2010 MLB New Logos, Uniforms, Patches

[cheo25]

It doesn't really matter which one the Mets call their alternate and which one they call their primary. The pinstripes were the primaries the last few years and they barely wore them.

Exactly. Lukas has mentioned this repeatedly in the past. The Mets usually wear whatever the equipment manager decides to go with (instead of following a schedule/pattern or letting the starters decide like some teams do). The equipment manager likes the black gear, which means the snow whites (black is the undersleeve color) and the black alt. I think Santana was the only one who made any sort of request uni-wise: he rarely pitches in an alternate (in NY or in MIN before this).

MLB could fix this by telling teams they have to designate a white/cream home and a grey road as primaries and wear them 75% of their games (similar to the NFL, NBA, and NHL and their alternates), but it's not like Bud has it in him. That would effectively end the Astros and Braves wearing colored jerseys for over 90% of their road schedule.

that's a GREAT point. almost every other major sport has a limit on either how many alternate jerseys you can have, how many times they can be worn or both. MLB should get in on the act.

I just would like a rule that only one team can wear a softball top, and the home team gets first choice.

On the other hand, in this age of color TVs and HDTVs, I'm not exactly sure we even need a no color-on-color rule. Yeah, it's tradition to have gray vs. white, but frankly, baseball has already shot its tradition to hell with wild cards, interleague play, alternate uniforms, current, uh, former owners as commissioners, $8 beers, etc. <partial sarcasm>It's not like baseball has any soul left</partial sarcasm>.

[The_Admiral]

We don't need a rule prohibiting color vs. color, but we should have one because those games look really amateur and ugly. Because tradition has been abandoned in a few other aspects isn't an argument for opening the sartorial floodgates. That's like saying that your room is messy, so you might as well tear your house down.

[BallWonk]

The fact that MLB doesn't micromanage team apparel to the extent of the NBA or NFL is a Very Good Thing. I mean, honestly, the NBA is so uniformly ugly that the only thing I really need to know to tell whether a proposed league rule on uniforms is whether the NBA has a similar rule. If it does, then the proposed rule is, by definition, a bad idea. This lets teams like the Mets and Nats and Twins get away with all kinds of uniform suckrappitude, but it also allows room for teams to innovate and come up with excellent uniforms. I'm willing to put up with the Mets in black and the Astros never wearing actual professional baseball uniforms in order to allow the Reds to wear their thoroughly excellent red alts or the Royals to play around with making powder blue a home color.

However, I would like to see MLB adopt a rule requiring a high degree of contrast between uniforms on the field of play. Such a rule might specify two classes of uniform jerseys: white/gray or other light colors traditionally used for home and away uniforms (including tan and powder blue), and all other bright-color jerseys (including red, any blue but powder, orange, black, green, yellow, and so forth). One team, and one team only, may wear a solid-color jersey in any game. Visiting team gets to choose.

This would eliminate the problem of proliferating alts making games harder to watch, and it would also encourage teams not to rely on lazy solid-color jerseys for home alts. You'd see more Sunday afternoon throwbacks, fewer our-regular-jersey-but-on-black-instead-of-white crap.

But I could go the other way on the question of which team gets to choose, just so long as only one team gets to wear a solid color in any game. Otherwise, I want the league to have as little say in uniform selection as possible. MLB already has too much, and increasing, standardization; let's not have more.

[BBTV]

I'm kind of in favor of states rights on this issue... to a degree.

I don't think there should be league-wide rules regarding the color of home or road uniforms. Teams should be able to be unique - it's nice to not always see white vs. gray. If the Astros always want to wear red, then that's just their identity and that's fine.

I do agree with outlawing navy vs. navy, or black vs. navy matchups, and I do think that there should be a limit on the number of alts and caps a team can have. Too many weakens a team's identity, and that's certainly not a good thing.

However, I'm not sure that MLB is like NFL in the way that revenue is shared, so that may lessen the incentive for there to be league-wide mandates, while in the NFL, each team has a vested stake in the revenue-generating success of the other teams (and merchandising revenue is split at a league level, right?) so that's one reason why rules may be stricter.

[Bouj]

There isn't one now (I think the rule now just says they can't be white), but Bouj said they should make a rule that says a road jersey has to be grey. I'd take it a step further and also make them wear their place name on the front of their primary road greys, but we've had this discussion before.

How do you operationally define grey for the purposes of such a rule, though? If the Padres swear up and down that their urine-soakeds are actually grey, are they? Is the yellow desaturated enough that "grey-ish" is okay? I don't want every single team to wear the exact same shade of grey (though CoolBase is kinda forcing that), because I like that some greys are darker than others. I think it has to do with the rest of the uniforms' colors.

