The State of the Uniforms is Not Good: An MLB Concept Series

[colinturner95]

So I've been living in Florida for about a year now and I got to take in a Rays game last April and this spring, finally got to experience Spring Training. What changed between April and now? Well Nike and Fanatics have apparently ruined baseball jerseys (and even though I work for that devil company, the jersey fiasco had nothing to do with me I assure you.) But that aside, between getting to watch baseball and see teams and the uniforms in action, and @MJD7's fantastic Cooperstown Collection thread (check it out here, a lot of great work!), I felt like taking another stab at the MLB uniforms after 7-ish years since my first attempt. 

 

The title is a bit misleading because the designs themselves are good, but the production and other elements aren't. So what do I plan on doing?  Well my first series was my first true attempt at baseball uniforms and it was alright, but not great. But I liked the forward thinking ideas I tried out on a few teams and I think I tried doing too much but I still want to move designs into the future but respect the traditions of baseball. So, as I always do, the ground rules:

 

• Eliminating Nike's 4+1 rule, which in conjunction is also eliminating the City Connect slot, but teams are going to be limited to 4 jerseys. 
• Like my NBA series, there will be home, away, and alternate uniforms. The fourth slot is totally up to team discretion (straight throwback, fauxback, TATC, City Connect, take your pick) 
• Grey uniforms remain optional. The old heads might disagree but I think we're reaching a point where more teams will start shedding them. 
• I'm trying to limit hats and unique hat designs. Before you jump on this one, I'm talking about things like the Mariners having a navy/navy hat & a navy/teal hat. Just pick one. 
• BP "jerseys" are going away, which seems to be the way the league is trending, instead replaced by a 3/4 sleeve shirt. 
• Teams will now have collar decorations.
• Something I saw MJD7 doing in his aforementioned thread, using the Cooperstown Collection branding and the vintage Nike swoosh was something I liked a lot and I wanted to include that on the throwback and vintage designs. So the modern batterman logo on those uniforms would be replaced with the vintage batterman from the CC logo and the Nike swoosh would also swap. 

 

I think that's it for the ground rules I was working with. Now for the team order, which I continuously find new ways to do:

• Teams will be posted in order of oldest perfect game to latest, which gets us 1-14. After the perfect game teams, same thing for the rest but with no-hitters. 

 

American League

AL East: Blue Jays | Orioles | Rays | Red Sox | Yankees   -  AL Central:  Guardians | Royals | Tigers | Twins | White Sox  -  AL West:  Angels | Astros | Athletics | Mariners | Rangers

 

National League

NL East: Braves | Marlins | Mets | Nationals | Phillies  -  NL Central: Brewers | Cardinals | Cubs | Pirates | Reds  -  NL West : Diamondbacks | Dodgers | Giants | Padres | Rockies

 

Alright, I've talked enough, first up:

 

 

Home & Away - A classic start but not without some changes. After ending up at two Red Sox ST games, I came to one major conclusion: I don't like their City Connect uniforms. they're just too different when viewed next to the iconic red and navy. But the CC uniform sticks around in a couple different ways. 

• Hat - no changes to the hat. adding a red brim was fine for the BP hats, but full time looked too much like Cleveland. 
• Jerseys - the crux of the jerseys stay very much the same. But the white jerseys have so much more life than the drab greys and the biggest thing was adding more life to those uniforms. biggest additions is the Sox logo on the sleeves of both the home and away now, placket piping added to the navy jersey. the double stripe from the CC uniforms is added to the sleeves of both uniforms. 
• Pants/Socks - Nothing too crazy, single color stripe, red on the white pants, navy on the greys. Solid red socks & striped socks modified from the pullover era uniforms.
• Hanger Effect - using the City Connect colors, BOSTON STRONG with the 617 area code in the middle. 

 

 

Alternate - 

• Hat - A red hat returns to Fenway for the first time since the late 70's but uses the 2024 Spring Training Hat color, with white taking on more of the leg work. 
• Jersey - recolored version of the white home tops, but with similar conventions to the hat. 
• Pants/Socks - same as white jersey

Fenway Heritage - not my most creative name for a uniform, but I felt it captured the spirit of the uniform as a whole. 

• Hat - the throwback B comes from the 1936-1945, coinciding with the start of Ted Williams' career in Boston.
• Jersey - the tops combine the pullover look from the 70s, with skinny triple stripes on the collar and sleeves with a new old logo that blends the 1931-1932 sleeve logo with a font, similar to the wordmarks of the turn of the century Red Sox team, all on a vintage white base. 
• Pants/Socks - these also take from the pullover era, with a faux waistband design. Striped socks go away in favor of a stirrup set. 
• Hanger Effect - Boston Strong goes away for a simple Green Monster shade of green with "THE OLDE TOWNE TEAM". 

