MLB 2024 Uniform/Logo Changes

[coco1997]

14 hours ago, schlim said:

I think we can stop with the sanctity of the Yankees uniforms. Classics yes, but there's an ad patch on them, so the hand wringing over an alternate jersey is closing the barn doors at this point. Plus, they've worn every mother's day, little league, camoflauge and other assorted merchandise MLB has offered over the years.

Bingo.

 

Like I said, the Yankees could easily do something that’s different than anything they currently wear but still fits within the parameters of their identity. Reverse pinstripes or monochrome navy would both hearken back to the team’s history, and a “Yankees” script or block wordmark on the front would look really nice. I mean, would anyone really be opposed to the Yanks wearing a jersey that actually said “Yankees” on it?
 

I hate to use the Dodgers’ City Connect uniforms as an example because they’re easily one of the worst, but the Bronx Bombers could base the basic idea of their design off those and I think it could work well. 

[McCall]

A special one-off holiday/special occasion treatment to their regular uniforms is not the equivalent of City Connect/Full-Time Alternate uniform, so this "oh they've already done it, so they're hypocrites if they don't" crap is nothing more than sanctimonious nonsense. They are not the same thing. Each special occasion uniform is worn once a year (or one series a year) and are really just wordmarks or logos of their regular uniforms recolored with pink or blue or camo, not completely new designs that are worn throughout the season.

[aawagner011]

Giants - they look fine. I think this would be very hard to identify as being different unless you’re someone like us who follow every minute detail. The sleeve trim appears to have changed from a thin braid to a thin cuff sewn into the end of the sleeve. The change wouldn’t be my first choice because it causes the end of the sleeve to bunch up a bit. But overall, rather harmless. Player names appear to be smaller across all of baseball, and must be a Nike driven change. I think I’m ok with it because there are so many clubs with massive nameplates that look ridiculous if the name is anything more than 8 letters. The smaller player name also helps keep the number in roughly the same spot. It doesn’t appear too low on the back, which was a concern when the MLB logo was moved outside the headspoon.

 

 

 

 

[Marlins93]

2 hours ago, MJD7 said:

Only a few are real stinkers (Baltimore, Dodgers, San Diego).

 

I'd add the Brewers, Reds, Giants, Braves (lazy), and maybe even the Red Sox to that list.  Pirates are among the absolute worst, too, even aside from the batting helmets. The Braves is basically a derivative knock-off of a throwback.

[MJD7]

57 minutes ago, Marlins93 said:

I'd add the Brewers, Reds, Giants, Braves (lazy), and maybe even the Red Sox to that list.  Pirates are among the absolute worst, too, even aside from the batting helmets. The Braves is basically a derivative knock-off of a throwback.

The Brewers are pretty "meh" to me, I like the choice to go with powder blue & the sleeve stripes design is pretty clever, but the rest is kind of a miss for me. It's not a disaster, but it's pretty uninspiring.

 

I actually kind of like the Reds', they were willing to completely go all-in a futuristic design instead of the "respect the past, embrace the future" trope so many teams employ, to good or bad effect. 

 

I'd like the Giants' better if they went with the darker "International Orange" that matched the Golden Gate Bridge, & the fog seems like a good concept but it was executed poorly. Using a "G" instead of "SF" or "San Francisco" was also a poor choice. I wouldn't call it a complete fail, but it's definitely near the bottom.

 

The Braves' is definitely a copout to keep the throwback in the rotation, but all things considered, it's probably the result that most people here would want. If they did anything else, people would say it's too much of a departure from the brand (which is a perfectly reasonable opinion). I wish they were a bit more adventurous myself, but I wouldn't call it bad or anything.

 

On the contrary, the Red Sox' uniform looks pretty nice aesthetically, but feels like such a departure from the Red Sox' brand. A Fenway Park inspired uniform would've been a much safer route to go, while still tying into the city, in my opinion. On the other hand, given how intertwined the Sox and the Boston Marathon are, the inspiration for this one is near the top, in regards to sticking to the premise of connecting to the city.