I must've skimmed right over where he said "grey".

Personally, I don't mind if a team designates a coloured jersey as its road jersey, home must be white, and I like the idea that home/road must be worn X% amount of times during the season (and never in the post-season)

Didn't we nearly get that this post-season? Aside from having mostly "tradition"-minded squads, the only alt I remember seeing was the Phils' creams (against COL, for the day games). Maybe the Twins wore the blues once too. COL wore white/grey, the Angels didn't wear their alts, and LAD/STL/NYY are all alt-free. Didn't the Sox eschew their Friday night alt too?

[Gothamite]

However, I'm not sure that MLB is like NFL in the way that revenue is shared, so that may lessen the incentive for there to be league-wide mandates, while in the NFL, each team has a vested stake in the revenue-generating success of the other teams (and merchandising revenue is split at a league level, right?) so that's one reason why rules may be stricter.

MLB merchandise revenues are shared. I believe that dates from the league-wide contracts established in the late 1990s. So they have the same incentive.

[Bouj]

I do agree with outlawing navy vs. navy, or black vs. navy matchups, and I do think that there should be a limit on the number of alts and caps a team can have. Too many weakens a team's identity, and that's certainly not a good thing.

There was a directive from the Commissioner's Office 2 years ago for no-similar-alt games. That's why Houston wears grey in Cincinnati, Arizona, or Atlanta once or twice a season. Most everyone follows it except Atlanta. They'll wear the navy roads regardless. There is one or two other teams that don't care about rules either (SD is pretty bad about it too).

[The_Admiral]

Breaks my heart that the Braves, of all teams, have gotten so stupid about their uniforms. And here I thought it was a disaster when they dropped vertical arching. Little did I know.

If you have a situation like Rangers @ Royals, where both teams are wearing royal blue uniforms, can't the umpires tell the Rangers to go put different jerseys on? I know it's baseball and even people in the bleachers who are totally plastered can usually discern batters and baserunners from fielders, but it just looks so terrible. As far as states' rights, too many teams--ironically the ones located in Georgia and Texas--have ruined it for everybody else.

[Bouj]

Breaks my heart that the Braves, of all teams, have gotten so stupid about their uniforms. And here I thought it was a disaster when they dropped vertical arching. Little did I know.

If you have a situation like Rangers @ Royals, where both teams are wearing royal blue uniforms, can't the umpires tell the Rangers to go put different jerseys on? I know it's baseball and even people in the bleachers who are totally plastered can usually discern batters and baserunners from fielders, but it just looks so terrible. As far as states' rights, too many teams--ironically the ones located in Georgia and Texas--have ruined it for everybody else.

But the thing is the umpires don't care because MLB really doesn't care. We, the few fans who are interested in the way teams look, are the ones who care. If MLB really cared, the Mets would have dropped the black, the Braves wouldn't have introduced any alternates, and Majestic would eliminated the COOLBASE gussets. The powers-that-be honestly don't care at all about what they feel is fairly insignificant. The uniforms/identity are just another way to make money on merchandise.

Hey, I love alternate jerseys. I think powder blue looks fine with white pants. I like it when teams change it up, and I think the Yankees slavish devotion to tradition is kind of admirable. But that doesn't mean I don't shake my head at how moronic some of the uniform shenanigans that MLB is guilty of on a regular basis.

[panameno42]

The requested recap:

Here's what we've seen so far:

Mets: snow whites now primary, cream pinstripe alternate

Royals: new powder blue cap (powder blue crown, royal blue brim, white KC outlines in royal blue, royal blue button)

Twins: new wordmarks on home pinstripes, sleeveless pinstripes, navy blue alternate. New road jersey with script wordmark sans pinstripes. 'TC' all navy hat now primary home. 'M' hat now alternate. new 'TC' cap with navy blue crown, red brim is new road cap. addition of 50th anniversary patch and inaugural season at target field patch.

to come (rumored)

Giants: new orange alternate jersey

Marlins: remove 'Florida' from road uni, replace with 'Marlins.' Eliminate black alternate jersey.

Angels: add All Star Game patch

Astros: add 50th anniversary patch

Brewers: new alternate jersey

Rays: new alternate jersey (most likely columbia blue)

did i miss anything?

you pretty much posted everything. not bad at all.

[NDwas]

A little bit off topic, but still on topic...what's everyone's opinion of the (my) updated uniform graphics? Yay or nay?

