Bringing MLB's '90s Expansion Teams into the Modern Day (Rockies 5/6)

[coco1997]

With the enormous popularity of the Rays' and Marlins' (and Diamondbacks', until they were sadly retired prior to this season) '90s throwbacks, I was inspired to experiment with tweaking those early uniforms so that they could work in 2023 not just as alternates, but as full-time looks. My theory is that enough time has passed since the early-late '90s that people have nostalgia for those unis that they might not have had, say, ten or twelve years ago.

 

Let Jon Hamm explain it to you better than I can:

 

 

With that said, first up are the Rays!

 

RAYS HOME:

 

RAYS ROAD:

 

RAYS HOME/ROAD ALT:

 

Notes:

- I'd argue those original Devil Rays uniforms are the best the team ever looked, largely because most of what they've worn in the decades since has been somewhat, shall we say, bland. However, that's not to say those original Devil Rays uniforms were perfect, which I'll get into below. 

- Since I didn't want to just revert to the team's original identity, I decided to retain the "Rays" moniker, keeping in mind that they've now been called the "Rays" longer than they were ever the Devil Rays. The team's 1998-2000 batting practice jerseys give us an idea of what the team would've looked like had they been called the "Rays" all along. 

- The Rays' current throwbacks are really more like "fauxbacks." Since the cap was only seldomly worn between 1998-2000, I've restored the original "TB" cap logo and replaced black throughout the uniforms not with navy but with dark purple from the team's original primary logo. 

- I went all-in on the gradient, applying it to the back numbers, socks, sleeves (inspired by this prototype from 1997) and pants. Newly added solid-colored front numbers help offset the "gimmickiness" of the wordmark's gradient. 

- For the road, I've never liked any of the "Tampa Bay" wordmarks the Rays have used, and rather than just slap the "Rays" wordmark on every jersey in the rotation (which is exactly what the team did up until about a year or so ago) I used the cap "TB," similar to these '80s-early '90s Giants road jerseys. I also went with more traditional, non-gradient piping. 
- The alt is probably my favorite of the set, as the wordmark really pops against the dark purple of the jersey. 

 

C&C appreciated! The Marlins or Diamondbacks will be up next. 

[CLEstones]

So, you think a gradient is a modern trend and NOT one firmly planted in the 90s?

[coco1997]

Just now, CLEstones said:

So, you think a gradient is a modern trend and NOT one firmly planted in the 90s?

 

Not necessarily, but I do think that with the advent of Nike's City Connect program, people might be more willing to accept unconventional design features.

[WSU151]

I think these would be just fine with out the gradient number on the back of the whites and grays. Would be cool if the batterman were light green and light blue. 

[coco1997]

On 4/10/2023 at 4:24 PM, WSU151 said:

I think these would be just fine with out the gradient number on the back of the whites and grays. Would be cool if the batterman were light green and light blue. 

Good suggestion regarding the batterman. I'll go back and add the gradient soon. As for the numbers, I'd prefer to keep the gradient, since it makes the team look more distinctive from behind. 

 

Up next are the Florida Miami Marlins!

 

MARLINS HOME:

 

MARLINS ROAD:

 

MARLINS HOME ALT:

 

MARLINS ROAD ALT:

Notes:
 

- Someone in the MLB 2023 thread suggested that the Marlins' current wordmarks and numbers might look good with team's original teal and black colors, so that's exactly what I did here. Florida's old scripts and logos were actually my least favorite part of their old identity, while Miami's current scripts and numbers are my favorite part of theirs, so it seemed only natural to combine them. 

- There's some debate as to which of the Marlins' early looks is the best, and while I do have a soft spot for their inaugural teal-heavy look, I have to admit that the black front numbers and cap bill help ground the design a bit. 

- Miami shockingly never used a regular season teal alt during their teal years, so I've addressed that oversight here with the home alt. 

 

C&C appreciated as always! The D-Backs are next. 

[coco1997]

On second thought, how about adding a touch of orange to the Marlins' teal & black?

MARLINS HOME:

 

MARLINS ROAD:

 

MARLINS HOME ALT:

 

MARLINS ROAD ALT:

 

After all, orange was a big part of Florida's 2003-11 alternate logo, as well as the team's original alternate logo. This makes the uniforms pop a lot better than with silver, IMO. 