 

Batting Practice -

• Hat - Like I mentioned, I didn't like the navy/red look for full time use but it worked for BP, with the Sox logo on the front 
• Tops - navy and red options, both have the double stripe on the ends of the sleeves, number on the right sleeve. Navy has the Sox logo on the front, Red has the fauxback logo.  

 

I've talked a lot, now I want to hear what you guys think!

[verbi]

always good to see a post from you, look good. 

[vtgco]

Definitely an improvement by adding the more interesting sleeve striping.

Love that fauxback vintage white uniform. Would be curious to see at least the BP jersey with a larger wordmark and smaller logo (a la '70s Blue Jays) and possibly a fauxback cap with the old version of the socks logo.

[coco1997]

Always happy to see a new MLB series around here, and I'm excited for this one! I really like the ground rules you've laid out for this series, and I'm interested to see how you manage to follow them for certain teams. 

[MJD7]

I'm so glad to see you're going through with this! And I'm honored that I could be an inspiration for it, as your original baseball series is one of my favorites that I took a lot of inspiration from myself! 

 

Boston looks great, I especially love the "Fenway Heritage" uniform, I wish that was one I could've come up with myself. I'm looking forward to following the rest of the series!

[SFGiants58]

I'm very happy to see another MLB series and you're doing excellent work thus far! The subtle modernizations look fantastic on Boston.

[CLEstones]

Please please please tell me there is a .PSD version of this template.  Please. 

[Telemundo219]

10 hours ago, CLEstones said:

Please please please tell me there is a .PSD version of this template.  Please. 

 

Or an .AI version and I'm not talking Allen Iverson.

[colinturner95]

 

On 4/10/2024 at 11:28 PM, vtgco said:

Definitely an improvement by adding the more interesting sleeve striping.

Love that fauxback vintage white uniform. Would be curious to see at least the BP jersey with a larger wordmark and smaller logo (a la '70s Blue Jays) and possibly a fauxback cap with the old version of the socks logo.

 

 

I figured you meant the more modern BP tops with the wordmark logo treatment so I tried it out on both colorways. Also tried out the fauxback sox logo on the hat with the Fenway jersey. 

 

On 4/11/2024 at 9:41 PM, MJD7 said:

I'm so glad to see you're going through with this! And I'm honored that I could be an inspiration for it, as your original baseball series is one of my favorites that I took a lot of inspiration from myself! 

 

Boston looks great, I especially love the "Fenway Heritage" uniform, I wish that was one I could've come up with myself. I'm looking forward to following the rest of the series!

 

It was the uniforms that inspired your Red Sox jersey that gave me the inspiration for the vintage approach, but wanted to do something different than the Boston sock logo from that era.

 

On 4/12/2024 at 8:06 AM, CLEstones said:

Please please please tell me there is a .PSD version of this template.  Please. 

 

On 4/12/2024 at 6:12 PM, Telemundo219 said:

 

Or an .AI version and I'm not talking Allen Iverson.

 

The version I use is built in Illustrator and at the moment that's the only version it exists in at the moment. When the series wraps, I'll have a PSD version done and both will be made available. 

[vtgco]

3 hours ago, colinturner95 said:

I figured you meant the more modern BP tops with the wordmark logo treatment so I tried it out on both colorways. Also tried out the fauxback sox logo on the hat with the Fenway jersey. 

Fauxback hat looks great; thanks for humoring me! I actually didn't mean modern BP tops, but they do look great! I was just suggesting trying out the fauxback and fauxback BP specifically to have a bigger "Boston" wordmark and smaller logo. Sorry to be confusing, but the results turned out nicely regardless : )

[colinturner95]

8 hours ago, vtgco said:

Fauxback hat looks great; thanks for humoring me! I actually didn't mean modern BP tops, but they do look great! I was just suggesting trying out the fauxback and fauxback BP specifically to have a bigger "Boston" wordmark and smaller logo. Sorry to be confusing, but the results turned out nicely regardless : )

Well that'll go down as a bogey on the scorecard... 

 

 

But let's take a look at it. I personally think the larger wordmark works better on the BP tops than the uniform. It feels a little less fauxback-y to me but I'll let you guys see what you think about it. 

 

And since we're here:

 

 

Home & Away - I think I've finally come around or have at least turned the corner to the name change. The G logo still leaves a lot to be desired but I don't quite have a solve for that that I like enough. So anyways. I felt that even though the Cleveland franchise has over 100 years of history, that we could go a little more modern with it, but ever so slightly. 

• Headwear - No major changes, other than the all navy hat getting dropped from the rotation. 
• Jerseys - Despite the history, Cleveland is the first team in the series to drop grey. It was going to be Boston, but I felt more at ease dropping Boston's navy tops. Some actual stripes join the party, with the single color striping going away in favor of outlined triple stripes that terminate at the ends like the wings of the Guardians of Traffic statues have. The Winged G goes on the right sleeves. The new number font sticks around, but the NOB font changes to a serif font that I felt fit the vibes a little more. 
• Pants/Socks - Nothing crazy, matter of fact nothing going on the pants at all. Socks have the same style stripes as the jerseys. 
• Hanger Effect - Also nothing crazy, STAND GUARD in red/white. 

 

Alternate - 

• Headwear - No changes. 
• Jersey - Design flips to a red jersey, with the wordmarks going away for a logo - number combo not seen on a Cleveland jersey since the 60's. 
• Pants/Socks - Only real change is the socks turn red. 

The Land - (I promise not every team is getting a vintage white 4th jersey) - Cleveland digs back into their history, basing it off my Reverse Retro design which itself is based off of the 1933-1935 uniforms. 

• Headwear - all navy returns to the field, with a G based off wordmarks of the era. The batting helmet goes red, based off the team's use of red hats in the past, and I used it on the RR design and I liked the way it looked. 
• Jersey - vintage white with a full color placket design. Same G as the hat, both having a small drop shadow based on the one-year only uniform from 1970. Joining the design are the late 80's to mid 90's shoulder stripes that I swear were in a movie somewhere. 
• Pants/Socks - vintage white, navy belt with red loops. Socks go to navy stirrups with solid red stripes. 

Batting Practice:

• Hat - Red/navy with the Flying G. 
• Tops - A little less designed than Boston, but putting the stripes on there made it look too Adidas so these tops stay pretty basic. Player number moves a little lower on the sleeve. The Flying G on the chest, STAND GUARD down by the hip. 

C&C welcome!

 

[coco1997]

The sleeve stripes resembling wings is a genius idea! I also love the new red alt using just the "C" instead of the full "Guardians" script. I dig the "Land" alternate, though the base color looks a little too saturated to my eyes--it's almost peach-colored. 

[CLEstones]

Uhg.  The Guardians font is so bad.  The script has grown on me (was never a fan of the Jndians script).  But the block letters are so bad.  The previous block C was such a great look, a great monogram, and had such a historic presence to it, that could have added another layer of connectivity to the previous brand.

[colinturner95]

On 4/15/2024 at 11:56 AM, coco1997 said:

The sleeve stripes resembling wings is a genius idea! I also love the new red alt using just the "C" instead of the full "Guardians" script. I dig the "Land" alternate, though the base color looks a little too saturated to my eyes--it's almost peach-colored. 

 

 

It definitely was. I toned the peach out of it some but left it there a little to be visually different from Boston's. 

 

On 4/17/2024 at 10:57 AM, CLEstones said:

Uhg.  The Guardians font is so bad.  The script has grown on me (was never a fan of the Jndians script).  But the block letters are so bad.  The previous block C was such a great look, a great monogram, and had such a historic presence to it, that could have added another layer of connectivity to the previous brand.

 

I go back and forth on it. I feel like the block letters work better than the winged logo, but that's a different conversation. After having to illustrate one of the Guardians of Traffic for work and then do some other Guardians related stuff, I felt that maybe an art deco avenue could work but I didn't like what I came up with for work and what I wanted to try here, but it also fell short here. 

 

 

[colinturner95]

 

I've drug my feet on these long enough, which we'll discuss on the alternates. The White Sox have a historical record and timeline that suggest they shouldn't be messing with a modern look. Well the City Connect look got me thinking because if you ask me, it sort of completed the current branding for the ChiSox. So let's dive into it. 

 

Home & Away:

•  Headwear - No change. Like their Massachusetts counterparts, changing the brim color didn't work for the full time. 
• Jerseys - Despite my documented and well-iterated disdain for pinstripes and unlike the last time I worked on the MLB, I kept the pinstripes around this time. The white jersey remains largely the same, with a triple stripe now being found on the sleeves, and positioned up from the cuff, which has some historical precedence to the team. The black jersey is where things get a little off the books, which for starters now unseats the grey uniforms as the road look, and becomes a color flipped version of the home tops. Replacing the SOX logo is the CHI logo from the City Connect hats. Also coming over is the font from the CC jerseys. It felt like a natural addition and really rounds out the newish identity. 
• Pants/Socks - White pants just have the triple stripes join the sides. Black pants also join the rotation, complete with the pinstripes as well. 
• Hanger Effect - While their City Connect jerseys were among the best, their lasting impact can be felt throughout the uniforms now, and this applies to the collar, which now features a greystone pattern with the Southside wordmark. 

 

Alternate: Maybe a little bit of a let down with the changes to the primary uniforms but keeping the alternate a little more mundane felt like a good breathing point. 

