MLB Uniforms

MLB Uniforms

I decided to redo my baseball uniform concepts with new templates. A couple of notes:

1. Reduced the alternate designs to one per team, which they could wear for a limited number of preset home games, be it weekday afternoon games, or a specific day of the week, etc. Also including a batting practice / spring training mesh pull over design for each team.

2. For the most part it’s the city on the cap. For the jerseys it is for the most part, the city (or state) name on the away jersey and the nickname on the home jersey. Also no numbers on the front (again for the most part). They always look asymmetrical and clunky to me, plus they weren't even used until the 1950s.

3. The MLB commissioner has said expansion is likely to happen soon, there are a handful of choices and I think you can get up to 36 teams in a reasonable alignment. Bringing back Montreal and a replacement team for Oakland. Salt Lake City is making a strong push, plus you have Nashville and Charlotte as logical additions in the under represented southeast. That leaves one more spot, and Norfolk is one of the largest metro areas with no professional sports, they'd fit into a newly set up southern division. While I loved the old AL/NL dynamic, that has be trashed, so it makes sense now to just align by geography; a western and eastern conference. I'd go by the old dynamic that there is no regular season crossover, making the East/West all star game special again. You'd have Pacific, Mountain, and Central divisions in the West, with North, South, and Atlantic divisions in the East.

Atlantic Division:

Baltimore Orioles - I really want to bring diversity in color and identity, so it makes sense to have the Orioles with orange as their primary color. Also I like using the Maryland flag in the secondary logo. Not really drawing from any one particular era here, home script and socks from the 1950's, modern away script, and a completely new orange hat design with a B, based on the 1890s Baltimore Baseball Club emblem, which is also found on the Camden Yards seats. The alternate O's vest, with multi panel bird head cap is a nod to their design that showed up in the late 1970's.

Boston Red Sox - Well they are the Red Sox, so I just emphasized red in the uniform. They really should wear that red cap from the mid-1970's as their primary design. For the alternate it is their navy cap and a cream uniform with their original Red Sox block font.

New York Mets - No big changes, while they have tweaked things here and there the last few decades, this is pretty much the 1997 design, but with Mr Met as a sleeve patch rather than the primary logo, and also adding some stripes to the socks. Never liked the pinstripes for the Mets, seemed to derivative of the cross town rivals who obviously are most associated with them, so may be sacrilege to Mets fans to drop those. Alternates are based around the cream colored pinstripe set they wore beginning in in 2010.

New York Yankees - Obviously no changes here to this classic, and also no alternate uniform.

Philadelphia Phillies - A modern classic, no need for changes. Just retaining the bell in diamond logo rather than the current diamondless version. Also keeping the sleeve numbers that were recently dropped to make room for ads. The cream alternate also stays as a great look.

Washington Nationals - It is hard to tell if the Nats are supposed to be red or navy blue. I went back through the previous two Washington Senators franchises and royal blue was their main color most of the time, but then switched to red the last few years in town. So I decided to go with blue as the primary. The cream changes them up a bit from the other blue and red teams. Added new primary and secondary logos that are much less generic than their existing ones, based on the old Senators, and likewise dumping the script W on the cap and going with a similar design to their alternate cap. Jersey font is based on early 1960's road font. I kept the home and road simple, blue numbers and letters, with red piping and NOB. For the alternate I went with a DC logo based on their blue pinstripe design of the 1950's.

North Division:

Cincinnati Reds - Good uniforms and logo, just changing up the drop shadow black for simple outlines. Also putting Mr. Redlegs on the jersey sleeve. They get to keep the front numbers as they are a nice balance to the logo on the front. Alternate design being a vest with the Reds script font, and white cap reminiscent of their early days more than a century ago.

Cleveland Guardians- Can't say I really like the new name, feels like they chose Guardians because it sounds like Indians. With the rebrand I don't know why they didn't change up the colors, navy and red are overused in baseball, maroon and columbia would be something different. The Cleveland wordmark is good, the Guardians one less so, so I redid the Guardians wordmark in the Cleveland style. The winged G logo is garbage, instead based the logos on their city flag similar to a design by FootballasFootball.com. Going with cream at home, kind of traditional for an original AL team. The cap logo C is from their looks in the 1920's and 1930's. A solid white, minimalist alternate vest with just the cap C, and the alternate colored cap.

Detroit Tigers - The Tigers have a nice and simple old school look, though I added orange trim to the D on the chest and numbers on the home jersey, I like how they recently went uniform with the same style script D on both the cap and jersey. Though still keeping the alternate script D for the version of the logo with the tiger in it.  Also the older version of the script on the away jersey that they used from the 1930's through the 1950's. Their alternate design is based on the one-off 1928 Tigers design.

Montreal Expos - Really just merging their uniform design from the 1980's with the 1990's scripts. Their alternate is just using the stylized M on the chest from the 1980s.

Pittsburgh Pirates - Again, another good, classic look. The only changes here are dumping the red accents and just keeping it simple with black and yellow. Also changing up the sleeve patch to the flag secondary logo. For the alternate just using the similar design but as a pinstripe vest.