[TheMilkman]

I’d take this over what they currently have any day of the week! So much more life and color! I especially like the pinstripes and sleeve piping you went with! Feels like the Marlins of old. 
 

The only nitpick I have is that the sleeve patch has three variations between four uniforms. I’d just pick one and roll it across the set - or at most have two - one coloway for home/away and a second for alt 1/alt 2

[johne9109]

I like the addition of orange. Gives them some unity with the Dolphins

[coco1997]

21 hours ago, johne9109 said:

I like the addition of orange. Gives them some unity with the Dolphins

Agreed!
 

On 4/15/2023 at 12:57 PM, TheMilkman said:

I’d take this over what they currently have any day of the week! So much more life and color! I especially like the pinstripes and sleeve piping you went with! Feels like the Marlins of old. 
 

The only nitpick I have is that the sleeve patch has three variations between four uniforms. I’d just pick one and roll it across the set - or at most have two - one coloway for home/away and a second for alt 1/alt 2

Thanks for the feedback! Very fair point about the number of sleeve patch variations. Here's a tweaked version:

 

MARLINS HOME:

 

MARLINS ROAD:

MARLINS HOME ALT:

MARLINS ROAD ALT:

 

The same "M" logo now appears on three of the four jerseys, with the flying fish/ST cap logo on the home alt. I also tweaked the color pattern of the sleeve stripes on the road jersey. 

[BiggityBerfa]

Maybe try pink in place of the orange

[VampyrRabbit]

Tampa Bay is great, the sleeve stripes and the gradient are both fantastic.

As for the Marlins, I much prefer the teal and black, the current logos look really good in that colour scheme.

[coco1997]

On 4/18/2023 at 2:36 PM, VampyrRabbit said:

Tampa Bay is great, the sleeve stripes and the gradient are both fantastic.

As for the Marlins, I much prefer the teal and black, the current logos look really good in that colour scheme.

Thanks! 

Wrapping up today with the D-Backs:

 

D-BACKS HOME:

D-BACKS ROAD:

D-BACKS HOME ALT:

 

D-BACKS ROAD ALT:

Notes:

 

- A few years back, someone on this forum suggested the D-Backs split the difference between their original purple and current Sedona red and roll with a shade of magenta, so that's what I did here. The color evokes the purple of the early D-Backs, but it's different enough that you'd avoid comparisons with the division rival Rockies. 

- I went back and forth on whether to put Arizona in vests for their home look but ultimately decided against it. For my money, only a few teams in MLB have ever truly looked good in vests (Pirates, Reds, A's and maybe Rockies) and sleeveless jerseys feel like one of those fads that's best left in the late '90s-early 2000s. 

- No tacky "D-Backs" wordmark on either of the alts, just "Arizona" and the "A" logo. 
- One of my big issues with the original D-Backs uniforms was the combination of multiple muted colors, so in addition to magenta replacing purple, copper is replaced with the yellowish off-white from the home uniform. 
- Decided to use the rounded numbers from the team's 2007-15- look. 
 

C&C appreciated! No reason to touch the Rockies, unless someone can make a compelling case for it. 

[fortunat1]

This entire series has been fantastic! Arizona's color palette and distribution is great, and really allows both colors to be visible without one being overpowering. My only suggestion would be to see a version of the jerseys without the drop-shadow on the wordmark, as I think it looks a bit out of place with the rest of the jersey elements. Great work!

[VampyrRabbit]

I think it's a mistake to drop copper, as not only is it the state metal of Arizona, when it oxidizes it produces teal/turquoise and black compounds. A D-Backs Uniform never feels right without the copper, I would like to see a brighter copper used instead of the cream for the logos, trim and numbers. The cream as the base colour for home and home alt pants looks great with the new magneta colour.

I would also use the db snakehead logo on the sleeves of at least one of the jerseys, that logo is beautiful and with it's abstract, angular design, feels like it should have been in the original logo set instead of the snake with the baseball.

[coco1997]

On 4/19/2023 at 3:12 PM, fortunat1 said:

This entire series has been fantastic! Arizona's color palette and distribution is great, and really allows both colors to be visible without one being overpowering. My only suggestion would be to see a version of the jerseys without the drop-shadow on the wordmark, as I think it looks a bit out of place with the rest of the jersey elements. Great work!

Thank you! And good suggestion to remove drop shadows. I had completely forgotten that Arizona actually used a non-drop shadowed version of that script, so I don't know why I didn't just use that to begin with. The other solution would've been to add drop shadows to the numbers, which I didn't want to do.

 

On 4/20/2023 at 7:54 AM, VampyrRabbit said:

I think it's a mistake to drop copper, as not only is it the state metal of Arizona, when it oxidizes it produces teal/turquoise and black compounds. A D-Backs Uniform never feels right without the copper, I would like to see a brighter copper used instead of the cream for the logos, trim and numbers. The cream as the base colour for home and home alt pants looks great with the new magneta colour.

I would also use the db snakehead logo on the sleeves of at least one of the jerseys, that logo is beautiful and with it's abstract, angular design, feels like it should have been in the original logo set instead of the snake with the baseball.

How about replacing not cream, but black with that shade of copper you shared? I feel I still need a very light color like cream or white trim to break up the other three colors, or my concept is going to wind up having the same problem as those original D-Backs uniforms. 

 

As for the snake "db," the premise of this series was updating the expansion teams' original looks, and the "db" wasn't introduced until 2007. While I don't mind that logo, I would never choose it over the original snake, and two snake-themed logos on one design would be overkill, in my opinion. 

 

@fortunat1 @VampyrRabbit here's an update of the D-Backs incorporating both of your suggestions:

 

D-BACKS HOME:

 

D-BACKS ROAD:

 

D-BACKS HOME ALT:

 

D-BACKS ROAD ALT:

 

I opted to drop the pinstripes from the road set, because I realized the D-Backs were probably just chasing trends as road pins were big in the '90s, and I like the idea of the Padres owning that look in the NL West in the present day. I feel the non-pinstriped version looks cleaner.

Also, despite the fact that I pretty much eliminated black from this version, I kept the black alt because it looks too good not to use. 

C&C appreciated! 

[gimmick]

On the jerseys with a front left chest logo, line up the front number with the chest logo and I would love all of these.

[coco1997]

10 minutes ago, gimmick said:

On the jerseys with a front left chest logo, line up the front number with the chest logo and I would love all of these.

Are you referring to the D-Backs designs?

[VampyrRabbit]

The addition of light copper makes the home jersey even better, and while I would have used the copper in place of the cream for the rest of the uniforms (the copper I feel is light enough and the magneta and teal contrast enough to avoid the muted colours problem), it still looks good.

While I like the magneta, I would have stuck with Purple and while there would still be comparisons with The Rockies, the cream base and the Arizona AF colours of Copper and Teal (along with the sleeveless jersey being the definative version) would distinguish it enough from the Rockies. And for my money, the Arizona Diamondbacks got far closer to a timeless look with their 2001 home sleeveless Jersey uniform with the A logo than Colorado ever did with any variant of their home look.

I would like to see an update for The Rockies, considering out of all of the four teams, they were the only ones to stick with their look apart from a subtle change with their purple shade, and it's probably the look that has aged the worst.

[gimmick]

All of them (Rays, Marlins and Diamondbacks).

[coco1997]

On 4/22/2023 at 5:37 PM, VampyrRabbit said:

While I like the magneta, I would have stuck with Purple and while there would still be comparisons with The Rockies, the cream base and the Arizona AF colours of Copper and Teal (along with the sleeveless jersey being the definative version) would distinguish it enough from the Rockies. And for my money, the Arizona Diamondbacks got far closer to a timeless look with their 2001 home sleeveless Jersey uniform with the A logo than Colorado ever did with any variant of their home look.

I would like to see an update for The Rockies, considering out of all of the four teams, they were the only ones to stick with their look apart from a subtle change with their purple shade, and it's probably the look that has aged the worst.

 

I tend to think the Rockies should "own" purple the way the Padres own brown or the A's own green and gold. After all, they beat Arizona to it by five years  and the color is more germane to their identity (purple mountain majesty). I think magenta works just as well for Arizona to convey a Southwestern feel, especially by evoking desert skies at sunset. 

 

What are you thinking for a Rockies tweak? One idea I had was to go straight purple, dropping the black entirely, or pairing purple with green, a la the team's City Connect look. 

 

12 hours ago, gimmick said:

All of them (Rays, Marlins and Diamondbacks).

How's this?

RAYS ROAD:

 

MARLINS HOME ALT:

 

D-BACKS HOME:

 

D-BACKS ROAD ALT: