2014 MLB Changes (logo, uniform wise, etc)

[phutmasterflex]

Coco Crisp's green jersey last night featured the Majestic logo on both sleeves again

[ror1997]

The snow whites are so nice and clean. It might be because I'm a Yankee fan, but I don't like the mets wearing pinstripes. If the mets use blue to remember the Brooklyn dodgers, orange for the NY Giants that cool, good tribute to the teams that used to play in NY. But if the pinstripes are to incorporate the Yanks (like people say it is), I don't understand it because the Yankees still play in NY lol.

I guess I just kind of feel like the pinstripes are a Rip off or like they're just copying the Yankees.

[Rays]

 

The snow whites are so nice and clean. It might be because I'm a Yankee fan, but I don't like the mets wearing pinstripes. If the mets use blue to remember the Brooklyn dodgers, orange for the NY Giants that cool, good tribute to the teams that used to play in NY. But if the pinstripes are to incorporate the Yanks (like people say it is), I don't understand it because the Yankees still play in NY lol.

I guess I just kind of feel like the pinstripes are a Rip off or like they're just copying the Yankees.

Well, cubs and white sox home jerseys are even bigger rip offs then, since they have the team logo on them , same place as the yankees......... Mets have the script insted.

[Silent Wind of Doom]

What's the history on pinstripes anyway? Who came first and when did each team pick them up?

[ThorSkaagi]

.

[Gothamite]

Pinstripes date back to the 1880s.

The Yankees first started wearing them in 1912, dropped them for 1913 and 1914, and has worn them every season since 1915.

[Silent Wind of Doom]

Pinstripes date back to the 1880s.

The Yankees first started wearing them in 1912, dropped them for 1913 and 1914, and has worn them every season since 1915.

Thanks. I'd run through Dressed to the Nines but I'm out and about. I've currently got a long post sitting half written at home I've got to finish. Just wondering how long all the various pinstripe wearers have been wearing them. While the Yankees pinstripes are the generally famous example, I think that its a standard uniform feature like plack piping and sock stripes. The Mets, Phillies, Cubs, Rockies, Twins, White Sox, Diamondbacks, Marlins, Astros, Reds, Pirates, Brewers, and Nationals have all had it in their history, with it being some teams' signature or most beloved looks.

[Gothamite]

True, although I'm not aware of any other teams using the word "pinstipes" as a synonym for the team.

If you hear somebody say "That hot young prospect will be in pinstripes soon", you know they're not talking about the White Sox, Cubs or Mets.

[The_Admiral]

But if they said "hot young prospect," they're probably not talking about the Yankees, either!

[Gothamite]

Sure they are, if they're talking about whoever's going to end up paying that prospect.

The Yankees weren't the first to wear pinstripes, but they're certainly the most closely identified with them.

[wonderbread]

 

The snow whites are so nice and clean. It might be because I'm a Yankee fan, but I don't like the mets wearing pinstripes. If the mets use blue to remember the Brooklyn dodgers, orange for the NY Giants that cool, good tribute to the teams that used to play in NY. But if the pinstripes are to incorporate the Yanks (like people say it is), I don't understand it because the Yankees still play in NY lol.

I guess I just kind of feel like the pinstripes are a Rip off or like they're just copying the Yankees.

Well, cubs and white sox home jerseys are even bigger rip offs then, since they have the team logo on them , same place as the yankees......... Mets have the script insted.

This is true, but they arent in New York with the Yankees. The yanks are known for their pinstripes, the mets not so much

[The_Admiral]

Sure they are, if they're talking about whoever's going to end up paying that prospect.

The Yankees weren't the first to wear pinstripes, but they're certainly the most closely identified with them.

Oh, I agree. No one would deny that. I just like getting jabs in at their crappy farm system. I would even go as far as saying that the pinstripes define the Yankees more than their colors do, which is unique in the Red Team Good Blue Team Bad mentality of North American sports (and now politics!).

[wonderbread]

True, although I'm not aware of any other teams using the word "pinstipes" as a synonym for the team.

If you hear somebody say "That hot young prospect will be in pinstripes soon", you know they're not talking about the White Sox, Cubs or Mets.

Except the Yankees dont have prospects, they have free agents

[Gothamite]

Today's hot prospect is tomorrow's free agent. If the guy is any good, he'll be in pinstripes eventually. And everybody knows what uniform that refers to.

[Silent Wind of Doom]

Sure they are, if they're talking about whoever's going to end up paying that prospect.

The Yankees weren't the first to wear pinstripes, but they're certainly the most closely identified with them.

Oh, I agree. No one would deny that. I just like getting jabs in at their crappy farm system. I would even go as far as saying that the pinstripes define the Yankees more than their colors do, which is unique in the Red Team Good Blue Team Bad mentality of North American sports (and now politics!).

I've not been familiar with that dynamic. Since about midway through the last administration I'd thought that everyone leaned the other way if not just fed up with both sides. Might differ from location to location though. As for sports I think the Cubs might take offense to that. XD

And as for the pinstripes, yeah, Pinstripers is a nickname of the team, but its an old one that has largely fallen out of use especially in favor of Yanks and Bombers.

And as for the free agents, we're all waiting for Harper's contract to be over here.

[Mitch B]

Wonderbread wrote: "This is true, but they arent in New York with the Yankees. The yanks are known for their pinstripes, the mets not so much"

There is no denying the Yanks have a storied tradition with the pinstripes, but I think a lot of us middle-aged Mets fans associate our fave team with their pinstripes. I imagine lots of Phillies and Cubs fans also associate their teams with their pinstripes.

[Silent Wind of Doom]

You know, I've never understood this whole "Giants are black and orange/Orioles are orange and black" thing. They have the same color scheme in their uniforms, save for both trading through their history between black text with orange outline and orange text with black outline. I don't believe the Orioles have ever had an orange hat or helmet. They seem to both be black and orange in my book. To be honest, except for ten years of the Astros' history, every team has had orange as a secondary color.

By the way, while the black muddled the Mets look, and looked just plain bizarre for the Islanders, when it comes to Orange/Blue/White/Black, I thought the Knicks got it perfect. Black was used only as an accent color, with the other colors allowed to interplay within its borders sans interference from the black. I was actually sad to see if go for them.

Unless I missed some crappy '70s jersey, the Giants have never used orange text outlined in black, while the Orioles pretty much always have. The Orioles also used an orange-billed cap for most of their history. I agree that the Giants are black/orange and the Orioles are orange/black for the most part. The Giants made a huge mistake bringing in the orange-billed cap just because it replaces a perfect cap. t I have always felt that their orange jersey, aside from looking bad, stepped on the Orioles' feet (even if the Orioles didn't have an orange jersey at that time). If the Giants wanted an alternate, they should have made a black jersey, ideally without black text. Instead, we now have two crappy orange Giants alts.

Well, they both had orange alts during the 70's, but that's besides the point. Is it the brim and the text that really make the huge difference between black/orange and orange/black? I dunno. To me hat color is the primary factor in what is the primary color, primarily because of the fact that the undershirts and socks are colored the same, making that the primary color worn when wearing the home and aways.

Speaking of the Mets, wonder if they will win some championships soon, def. think David Wright deserves a ring or two !

.

But i guess money has a big say in pro baseball do the Mets have enough $$ to put a winner on the field ?

The Mets have one of the top five payrolls in baseball

22nd highest. And that was before they traded Ike Davis.

Regardless, the Mets have had a top 5-payroll for nearly all of the past 12 years. However, they have mirrored the Knicks in that they have thrown good money at bad players and largely been a disaster. Spending money wasn't the problem, spending it wisely was. And seeing the contract they just gave to Curtis Granderson, they haven't learned anything.

Besides, money isn't really an excuse when the Rays and A's routinely field playoff-caliber teams with little-to-no fanbases and crappy ballparks.

...

I'm sorry, but I have to digress on the $ argument. Being a Rays/Pirates fan, I can see how one team can just make your organization a AAAA team...whether you use that to re-stock your team (Rays) or to be cheap asses (Pirates). I give the GMs of those teams the most credit. They know that any day now, you'll be giving away David Price for a few other guys and a team like Detroit, NYY, Boston, LAA, or LAD will double his paycheck. For every one or two years of overachieving teams like the A's or Rays, there are plenty of dynasty Yankee squads that have been purchased. Not the way EVERY year, but more than not.

I'm not saying that everybody should regularly win championships no matter what their payroll is, just that money isn't the end-all, be-all that it seemed to be 10-15 years ago. The Rays very may well have to punt on a few seasons to get value out of trading a few top guys, but they can still compete with (and top) the Yankees despite having a terrible payroll because they are a well-run organization. You can't build a dynasty on a budget, but you can make the playoffs and win a title. The biggest problem is that the teams with tiny payrolls have no margin of error. They can't miss on a top draft pick. If they sign a 2nd tier free agent (because they would never sign a top guy) who happens to be a disaster, it pretty much decimates the franchise for the length of that contract. They can't sign someone else and platoon a $13 million player like the Yankees could. If the Rays had went all-out and somehow signed Mark Texiera, they'd be enormously :censored:ed right now.

Besides, I was saying that in response to the idea that the Mets suck because they have no money to spend (which they obviously still have some to waste). If the Mets put together a good young team, they could lock those players up much more easily than the Rays could.

...

As for pinstripes vs solid whites, I think they both look good. I could get behind using the solid whites, as pinstripes are the Yankees' territory. However, the Mets wore pinstripes for 30-something years before ever getting plain whites, and won two world championships in that span. Even if they do look better without pinstripes, I don't think it's right to just flush away history like that. Tom Seaver and Daryl Strawberry still look "right" wearing Mets pinstripes. If I had to pick one, I think I'd have them stick with the pinstripes over the solids.

But yes, lose the Los Panderers, lose the camos, and lose the orange-billed cap. Then limit the blue alts to once a week. The Mets looked like a festering anus for too long to mess up their return to looking like the Mets by wearing random crap they shouldn't be wearing.

What you're describing is the Circle of Baseball Life. Bad teams occasionally have breakout stars, who they trade to good teams who are looking for that piece to put them over, in exchange for prospects. These prospects, in addition to the team's numerous high draft picks from being so bad will end up giving a bad team enough talent to be a good team. Good teams trade their prospects for those pieces they need to attempt to get themselves a championship, but their good players eventually get old enough that they break down, and without the top prospects they traded away, they fall and become a bad team. That's the way things go. It's all cyclical.

That's why the Yankees fell apart. Steinbrenner bought Reggie and whoever else he wanted to and got them over the hump for two years, but when things started faltering he sold the farm for aging big stars that underperformed and the team sank to the doldrums in the 80's. It wasn't until legal trouble removed King George from the picture for a while that Gene Michael was able to cultivate the minor league system and bring about the new dynasty. Without that, Steinbrenner likely would have sold Jeter, Mariano, Bernie, Posada, and others for names like Vaughn, Bell, Palmero, and Sosa.

The thing is, the Yankees have been able to escape this last cycle and stay relevant by seducing big/medium name players to come as free agents and holding onto some talent. Their money DOES give them an advantage, just like the Red Sox and Dodgers. However, I hear every day Mets fans calling into WFAN and just asking the simple question of why they can't be that? The Mets aren't playing in Kansas City or St. Petersburgh. They're playing in the biggest city in the country, which just so happens to be primarily a baseball city. They should be able to keep anyone they want and compete for any free agent they want, but they just don't. Ownership has promised again and again to do what needs be done to make their team better, and again and again that proclamation has been followed by a silent winter. They're major downfall was a string of bad luck, with half of their stars falling to injury in previous years. Now, though, they're a small-market team living in a big market that doesn't want to go to the games anymore because they're tired of the Wilpons stringing them along.

As for the pinstripe/snow white debate, it sounds like you're with me. Stuck somewhere in the middle. That's my conundrum.

[Gothamite]

Wonderbread wrote: "This is true, but they arent in New York with the Yankees. The yanks are known for their pinstripes, the mets not so much"

There is no denying the Yanks have a storied tradition with the pinstripes, but I think a lot of us middle-aged Mets fans associate our fave team with their pinstripes. I imagine lots of Phillies and Cubs fans also associate their teams with their pinstripes.

Absolutely. As some Brewers fans do with their club.

But you don't have to be a Yankee fan to associate them with pinstripes. That's the difference.

[The_Admiral]

I declare the following teams pinstripable:

Yankees, White Sox, Twins, Mets, Phillies (but please not in fire-engine red, which makes them look pink), Cubs, and Brewers. That's plenty.

[The_Admiral]

However, I hear every day Mets fans calling into WFAN and just asking the simple question of why they can't be that?

"Louie in Ronkonkoma, yuh awn the air, what's up."

"Yeah, why can't the Mets spend money like the Yankees?"

"Theyuh nawt the Yankees! Okay? They'll nevuh BE the Yankees. Okay? Okay? You're tawkin' about duh most GLARIOUS franchise in spaughts he-uh! No one's EVUH gonna be the Yankees. Except the Yankees. Look, I, uh. Okay? I...I...I...I don't know woy you'd think they'd evuh be the Yankees. No one can evuh be the Yankees because theyuh can only be ONE Yankees. Which is the Yankees. Okay? I, ah, I just, ah, I don't unduhstand woy that's a question. Look. You, uh, you wait awn hald fuh fawty-five minutes to ask about the Mets being the Yankees. Theyuh nawt the Yankees. Okay? We shouldn't have to ansuh that kinda question. Okay? I mean, uh, if you wawnna team to be the Yankees, watch the Yankees. Unbelievable. Okay? Mawty in Five Towns, what's up."