Toronto Blue Jays - Their current set is pretty good, though instead of navy and royal blue went back to royal blue and light blue, plus added their T on the cap instead of the bird logo. I like the idea of one team being unique and using baby blue instead of gray on the road. In my mind the teams I most associated with the baby blues were the Phillies, Royals, and Blue Jays, and since the Jays still have light blue in their colors, they make the most sense to keep it. For the alternate it is their multi panel bird logo cap along with some thick stripes on the uniform reminiscent of styles when the team was founded in the late 1970s.

South Division:

Atlanta Braves - The uniforms work for the most part, just a little adjustment to make the piping simpler, I always thought that was excessive. I never liked how they had their wordmark as their primary logo, so I made the crossing tomahawks their primary logo. Their alternates being the home version of the mid 1970's design, but color swapped to navy instead of royal blue.

Charlotte Knights - Charlotte has done well with the Knights, frequently leading the minors in attendance, so bumping them up to the majors. Black with a light blue and gold trim look from their current set remains, as do the wordmark designs. Restyling the logo as a shield crest featuring crossed swords and the city's crown logo. Bringing the Knights to the majors is also an easy sell to connect them to the classic baseball film The Natural, so the lightning bolt patch from the fictional team shows up here. I do think they need a better C-logo for their cap, so an Old English-like font makes sense given their name. The alternate uniform also takes some inspiration in its design from the film.

Miami Marlins - This is a team that got it right the first time. But their recent rebrand isn't awful, a few tweaks are needed, sort of merging the current design with the original. First making the current blue a little more teal, but not the original teal, and making the red into a sort of coral color, feels more Miami. Next is making teal the primary and bringing back the pinstripes. The logo also gets updated; giving the marlin an eye on the fish, and also creating a logo with the new fish in the style of original logo. Lastly dropping the fish from the M on the hat, and keep the fish version as a secondary logo. The alternates as black set, with the fish-M on the chest.

Nashville Sounds - I do like a lot about their existing minor league team design, but given the abundance of navy and red teams already, it needs to be recolored. Their city flag is an almost indigo shade of blue, which would be unique, paired up with the goldish-yellow. Adding in the guitar pick and Tennessee star pattern to the logo. I wanted the uniform itself to be as simple as possible, and bringing back the wordmarks from their 2015-2018 set, that had a great musical motif to them. Taking aspects from various parts of their history to make something new. The alternate uses Music City wordmark rather than Sounds, and duplicates the specific stripe pattern from the logo onto the sleeves.

Norfolk Tides - A large metro area with no big league teams, though they have angled for NHL and MLB in the past. The existing minor league Tides get the move up. The orange and varying shades of green color combo is unique. For the logo merging the current roundel with the past wave logo. The wordmarks most look good too, a larger beach blanket like stripe pattern for the sleeves and pants. The alternate takes the very pale seafoam green, not traditional at all, but I think it sort of works like the baby blue uniforms had in the past.

Tampa Bay Rays - The original gradient logos were too much, but if you take their second green and blue color scheme and apply it to the original logos and design it works great. Not much green in baseball, and green and blue have always been a favorite color combo of mine. The gradient does work as an alternate design, heavy on the blue.

Central Division:

Chicago Cubs - Not many changes here, ditching the sleeve patch on the home jersey, with the left chest logo it made the jersey a bit too unbalanced. I also changed up the away jersey font to the 1927 design and blue numbers also. Their alternate is based on their 1933 set, but with the modern bear-in-c logo.

Chicago White Sox - Mostly using their uniforms from 1949 including that version of a C cap. Adding a new primary logo and of course, using some actual white socks. The alternate brings back the pinstripes paired with their 1942 White Sox script, and  getting the SOX hat in there too.

Kansas City Royals - They have an under rated classic uniform if they keep the away script design preferably the version from 2006. Just created a new secondary logo. The alternate using the KC with the crown over it on a vest, with gold accents throughout the uniform.

Milwaukee Brewers - I thought about the old MB ball and glove logo, but I never was a big fan of it, for years it just looked like a glove and not MB, so growing up I always thought it was the worst cap because it just had a baseball glove on it. Instead I went with the cap design from the Milwaukee Braves days, just swapping out the red brim for yellow. I think going to yellow instead of gold makes them a little more vibrant. The 1990 jersey fonts are much sharper than the new ones, and look good on a plain jersey. Also a new logo based on a fan design contest they did a few years back, as well as a combo MB glove on the state of Wisconsin. The alternate set uses their inaugural season in Milwaukee road font, with some thicker stripes, and the MB on a multi panel cap,

Minnesota Twins - The Twins have another simple and good look. Just changed up the twins shaking hands logo to the primary, and put the TC letter mark into their roundel as secondary logo. The pinstripes on the road grays are unique touch. Grew up with the Minnesota M on the cap rather than the Twin Cities' TC, so I went with the M and kept the TC as a sleeve patch. Going with cream also gives them a pastoral look fitting for one of the AL's original teams. The alternate is uses pinstripes, the "Twin Cities" wordmark from their recent update, and TC on the cap, just using the modern Twins logo for the patch.

