Twenty years ago, after blowing a lead in a critical playoff game for the Minnesota Twins, Juan Rincón described the feeling with a all time baseball malaprop: “No one wants to be in my pants right now.”
Apparently no one wants to wear a pair of baseball pants these days. Major League Baseball players reported to spring training this week to find they could no longer customize their pants and that their new style of jerseys, designed by Nike and manufactured by Fanatics, were not up to Major League standards. Suspenders.
Ace the athletic one Stephen J. Nesbitt wrote that the league’s players “criticized the jerseys’ poor fit, cheap appearance, inconsistent quality, and small print.”
Sigh. Major League Baseball simply can’t help it and the situation continues to get worse.
In 2019, for the gloomy “Players Weekend”, they organized a all white vs. all black uniform series that evoked “Spy vs. To spy” from old Mad magazine. The following year, as part of a 10-year deal with Nike. worth more than a billion dollarsThey let Nike put their logo on the front of each shirt.
Then came the “City Connect” uniforms, in case you ever wondered what your favorite player would look like as a player. blueberry, a cloud or a license plate. The All-Star Game, always a cavalcade of colors with players wearing their usual uniforms, it turned into a three-hour ad for generic Nike jerseys.
Now this.
Baseball’s relationship with Nike is like the “Seinfeld” episode when George tries to be friends with Elaine’s cool boyfriend. He wears his hat backwards and goes rock climbing, unable to hide his crush on her. He’s desperate to be a guy, but he’s still a Costanza.
That’s not to say baseball has to be stuffy. Last season’s rule changes made the product more dynamic and engaging. Many other initiatives (the annual Little League Classic, the DREAM Series, the “MLB The Show” video game, the comprehensive, easy-to-use MLB app) also help grow the game.
But baseball doesn’t seem to understand its own visual appeal. Let the other leagues make their t-shirts cheaper with advertising. Baseball should be above that, but the latest collective bargaining agreement allows teams to sell advertising space on uniforms. So now the Atlanta Braves wear a sleeve patch depicting a yellow bag of concrete mix, the Toronto Blue Jays attack you with a neon green square for a bench, and the Houston Astros sport a flashy patch for Oxy. the energy producernot the drug.
When Rob Manfred became commissioner in 2015, said he had no interest in allowing advertisements on t-shirts. That changed, of course, and Manfred was at least honest about the reversal in 2022: “It’s a significant enough revenue stream that it’s really impossible for a sport to ignore it in the long term. I think that’s the truth.”
It’s a business, of course. But just because you can make money selling something doesn’t mean you should. Several teams will not sell the naming rights to their stadiums because there is more value in continuity and tradition. It’s still Dodger Stadium, not Guggenheim Field. It’s still Yankee Stadium, not Starr Insurance Park.
Manfred’s approach to All-Star uniforms reflected the belief that Nike can do no wrong.
“I never thought that a baseball team wearing different jerseys in a game was a particularly attractive look for us,” he said in 2022. “I understand that people can have different points of view on that issue, but it is part of a more program “Broadly designed to market the game in a non-traditional way.”
Okay, but why hide the identity of your players? The All-Star Game should be a showcase, and a regular-season uniform gives an easy clue: “Oh, right, he’s that Marlins guy who’s done so well…” If they all look the same, you’ll lose that connection.
Manfred reiterated his faith in Nike on Thursday at Grapefruit League media day.
“I think in baseball, with any new initiative, there will be negative comments. First and foremost are the Nike jerseys,” Manfred said. “We established this partnership with Nike. Who they are and the type of products they produce, everything they have done for us so far has been 100 percent successful across the board.
“The shirts are different. They are designed to be high performance garments unlike what has been traditionally worn. So they’re going to be different. But they have been tested more thoroughly than any jersey in any sport. Feedback from last year’s All-Star Game was uniformly positive from players. “I think after people use them for a while, they will be very popular.”
The 2024 uniforms have noticeably smaller font for the player name. Obviously, this will only make it harder to know who we’re looking at. How can that be a good thing?
“Look at the last names, brother,” said Angels reliever Carlos Estévez. “I’m 6 feet 6 inches tall. This is going to seem small to me.”
Last year versus this year’s replica jersey offerings from the fine folks at MLB, Nike, and Fanatics. Last year being left-wing and this year right-wing.
I have a lot to say, so bear with me.
Let’s rip the band-aid off right away with this year’s New Jersey offerings. pic.twitter.com/3IShhlj0nL
—Bobby Mullins (@TheBobbyMullins) February 11, 2024
Hey, maybe the players, many of them with Nike endorsement deals, will change their minds once they play a few games. Maybe, over time, the jerseys won’t look like the replica you buy when you’re trying to save money but still want to look authentic.
But the underlying concept persists. Baseball, led by Nike, is trying to force all of these stylistic changes instead of just letting them happen organically. Consider the uniform trends of the past few decades and how they reflected the times:
In the 1970s, color televisions gave rise to bright, eye-catching uniforms. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, things were more conservative: button-down shirts, belts, white at home, gray on the road, a nostalgic turn that was also reflected in the rise of retro stadiums.
The Marlins won the 1997 World Series wearing their white sleeveless jerseys. (AP Photo/Eric Draper)
Four expansion teams joined MLB in the 1990s, and two, the Florida Marlins and Arizona Diamondbacks, would soon win a World Series by wearing sleeveless jerseys in Game 7. All expansion teams wore black, with some combination of purple and/or teal. – and black became the popular color, with the Mets, Blue Jays, Royals, A’s and others dipping their toes into it.
In the 2010s, teams increasingly turned to alternate jerseys, which often became their de facto primary look. Four straight seasons ended with the World Series winner wearing a colored jersey: the 2016 Cubs, 2017 Astros, 2018 Red Sox and 2019 Nationals.
Fortunately, the pants were still white or gray. Then City Connect came along and now we see the White Sox, Pirates, Mariners, Reds, Rangers and Orioles wearing black pants. The Astros and Cubs have all-navy blue attire, and the Diamondbacks sometimes wear all-yellow. We are returning to the worst of the 70s.
Some teams have made major updates to classic looks. In the last decade, the Orioles, Brewers, Blue Jays, Padres, Astros and Rangers have modernized the old styles of their glory years, honoring their traditions in a cutting-edge way.
But when the league intervenes, it’s too much, too fast: an assault on the eye for a sport that can and should be a visual delight.
(Top photo of Giants pitcher Juan Sánchez: AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
