MLB Logo&Uniform changes

[TheOldRoman]

Don't think this has been posted yet. Officially released on the Indians site:

L-R: Road Alt, Home Alt, Road, Home

So, the two in the middle are for the big-league club, and the two on the outside are for some minor-league affiliate, right? Because I'm seeing two uniform sets of two here, not one set of four.

They had it so right in 1994. And just like Florida, they've been chipping away ever since.

Yep. Not only does the new road uni suck (along with the cream home alt), but it is ridiculous that they are keeping the road Wahoo hat just so it can be worn with the navy jersey on the road. The 1994-2001 uniforms were perfection. Even the superfluous navy Cleveland alt jersey was great. Every move they have made since then (on and off the field) has been a horrible one.

[McCall]

Don't think this has been posted yet. Officially released on the Indians site:

L-R: Road Alt, Home Alt, Road, Home

So now the Home is a script with a block fonted alternate, and the Away is block font with a scripted alternate... ok.

Other than the red cap (just too out of place and doesn't work well), each part of this set is great. It's not nearly as mismatched as the Nationals, but still. I think it's good, not an improvement, not necessarily a downgrade either. Kind of lateral.

But, it seems like all the navy blues match together. Did they finally go back to the midnight navy? That alone automatically makes this set an improvement.

[Gothamite]

But, it seems like all the navy blues match together.

On my monitor, I see a clear distinction between the blues of the road cap and road alternate jersey.

[Bmac]

But, it seems like all the navy blues match together.

On my monitor, I see a clear distinction between the blues of the road cap and road alternate jersey.

Same here.

[McCall]

But, it seems like all the navy blues match together.

On my monitor, I see a clear distinction between the blues of the road cap and road alternate jersey.

So then the home and road alt are one navy (lighter) and the home alt (what navy is on there) and the road set are another navy (darker)? That would actually be worse than any mess the Nationals had. At least they didn't use different shades of the same color on each different uniform.

[TheOldRoman]

But, it seems like all the navy blues match together.

On my monitor, I see a clear distinction between the blues of the road cap and road alternate jersey.

So then the home and road alt are one navy (lighter) and the home alt (what navy is on there) and the road set are another navy (darker)? That would actually be worse than any mess the Nationals had. At least they didn't use different shades of the same color on each different uniform.

The Nats technically did as their DC flag alt hat was the lighter navy. However, that was more or less a special occasion jersey and hat combo, from my understanding. This mess will be made even worse because the Indians will have at most two batting helmets. So, for the home alt you will get the red hat which will only be seen for half the game (paired with the Wahoo helmet with a red brim), and for the road alt you will get the navy Wahoo cap which will only be seen for half the game (paired with a navy C helmet). Or maybe they do something worse, such as keep one batting helmet for all combos, or make a special batting helmet which matches none of their hats. This new Indians set is just ripe with sucking potential.

[Gothamite]

But, it seems like all the navy blues match together.

On my monitor, I see a clear distinction between the blues of the road cap and road alternate jersey.

So then the home and road alt are one navy (lighter) and the home alt (what navy is on there) and the road set are another navy (darker)? That would actually be worse than any mess the Nationals had. At least they didn't use different shades of the same color on each different uniform.

It's really not uncommon - most teams have this problem. The issue is trying to match different fabrics to the same color, which is tricky at best. You get it right under one set of circumstances (under sunlight), it doesn't work under artificial lights. If it looks good in person, it looks off on television.

Navy in particular is a tricky one. Look at the different-appearing shades of Brewer blue:

Very, very hard to match all colors across all platforms.

[McCall]

Well since we've seen an actual script home and away set, I did this quick mock-up with the image from the main site of a cream home that would better match the new aways.

[Ryoma]

I'm pretty sure this thought has been expressed in this thread already, but to me the Indians' best look was during their two World Series appearances.

I like the new road uniform, but now there's no real relationship between the homes and roads.

[Cujo]

Fitting. The Indians' new away jerseys seem to go the way of Cleveland's other pro teams -- bland and boring.

[WSU151]

Go back to the midnight navy, bigger Wahoo caps. The lighter navy hats are just lame.

[TruColor]

Officially, the colors haven't changed. The manufacturers are supposed to match these fabric/textile colors:

Some of the differences could be lighting, or potential matching issues between New Era and Majestic.

[LEWJ]

Don't think this has been posted yet. Officially released on the Indians site:

L-R: Road Alt, Home Alt, Road, Home

Love the new road uniform. Beautiful. I agree though, that the red cap is out of place.

And looking at this picture, just get rid of the scripted uniforms. No need for them, at all.

Oh, and while you're at it, wack the grin off of the old wahoo, give it a nice update, and go with that.

Oh, and I see something else that doesn't quite please me; the road has piping on the sleeves while the home alt does not. wtf? why?

[CitizenTino]

Is it asking too much for the Indians to pick ONE bleeping shade of navy for the hats? I understand the difficulty in matching shades of navy between different fabrics, but there's absolutely no excuse for the mismatched hats. Yet here we are: standard home and alternate road (the script uniforms) with lighter navy, and alternate home and standard road (the block uniforms) with the midnight navy that was apparently fine for the first 100+ years of the franchise's existence, but had to be screwed with in '03.

Another detail on those new road grays: In addition to the piping around the sleeves, they also have navy trim on the color (San Francisco style), neither of which appear on the block home uniform. The collar piping is hard to see in the picture posted above, but it's definitely there. Check out the screen grab for the video in the middle of this page:

http://mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20101108&content_id=16026496&vkey=news_cle&c_id=cle

EDIT: Almost forgot my favorite bit of this... End of the story on Indians.com says you can buy new jerseys exclusively team website or in team shop, but when you click the accompanying link, the new jerseys aren't on the team shop site. Vintage Dolans, right there.

[NDwas]

Another detail on those new road grays: In addition to the piping around the sleeves, they also have navy trim on the collar (San Francisco style), neither of which appear on the block home uniform. The collar piping is hard to see in the picture posted above, but it's definitely there.

Good catch. Interestingly, MLB's official artwork shows a different style of piping. See here:

[NDwas]

D'oh...doubled up for the first time.

[The_Admiral]

The Tribe would never have this mismatched navy problem if they just switched to brown and red.

[jp1409]

The home uniform is looking very good since they removed silver in 2008.

The away would have looked way better with Cleveland in red with a navy outline ala 1951-57 to keep a good balance between both colors. I own and love the navy block C cap but it would have been way better with a white outline.

The cream uniform should be paired with either the navy/red Wahoo or the navy C caps. The red cap is looking good (it also lacks a white outline) but doesn't blend in at all.

The navy alt is still one of my favorite MLB alternate but it could easily have been paired with their regular home/away caps.

Having mismatched navy caps is totally ridiculous. It would have been a perfect opportunity to bring back dark navy Wahoo caps.

[andrewharrington]

I own and love the navy block C cap but it would have been way better with a white outline.

That's just so... expected. I like these caps much better just red against navy. They're much more unique as they are. That said, I like the red cap, but it should stay at Lids where it belongs.

If I were in charge, I would ditch both script uniforms. I would use the blue 'C' cap with both retro uniforms. I would add blue piping to the home uniform to match the road uniform. Finally, I would look at possibly flipping the fill/outline color of the lettering on one of the jerseys to match the other, but I don't think it's completely necessary. I would just see how it looked. Personally, I think it would be a sideways change. No better. No worse.

[BBTV]

Something just seems odd about the road uniform. I think it's because the cap has a serif but the letters on the jersey don't.