 

If the Pirates' jersey spelled out "Pittsburgh," instead of the silly abbreviation, I'd be perfectly happy with it (again, apart from the batting helmet). A gold jersey with black pants is a welcome readdition to the Pirates' rotation. 

 

To summarize, each of the jerseys you mentioned definitely have their flaws, like many jerseys do in our eyes, but I wouldn't call any of them complete fails, like many of the recent NBA City jerseys have been.

[The_Admiral]

8 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Yankee fans in my day had a  scholarly bent

 

Yeah, bent up your own ass, what a stupid post

[coco1997]

8 hours ago, Marlins93 said:

 

I'd add the Brewers, Reds, Giants, Braves (lazy), and maybe even the Red Sox to that list.  Pirates are among the absolute worst, too, even aside from the batting helmets. The Braves is basically a derivative knock-off of a throwback.

The Braves one was clearly Atlanta’s way of skirting around Nike’s 4+1 rule since they didn’t want to drop either of their alternates. I kind of respect them for doing that, haha. 

[AstroCreep]

8 hours ago, aawagner011 said:

 

I don't think the numbers are gonna bother me as much as I initially thought. You can hardly notice form a far and even close up, it's not much to talk about. 

The lower batterman's logo is just unnecessary. It leaves this huge space from the collar. The entire back looks awkward as a whole. They had all this time to figure it out and they couldn't shrink the logo?  

 

I need MLB and Nike to just release a catalogue of everyone's new template already. It's bugging me how they're slowly and quietly getting revealed. 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

7 hours ago, the admiral said:

15 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Yankee fans in my day had a  scholarly bent

 

Yeah, bent up your own ass, what a stupid post

 

Says the guy who's too young to know better.

 

When I started watching baseball and became a Yankee fan, it was the early 1970s, and being a Yankee fan was definitely not cool. The glow of the Mets' 1969 World Championship was still everywhere; and this was only exacerbated by the team's late-season comeback in 1973 to win the division and win another pennant, before taking the mighty Oakland A's to seven games in that year's World Series.

 

At that time, the Yankees were strictly passé. They were the team best known for hyping guys who turned out to be disappointments, guys such as Rusty Torres and Frank Tepedino. Even the supposed superstar, Bobby Murcer, who was indeed a quality player, was not the generational talent that the team had been touting, and would never equal his one great season.

 

The lone actual star on that team, Thurman Munson, had yet to blossom, while the consistent and underrated Roy White was most often overlooked.

 

The Mets were dazzling with their stellar starting rotation of Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and later Jon Matlack; by contrast, the Yankees were trudging along with a fading Mel Stottlemyre, together with an inconsistent Fritz Peterson and the occasionally brilliant Mike Kekich (the latter two of whom were involved in a phony "scandal" when aspects of their private lives were reported on and unjustly mocked).

 

In this environment, the Met fans were the know-nothing trend-followers, and we Yankee fans were, yes, the scholars. We were the ones who were actually familiar with the players and the teams from both leagues. When the Mets would acquire a new player, the Met fans at my school would have to ask us — the Yankee fans, and therefore the serious baseball fans — about that player. When a Met fan was about to go to a game, that Met fan would ask us for a rundown of the opposition. For we were the Yankee fans, the keepers of the knowledge.

 

Then the Lean Years ended, and we Yankee fans got our championship teams. Still, immediately thereafter, we were knocked down again by having no World Championships in the entire 1980s, during which time the Mets once again became the media darlings — and, therefore, once again became the go-to team for the empty-headed know-nothings. And so for a second time, now as an adult, I had the experience of my Met-fan friends asking me for information on new acquisitions, on call-ups, and on opposing players.

 

I retired from following current baseball after 1996, when the Yankees were nice enough to play me out with a championship. So I watched the Yankees' resurgence after that as an outsider. And what became clear to me was that the nature of Yankee fans had altered radically. While Yankee fans of my generation were arrogantly haughty, the Yankee fans of the latter generation were just loutish.