I'm slowly crawling through the entire league, and I'm also continually updating the ones I've done already. Hopefully I'll have everything done by the summer, but there's a ton more to do.

ORIGINAL: NEWER:

NEWEST:

[BallWonk]

A little bit off topic, but still on topic...what's everyone's opinion of the (my) updated uniform graphics? Yay or nay?

I really like what you've done with the jerseys. The stitching pattern is still visible, but it's much more subtle, and no longer looks like it's part of the uniform design. That's a real improvement.

Unfortunately, you've done the opposite with the caps. Now the stitching pattern on the cap -- including the bill, where the actual stitching pattern plays a role in no team's cap design -- is much too prominent. It's confusing, in that you've made it look like the stitching pattern is part of every team's cap design, when it is not. Furthermore, it's inaccurate: most pro teams at all levels have cap seams stitched with thread the same color as the fabric, whereas your stitching implies black thread.

Also, the new shape of the bill is badly distorted, looks nothing like an actual cap bill seen from any angle, and overemphasizes the bill in relation to the rest of the cap. Big-time downgrade on the caps.

But that said, your new jersey template is terrific!

[BBTV]

A little bit off topic, but still on topic...what's everyone's opinion of the (my) updated uniform graphics? Yay or nay?

I really like what you've done with the jerseys. The stitching pattern is still visible, but it's much more subtle, and no longer looks like it's part of the uniform design. That's a real improvement.

Unfortunately, you've done the opposite with the caps. Now the stitching pattern on the cap -- including the bill, where the actual stitching pattern plays a role in no team's cap design -- is much too prominent. It's confusing, in that you've made it look like the stitching pattern is part of every team's cap design, when it is not. Furthermore, it's inaccurate: most pro teams at all levels have cap seams stitched with thread the same color as the fabric, whereas your stitching implies black thread.

Also, the new shape of the bill is badly distorted, looks nothing like an actual cap bill seen from any angle, and overemphasizes the bill in relation to the rest of the cap. Big-time downgrade on the caps.

But that said, your new jersey template is terrific!

I don't mind the stiching in the cap as much as you do - I can separate stitching from the design, and I think that even if it's the same color as the cap, it's still very noticeable when looking at the cap, so it belongs there. Just like the stitching on the jersey - it's important to show if a jersey is on a set-in template or a raglan template (though I do understand your point that there aren't multiple hat templates, so the stitching pattern would just be implied.) I could see it go either way.

I do agree with you about the bill, though I don't think it's as bad as you made it out to be.

As for the jerseys - the templates are fine, but the way that the pinstripes are applied needs to be changed. I don't like how they are just straight lines that go over the entire jersey picture, so that the stripes that are on the inside of the back of the jersey are made of the same line that is for the strip on the front of the jersey.

Most teams (other than the yankees) use printed stripes, that are spaced a little wider, and aren't very visible on the inside of the jersey (they're very faint, if anything.) The Yankees stripes are woven in, so while I've never really inspected an authentic Yankees jersey, I'd bet that the stripes are fully visible - but they'd never line up the way they do in these graphics. Also, the Yankees stripes are closer together than the other teams, and IMO that should be reflected in the graphic.

Great job though - I'm interested to see the next version.

[dahatman]

A little bit off topic, but still on topic...what's everyone's opinion of the (my) updated uniform graphics? Yay or nay?

I'm slowly crawling through the entire league, and I'm also continually updating the ones I've done already. Hopefully I'll have everything done by the summer, but there's a ton more to do.

ORIGINAL: NEWER:

NEWEST:

very nice. big thumbs up.

[njmeadowlanders]

Replica comparison of shades:

[Carter23]

Replica comparison of shades:

modells? sports express?

[njmeadowlanders]

Replica comparison of shades:

modells? sports express?

I didn't take the photo, though I think it's a Mets clubhouse shop either in Manhattan or at Citi Field.

Of course if you're making a Sports Express reference you're familiar with the Livingston Mall which is right down the street from me pretty much...

[Carter23]

Of course if you're making a Sports Express reference you're familiar with the Livingston Mall which is right down the street from me pretty much...

hobart gap rd represent

to keep this on track -- it looks like there is still black on that cream pinstriped mets jersey

[njmeadowlanders]

Of course if you're making a Sports Express reference you're familiar with the Livingston Mall which is right down the street from me pretty much...

hobart gap rd represent

to keep this on track -- it looks like there is still black on that cream pinstriped mets jersey

It looks like there is still black on it because there IS still black on it. Dropshadows remain...

[tohasbo]

I still do not see the difference between the two. It looks like they switched the jerseys to me...