St Louis Cardinals - Really nothing to change with the Cardinals, just a great look. The only thing I would change is to have the city name on the away jersey and make the home an old fashioned cream. For alternate going with a modernization the 1956 design that had a simple script rather than the traditional bird-on-bat crest

Mountain Division:

Arizona Diamondbacks - I think their red/gold/black color set looks good and feels very Arizona. They finally got around to creating a full Diamondbacks wordmark, so that goes on the home whites rather than the awful D-Backs moniker. The alternate design is based partially off their original look that featured a pinstriped cream set, but using a snake-D on the chest rather than the A logo.

Arlington Rangers - I'm not a fan of using state names, especially when there are other teams in the same state. While generally associated with Dallas as the big city of that metro area, I like the idea of using Arlington, as it has an old fashioned feel to use the smaller known city they are actually playing in rather than the large city of the region. I switched their primary color to red to change it up a bit, from all the other blue and red teams. Also went back to modified versions of their original logos, which are a little more unique, and the jersey script and cap font from the 1980's. For their alternate, as a nod to their history, the 1983 Texas wordmark with red, white, and blue uniform stripes, with a blue cap that has that font's R on the state of Texas.

Colorado Rockies - I downplayed the purple making black the primary, simplified their font, dumped the silver, and made the shade of purple brighter. They’ve really only had the primary logo, and partial version of it, decided to come up with a nice alternate logo based on the state flag for them as a sleeve patch. The alternate look I had played around with using the their primary logo across the chest, minus the underline and arch with Colorado, but it just didn't look right. Then their city connect uniform came out, and that actually did a great job of rendering the mountains on a baseball jersey. So taking that portion of the city connect, but keeping the mountains purple, and going with white pants. Also switching up the hat to a purple and white design that matches the jersey.

Houston Astros -  Going with their 1971 design but adding the shooting star over the road wordmark, which is now rendered in the same font as Astros. Their new logo is kind of generic and really only a modification of the cap logo, but it is decent enough with some slight color changes. And of course orange as the primary so they don't look the same as all the other navy teams out there. For the alternate, a modernization of the classic rainbow design is the obvious choice.

Las Vegas Athletics - Unfortunate they didn't make it work in Oakland, but on the move again to Las Vegas. Since they have had multiple color identities throughout their wandering history, I am leaving the darker green and yellow behind for a new team in Oakland to use. But since the A's have been so associated with green, taking the first, lighter shade of green they wore, and pairing it with black. The current classic uniforms and logos adjust accordingly, including the Las Vegas star within the roundel design. Also only going with one version of the signature A. 

Salt Lake Bees - Salt Lake City has been making a strong push for a team, and geographically they'd line up perfectly to fit in this division. The Bees name and logos are pretty great, just need to slide the yellow to a gold shade so they don't mimic the Pirates too much. A secondary logo using the lily from the city flag works nice as a chest patch on the alternate uniform.

Pacific Division:

Anaheim Angels – Obviously going back to calling them by their correct name. Their city connect script is great, so making that their full time design. Added a little more yellow into their design to change them up from other red and navy teams. I don't love the red A on the red cap, but it has become their look the last several years, and it distinguishes them from other red and navy teams out there. Also bringing back the old logos, an updated baseball diamond with wings logo, and  California with the halo logo. For an alternate, bringing back a navy cap had to be a part of it, the thick stripes as a faux back type look to the 70's with the wordmark from that era.

Los Angeles Dodgers - Nothing to change up here really. Just pulled the LA sleeve patch which is repetitive. For the alternate, basing this on all the way back to the 1933 Brooklyn Dodgers' set.

Oakland Oaks - The old PCL team makes a return to replace the departing Athletics. Using the darker green with yellow color scheme that is associated with Oakland baseball. A lot of the logos carry over from the old franchise, and the Oaks-in-acorn design makes a great chest logo for the home set. Green pinstripes are unique and enough to distance them from the franchise that once called Oakland home. The PCL team's old wordmark returns for the alternate design. And a sleeve patch would feature the City of Oakland's tree logo to further root themselves in the community. Perhaps the franchise could even become the MLB version of the Packers, with a public ownership model?

San Diego Padres - Glad they went back to the original brown and yellow. Using the current jersey font and numbers, and the 1998 friar as the primary. Also going with a 1970's style thick shoulder and pants stripe. For the alternate, design elements from the yellow and brown combos of 1978, and the multi panel cap.

San Francisco Giants - Going with the 2000 design sans gold, but switching up the number font, putting player name on the back of the home jersey and a new secondary logo as the sleeve patch. The alternate design a white uniform with the script wordmark they used in the late 1970's including era appropriate pant and sleeve stripes.

Seattle Mariners - This design is a combo of various eras. Color wise ditching silver and making the teal a little more greenish. Keeping the primary logo but going trident M from the early 1980's as an alternate logo. The jersey fonts are also from their early years, and the cap logo being a modified S from the city flag. The alternate design is a cream set with the trident/star logo, and a trident M cap logo.