know that's not exactly what you said, but it kinda is (and what others have said).  

 

Some of the designs absolutely suck - Great Britain's tiny wordmark, Canada's everything, Taiwan's logo, Italy, and even Cuba.  But again, different parts of the world have different established aesthetics.  I thought it was cool that Cuba seemed to always wear mono red in international tournaments.  I think it's cool that the Latin-American countries are bright and colorful, which reflects aspects of their culture that are in stark contrast to the relatively conservative North American way of things.

 

To look like a "global" event... it should look like a global event.  

 

3 minutes ago, BBTV said:

Here's some photos from the Venezuelan* major league.  Why shouldn't Venezuela's national team reflect the aesthetic of its major league?  I don't think anyone else should be held to the baseline that the US has set.

 

Ironically, the US's cap logo and flag-S are, IMO, just as silly as some of the other designs.  I'd much prefer a Yankees-inspired design, or some variation of some of the classic White Sox logos that intertwined S O X, but with U S A.

 

*just using Venezuela as an example - the point applies to all countries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree, seeing the different baseball cultures being reflected on the uniforms is awesome. Whether it be the colors and brightness of the Caribbean teams or the more curved bill/low profile hats of the Asian teams.

 

But, the issue for me is the plethora of uniform manufacturers that look so cheap. This is the biggest international event for baseball and the quality of most teams uniforms look worse than high school teams here in America. 

[BBTV]

Fair enough. I don’t mind screen printing / heat pressing, since some of these designs could be difficult to pull off with twill or the rubberized material, but I would agree that designs aside, some do have a “cheap” feeling to them, even if they’re not literally cheap.  There are certainly a few that look like the letters were applied by the players themselves 5 minutes before the game starts, and the Netherlands jersey looks like something you’d buy in a tourist shop with its tiny and borderline-illegible  “kingdom of the” addition. 
 

 

 

[Mingjai]

17 hours ago, ltjets21 said:

They are Navy Blue. This year their colors are navy and orange

So they are. I saw the pics of their New Era hats and figured they were still black with just a logo change. But on closer inspection, the hats are dark navy too.

[MJWalker45]

5 hours ago, BBTV said:

Some of the designs absolutely suck - Great Britain's tiny wordmark, Canada's everything, Taiwan's logo, Italy, and even Cuba.  But again, different parts of the world have different established aesthetics.  I thought it was cool that Cuba seemed to always wear mono red in international tournaments.  I think it's cool that the Latin-American countries are bright and colorful, which reflects aspects of their culture that are in stark contrast to the relatively conservative North American way of things.

 

To look like a "global" event... it should look like a global event.  

Great Britain - Nike - Looks like they had a rush order and only had youth league size lettering available for the front.

Canada - Under Armour - Pretty much the same deal

 

For most of the Latin American teams, they  have a bunch of ads all over the jersey for the Latin World Series, so the numbers and nameplates being a bit off, makes sense. The only thing that really bugs me are when the numbers are the same color as the jersey, like China's red jersey. And this year it looks like some teams went the club soccer route in how they designed their uniforms, which gives them a unique look that stands out from their normal looks. I may not like most of them, but that's not the job of the people that put these looks together. 

[selgy]

18 hours ago, the admiral said:

No, Great Britain is England, Scotland, and Wales. The United Kingdom is the union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 

I saw this a while back and it helps clarify some of it. 

[BBTV]

Today I heard that Vance Worley (former Phillies and Pirates pitcher, who I think last played in 2016?) is playing for the UK GB because his mom was born in Hong Kong while it was under British rule, then moved to the states.  He didn't even know he was eligible to play until very recently.

 

That's all it takes.  

 

EDIT: left out the pic, showing the "prize" that he got to wear for his discovery:

 

[coco1997]

On 3/12/2023 at 1:17 AM, WestCoastBias said:

USA is the only team that truly has a big league feel to its uniform.

Disagree. Japan and Mexico's jerseys are MLB-caliber to me. No gradients, weird graphics or other gimmicky elements. Just clean, classy uniforms.

 

 

 

EDIT: I guess my one nitpick with Japan is the use of red on the caps when it doesn't appear anywhere on the rest of their uniforms. 

[The_Admiral]

 

This what they took from you

[maz]

1 hour ago, BBTV said:

 

 

These uniforms look like what I've always heard about British weather.

 

[ManillaToad]

EAT TAIN

[seasaltvanilla]

3 hours ago, selgy said:

I saw this a while back and it helps clarify some of it. 

 

Well, kind of. Ireland does not love that they're called the "British" Isles.

[Cujo]

Team USA is basically a preview of what every player would look like as an Atlanta Brave.

 

[officeglenn]

From Reddit: