MLB 2009

[BaltimoreFan]

So far so good for the changes I've seen. The bird logo is slightly updated, which I think looks nice. Also like the MD patch, its sorta like the Ravens MD shield. Hopefully the Baltimore road jerseys look nice. It'd be a shame if they disappoint after all the years fans have been asking for it to return. Can't wait to see the rest of the changes later today. I'm just disappointed I won't be able to attend the event.

[leopard88]

Today's Baltimore Sun included a pretty detailed description of the changes and a side-by-side view of the old and new cap logos.

Baltimore Sun

So far, so good. I really like the black-orange-black stripes/piping on the sleeves. It reminds me of the 1989-1994 home uniform, which I really liked.

[Survival79]

nice, looks like the patch that was to include some Maryland influence is the quartered flag with the oriole superimposed on it and Baltimore Orioles around it. Nice job! Can't wait to see the Baltimore script aways....finally

From today's Uni Watch News Ticker:

[BawlmerOreos]

Wow...I LOVE that patch. Old and new. Well done. I'm pumped for the noon event today.

[aykay]

So far so good. Dare we say Pete the Greek is finally doing something right?

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the special suprise Roch Kubatko reported will be throwbacks complete with the orange pullover.

If you attend tomorrow's noon rally or tune into MASN for live coverage, you'll find out about another change that has club officials pretty jazzed. I'll keep that one under wraps.

Link.

[BallWonk]

A decided "meh" on the new Orioles patch -- it's not bad, but not particularly inspired -- but otherwise I'm a big fan of each of the O's changes we've seen so far. I used to give the Nats a marginal edge on uniforms between the two teams, but as long as the uniform striping on the Orioles roads is as good as the new striping on the homes, the Orioles will have vaulted toward the MLB top ten, while the Nats have just made themselves the ugliest team in baseball. Good on the Orioles for making such consistently excellent improvements that in every way reinforce their existing core branding, but damn, it's gonna be a tough few years for uni-conscious Nats fans in the annual Battle of the Beltways. Visually, it's gonna be the equivalent of the Beverly Hillbillies versus the cast of Mad Men when these two teams play.

The new bird logo in particular manages to be more ornithologically accurate and also simpler, which is an extraordinary design achievement. The Orioles -- as a concept, not a specific franchise, dating back to the 1890s -- have always had a tension between simplicity and accuracy in the depiction of the bird, so improving the logo along both axes at once is really a fantastic accomplishment. The move to localize the team's identity with the new road script is another move that's both attractive and smart. And the new home jersey stripes are the kind of detail that most teams pay too little attention to and wind up half-assing as a result but that the Orioles seem to have gotten exactly right. (Pending a look at the road uniforms.)

Given what I know of how Angelos runs his team, I had very low expectations. But so far, this is looking like the best MLB uniforms revision in several years.

[Billy B]

I like what the Orioles have done so far, they've kept it simple but it's not boring. I thought the sleeve patch would clash with the jersey, but it looks fine. I like the new cap logo and full logo better. So far, so good. Just have to wait to see the road jerseys.

[Bill813]

[Pharos04]

Thing of beauty! Congrats to the return of the city name to a team deserving of the support

[Smitty69]

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!

[JayJaxon]

I like it! IMO it is just the way it should look.

[Audiodrama]

Oh man. Congratulations, Orioles. You now have one of the best road uni's in baseball.

[Waffles]

It's been a long time coming, and as a fan and ardent proponent of the "city names on road unis" convention, I'm overall happy with this...

Here comes the however...

HOWEVER, and this is a bit of a nitpick, it looks like the letters get smaller from left-to-right. I think it would look better (and more consistent with the home jerseys) if they were the to the same scale from end to end. My guess is this was a way to avoid having to reduce the overall wordmark size to accommodate the amount of letters in "Baltimore," but it is bothering me a little bit.

[Gothamite]

Huge upgrade. Enormous. Waff's right about the angled-away letters, but still.

Not sold on the Maryland patch - love the concept, but something about words in a circle around it seems really lazy to me.

[McCall]

It's been a long time coming, and as a fan and ardent proponent of the "city names on road unis" convention, I'm overall happy with this...

Here comes the however...

HOWEVER, and this is a bit of a nitpick, it looks like the letters get smaller from left-to-right. I think it would look better (and more consistent with the home jerseys) if they were the same size from end to end. My guess is this was a way to avoid having to reduce the overall wordmark size to accommodate the amount of letters in "Baltimore," but it is bothering me a little bit.

Exactly what I thought. It's great to see "Baltimore" back on the roads, but the execution is just slightly on the downside. The first part of the word does not need to be THAT big. Makes it look awkward. Still considered an upgrade, however, for the simple fact the city is now there.

[leopard88]

The rally is going to be carried live on MASN (Mid-Atlantic Sports Network)(cable and webcast). A link to the webcast is below.

MASN Website

[machpost]

*Given how poorly rendered the official curly W is, I have assumed that Radom did little to no work on it, or only the most cursory file-conversion from archival logo sheets to digital media. But that's pure speculation, based on the remarkable technical badness of the curly W logo compared to the general technical excellence of Radom's work.

The current curly W is slightly, yet noticeably, different from the old one used by the late Senators, so somebody played around with it at some point. This is the old one:

[tohasbo]

the new orioles uniforms are nice. even the new road one.

[aykay]

I like them, but the one thing that's bugging me is the Orioles patch on the right sleeve of the road jersey.

[BallWonk]

The current curly W is slightly, yet noticeably, different from the old one used by the late Senators, so somebody played around with it at some point. This is the old one:

Not true. The curly Ws in popular use on throwback caps (like in the photo you provide) before the Nats came to town are very inaccurate. Look at baseball cards and press photos and even merchandise from the late 1960s through '71, and you'll see that the curly W that the Senators actually wore very closely resembled the curly W the Nationals use. I think the problem stems from a lack of brand quality control; some of the late 1960s merchandise you see does have ugly variations on the real curly W logo, and it seems that those variant merchandising logos are what later throwback merchandisers turned to when creating Senators caps and pennants. But the curly W that appeared on Senators uniforms is very, very close to what we see on Nats uniforms today.

(But this is a common myth among Nats fans, so you're in good company for subscribing to it. I held the same assumption until a couple of SABR buddies clued me in.)