• Headgear - no changes from home/away. 
• Jersey - The grey jersey doesn't change too much. The wordmark gets updated to closely resemble the wordmarks from 1967-1968, 69-70 & 71-75, adding the tail and WHITE SOX to the tail. 
• Pants/Socks - Other than a color change, no changes. 

South Siders: Because I can't just call a heritage uniform a heritage uniform, the South Siders uniform does, you guessed it, celebrates over 100 years of White Sox baseball (minus that snafu in 1919) & I liked how my reverse retro uniform turned out for them, like Cleveland, and wanted to rework it again. 

• Headgear - We go to navy, featuring the team's jersey logo from the late 30's, with two added outlines. 
• Jersey - I feel like it's a pretty sensible statement to say the chest stripe jerseys from the mid 80s are one of, if not the most iconic uniforms the team has worn. So we start there. The v-neck collar stripes change to the 1967-1968 style, which is also where the light blue comes from. The sleeve and chest stripes are pretty much as they were in the 80s. Replacing the wide SOX wordmark, is a spurred/Tuscan font, which represents the big collar/shorts uniforms. My personal favorite part of these, is the modernized logo on the sleeve which resurrects the 1949-1970 logo. 
• Pants/Socks - Pants stay easy, with the same stripe as the collar down the side. Socks are all navy or stirrup navy. 

BP: I don't plan on making a habit of having two distinct BP sets but the 4th uniform needed it's own in this case.

• Home/Away
  • Hat - tri-color, Diamond Sock on the front. 
  •  Jersey - Larger stripes on the lower half of the sleeves, Sox logo on the chest. 
• Alternate 
  • Hat - also a tricolor (homaging the 80's hat) with the same logo as the on-field hat. 
  • Jersey - light blue, chest stripe, smaller stripes on the sleeve cuffs. Modernized logo front and center. 

C&C welcome!

[chcarlson23]

This is an absolutely fantastic set! Having two sets of pants for the black jersey is also great. The Chi logo as the road set is also a stroke of genius! I would definitely buy a road jersey and I can’t stand the Sox

[coco1997]

Can't say I'm a fan of the new trim on Chicago's home and road unis. I like the use of the City Connect logo on the black jersey, but I think it would look odd to pair the black pinstriped jersey with white pinstriped pants. 

However, I LOVE that throwback, and I'd buy that white front paneled cap in a heartbeat. If I could make one suggestion, I'd slap some numbers on the pants which could be a reference not just to the team's '82-86 but their '87-90 look as well. 

[colinturner95]

On 4/19/2024 at 11:01 PM, coco1997 said:

Can't say I'm a fan of the new trim on Chicago's home and road unis. I like the use of the City Connect logo on the black jersey, but I think it would look odd to pair the black pinstriped jersey with white pinstriped pants. 

 

I felt like that the pinstripes might be a potential issue. First things first, I went back to the two stripe trim the team currently uses. I can't remember what the rationale for the original change was but it was iffy, even while I was designing it. As for the pinstripes, I went to grey across the board which might create more issues on the white jersey, but everything is now consistent across the two jerseys. But the potential other option of pinstriped jerseys/plain pants wasn't even a halfway decent option. 

 

On 4/19/2024 at 11:01 PM, coco1997 said:

However, I LOVE that throwback, and I'd buy that white front paneled cap in a heartbeat. If I could make one suggestion, I'd slap some numbers on the pants which could be a reference not just to the team's '82-86 but their '87-90 look as well. 

 

 

I completely forgot the pants number! It was right in front of me on my reference images and my reverse retro design I was pulling stuff from and it just didn't make it onto the final design. 

[MJD7]

• Guardians: I dig it! I've always had a tough time coming up with a good striping pattern to use for Cleveland, but this is a good one for them. The "The Land" uniform is really nice too.
• White Sox: Another hit! The transition of the City Connect-style into the primary set is a natural choice, and the change from three stripes to two is an upgrade. The alternate gray and "Southsiders" uniforms are incredibly sharp too.

Can't wait to see what else you have in store!

[coco1997]

On 4/23/2024 at 5:06 PM, colinturner95 said:

 

I felt like that the pinstripes might be a potential issue. First things first, I went back to the two stripe trim the team currently uses. I can't remember what the rationale for the original change was but it was iffy, even while I was designing it. As for the pinstripes, I went to grey across the board which might create more issues on the white jersey, but everything is now consistent across the two jerseys. But the potential other option of pinstriped jerseys/plain pants wasn't even a halfway decent option. 

 

 

 

I completely forgot the pants number! It was right in front of me on my reference images and my reverse retro design I was pulling stuff from and it just didn't make it onto the final design. 

Reducing the new trim/piping on the home and road uniforms to just the sleeves is a definite improvement.