 

In the 1970s, Yankee fans would cheer for many great opposing players. Amongst the opposing players who always got great receptions at Yankee Stadium were Brooks Robinson, Andre Thornton, and Rod Carew.  This recalls the stories of Dodger fans at Ebbets Field always cheering for Stan Musial. 

 

The character of Yankee fans of my generation can be illustrated by two events involving Tom Seaver. First, after Seaver was traded from the Mets in June of 1977, his first appearance in New York came a few weeks later at the All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium. His introduction before the game elicited the biggest ovation of the night, bigger than that for the several Yankee players in the game, or for Yankee manager Billy Martin, who was managing the American League.

 

The second event came in August of 1985, when Seaver faced the Yankees at the Stadium going for his 300th career victory. During that game, something remarkable happened: the crowd turned. This had happened for individual moments, for instance, when Reggie Jackson made his first appearance back at the Stadium after signing with the Angels, and was cheered for homering against Ron Guidry. But for the first and only time in history, an entire packed Yankee Stadium turned for the whole game, rooting against the Yankees as they cheered for Seaver. After Seaver got his complete-game victory, the capacity crowd stood and roared, and demanded a curtain call.

 

This is what my kind of Yankee fandom had been about. Seaver, unlike Jackson, was not a former Yankee. Rather, he was a former Met. Yet Yankee fans, being at that time the epitome of great and knowledgeable baseball fans, ignored petty partisanship to pay appropriate respect to greatness.

 

There is a profound difference between the Yankee fans of my day and those of the current day. If the Seaver scenarios had played out at any time after 2000, the Yankee fans of today would certainly have booed a longtime Met, rather than cheer a baseball hero.

[Marlins93]

 

8 hours ago, MJD7 said:

If the Pirates' jersey spelled out "Pittsburgh," instead of the silly abbreviation, I'd be perfectly happy with it (again, apart from the batting helmet). A gold jersey with black pants is a welcome readdition to the Pirates' rotation. 

 

To summarize, each of the jerseys you mentioned definitely have their flaws, like many jerseys do in our eyes, but I wouldn't call any of them complete fails, like many of the recent NBA City jerseys have been.

 

The obnoxious PGH on the Pirates City Connect is not just "a flaw" it's a hideous abomination that also doesn't have any real local connection. It's just a lazy fabrication by Nike, which rings true for the other misfires I've flagged. Yes, it's the official abbreviation for Pittsburgh, but it's not something that's cherished or embraced among locals. And the Pirates don't need a Nike marketing gimmick in order to introduce a gold jersey into their rotation. It's already one of their team colors.

 

Anyway, I think you are understating the extent to these "flaws." IMO they are absolute fails. 

 

There's a handful of strong to decent jersey concepts in the mix, but I wouldn't place the MLB version of this on a much higher pedestal than I would the NBA's.

[Ark]

Tigers need a Magnum PI jersey

 

[FiddySicks]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

Says the guy who's too young to know better.

 

When I started watching baseball and became a Yankee fan, it was the early 1970s, and being a Yankee fan was definitely not cool. The glow of the Mets' 1969 World Championship was still everywhere; and this was only exacerbated by the team's late-season comeback in 1973 to win the division and win another pennant, before taking the mighty Oakland A's to seven games in that year's World Series.

 

At that time, the Yankees were strictly passé. They were the team best known for hyping guys who turned out to be disappointments, guys such as Rusty Torres and Frank Tepedino. Even the supposed superstar, Bobby Murcer, who was indeed a quality player, was not the generational talent that the team had been touting, and would never equal his one great season.

 

The lone actual star on that team, Thurman Munson, had yet to blossom, while the consistent and underrated Roy White was most often overlooked.

 

The Mets were dazzling with their stellar starting rotation of Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and later Jon Matlack; by contrast, the Yankees were trudging along with a fading Mel Stottlemyre, together with an inconsistent Fritz Peterson and the occasionally brilliant Mike Kekich (the latter two of whom were involved in a phony "scandal" when aspects of their private lives were reported on and unjustly mocked).

 

In this environment, the Met fans were the know-nothing trend-followers, and we Yankee fans were, yes, the scholars. We were the ones who were actually familiar with the players and the teams from both leagues. When the Mets would acquire a new player, the Met fans at my school would have to ask us — the Yankee fans, and therefore the serious baseball fans — about that player. When a Met fan was about to go to a game, that Met fan would ask us for a rundown of the opposition. For we were the Yankee fans, the keepers of the knowledge.

 

Then the Lean Years ended, and we Yankee fans got our championship teams. Still, immediately thereafter, we were knocked down again by having no World Championships in the entire 1980s, during which time the Mets once again became the media darlings — and, therefore, once again became the go-to team for the empty-headed know-nothings. And so for a second time, now as an adult, I had the experience of my Met-fan friends asking me for information on new acquisitions, on call-ups, and on opposing players.

 

I retired from following current baseball after 1996, when the Yankees were nice enough to play me out with a championship. So I watched the Yankees' resurgence after that as an outsider. And what became clear to me was that the nature of Yankee fans had altered radically. While Yankee fans of my generation were arrogantly haughty, the Yankee fans of the latter generation were just loutish.

 

In the 1970s, Yankee fans would cheer for many great opposing players. Amongst the opposing players who always got great receptions at Yankee Stadium were Brooks Robinson, Andre Thornton, and Rod Carew.  This recalls the stories of Dodger fans at Ebbets Field always cheering for Stan Musial. 

 

The character of Yankee fans of my generation can be illustrated by two events involving Tom Seaver. First, after Seaver was traded from the Mets in June of 1977, his first appearance in New York came a few weeks later at the All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium. His introduction before the game elicited the biggest ovation of the night, bigger than that for the several Yankee players in the game, or for Yankee manager Billy Martin, who was managing the American League.

 

The second event came in August of 1985, when Seaver faced the Yankees at the Stadium going for his 300th career victory. During that game, something remarkable happened: the crowd turned. This had happened for individual moments, for instance, when Reggie Jackson made his first appearance back at the Stadium after signing with the Angels, and was cheered for homering against Ron Guidry. But for the first and only time in history, an entire packed Yankee Stadium turned for the whole game, rooting against the Yankees as they cheered for Seaver. After Seaver got his complete-game victory, the capacity crowd stood and roared, and demanded a curtain call.

 

This is what my kind of Yankee fandom had been about. Seaver, unlike Jackson, was not a former Yankee. Rather, he was a former Met. Yet Yankee fans, being at that time the epitome of great and knowledgeable baseball fans, ignored petty partisanship to pay appropriate respect to greatness.

 

There is a profound difference between the Yankee fans of my day and those of the current day. If the Seaver scenarios had played out at any time after 2000, the Yankee fans of today would certainly have booed a longtime Met, rather than cheer a baseball hero.

[monkeypower]

2 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

with an inconsistent Fritz Peterson and the occasionally brilliant Mike Kekich (the latter two of whom were involved in a phony "scandal" when aspects of their private lives were reported on and unjustly mocked).

 

You're just going to drop that in there partway through your manifesto? I also think swapping wives and subsequently families is something that is going to get some level of mocking and questioning.

 

The two of them were also the ones that made it public in the first place.

[The_Admiral]

Joyless know-it-all Yankee fans still exist; they all moved to Jersey and called Francesa's show. Thank God the rest of them didn't all come here.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

2 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

 

Because I am comfortable with being a blowhard, I am not bothered if someone thinks my account is wanky. The important thing is that it is completely accurate.

 

 

1 hour ago, monkeypower said:

4 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

with an inconsistent Fritz Peterson and the occasionally brilliant Mike Kekich (the latter two of whom were involved in a phony "scandal" when aspects of their private lives were reported on and unjustly mocked).

 

You're just going to drop that in there partway through your manifesto? I also think swapping wives and subsequently families is something that is going to get some level of mocking and questioning.

 

The two of them were also the ones that made it public in the first place.

 

Surely you don't think that my post should have been even longer! I originally had some sentences there elaborating on the matter, but I took them out so as to stick to the main point.  Believe it or not, what you got was the short version!

 

Anyway, Peterson and Kekich made their arrangment public only because they knew that it was going to be written about.  And it deserves no mocking, as everyone involved was doing it willingly.

 

  

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

Joyless know-it-all Yankee fans still exist; they all moved to Jersey and called Francesa's show. Thank God the rest of them didn't all come here.

 

First of all, the Yankee fans of my era were far from "joyless".  We took great pleasure in our vast knowledge; even better, we used it to educate anyone who asked (and sometimes people who didn't ask).

 

Secondly, the Francesa-type fan is representative of the latter-day boor, not of the 1970s-era erudite baseball scholar.

 

 

On more substantive matters:

 

15 hours ago, schlim said:

I think we can stop with the sanctity of the Yankees uniforms. Classics yes, but there's an ad patch on them

 

That uncharacteristic move was noted.

 

19 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

the Yankees do so much right in the realm of uniforms . . .  In light of this excellent record, it's a pity that they succumbed to the uniform advertisement.

 

 

15 hours ago, schlim said:

so the hand wringing over an alternate jersey is closing the barn doors at this point.

 

Logic fail. It does not follow at all that, because the Yankees have done one misstep that harms their otherwise-classic uniforms, they should therefore do more such things. 

 

I do not minimise the abomination of an ad patch on the Yankees' uniforms. Indeed, that team deserves more criticism over the advertisement than does any other team, precisely because of the team's other good stances. But having made that error, the Yankees should definitely not give up on everything that makes their uniforms great, namely, having only white at home and grey on the road, having one cap, and having no player names.

 

15 hours ago, schlim said:

Plus, they've worn every mother's day, little league, camoflauge and other assorted merchandise MLB has offered over the years.

 

This, too, is a valid critique. Yet to follow this critique with the assertion that they should do more of that sort of thing is incoherent.

 

The one thing that should not be off the table is the one thing that the Yankees have almost never done: throwbacks. (They did it once at Fenway Park.) While delving into their own history would produce uniforms that are either very similar to their current uniform or are not interesting (such as the blank pinstripe jersey from the 1920s), they could do what the Royals do and wear Negro League uniforms.  The Black Yankees are best known for using this uniform:

 

 

 

 

Ebbets Field Flannels already sells the jersey.

 

 

[coco1997]

Some ideas a Yankees City Connect set could draw from:

 

1904 New York Highlanders, mono-navy with giant "N" and "Y" on the chest

1927-30 road uni with "YANKEES" across the front

 

Non-pinstriped, off-white New York Black Yankees-inspired unis 


This gorgeous dugout jacket from the 1940s

 

The team nearly switched their road uniforms to reverse pinstripes in 1974.

The clever script from the team's current secondary logo

 

The Yankees were one of the few teams who made those horrible Players Weekend uniforms from 2019 look half-decent (picture these in navy instead of black, obviously). 

 

Again, all ideas that draw from the team's past and don't call for any crazy new logos or colors. Just my .02 cents. 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

11 minutes ago, coco1997 said:

Some ideas a Yankees City Connect set could draw from:

 

 

There's an idea for a throwback that I hadn't considered!  While I don't go for coloured jerseys or coloured pants from an aesthetic standpoint (a stance which makes my admiration for the White Sox' City Connect uniform something that surprises even me), this is a legitimate uniform from the team's history.

 

[Marlins93]

The Yankees should wear academic regalia as their City Connects, based on what I've just learned.

[coco1997]

15 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

There's an idea for a throwback that I hadn't considered!  While I don't go for coloured jerseys or coloured pants from an aesthetic standpoint (a stance which makes my admiration for the White Sox' City Connect uniform something that surprises even me), this is a legitimate uniform from the team's history.

 

One reason the Yankees might not want to go the inverted pinstriped route for their City Connects is because the White Sox beat them to the punch with theirs. 

[monkeypower]

27 minutes ago, Marlins93 said:

The Yankees should wear academic regalia as their City Connects, based on what I've just learned.

 

Switch out the Uncle Sam hat on the bat for a mortarboard, ala this logo,