This week in uniforms and logos: Batting practice jerseys and caps

The 2013 MLB playoffs may have just gotten underway but we're already getting a good look ahead to 2014 thanks to an inadvertent PDF upload by a clothing manufacturer showing us every new batting practice jersey months ahead of their scheduled unveiling.

The batting practice jersey, in addition to being worn during every pre-game BP session, is also worn during Spring Training games. When your favourite ballclub reports to Florida or Arizona in February, this is what you'll see them wearing for the first six weeks in daily reports from camps or when you're glued to the screen watching meaningless ballgames (J.P. Arencibia hit .439 this past Spring ... just saying).

Major League Baseball, Majestic, and New Era all work together on outfitting and designing every big league club for batting practice and spring training. Majestic handles the jerseys while New Era takes care of the caps, so if you've ever looked at a BP uniform and thought the cap and jersey don't look like they belong together, well, this is why. Two different companies handling the designs and trying to keep it as "templatey" within (every cap looks the same, every jersey looks the same) as possible.  

Each of these deals call for complete league-wide re-designs every three years, and unfortunately they aren't synced up meaning you'll get different caps and jerseys crossing each others eras. New Era's three year cap re-design happened prior to the 2013 season and they'll be re-designing the league again in time for the start of 2016.  With the last BP jersey re-design taking place in 2011 ... 2011 + three  equals here we go, buckle up, new jerseys for everybody in 2014.

With every batch of BP jerseys it seems as though Majestic tries something "out there" with a handful of teams while keeping it conservative with the rest.  These two groups of designs are both templated as mentioned in the previous paragraph - every "out there" design is the same, every conservative design is the same, only the colours are changed based on the team.  

In 2011, the conservative look was a simple stripe up either side of the jersey, that was it.  While the "out there" look added what can be best described as a fake collar design - basically it looked like the team was wearing a collared dress shirt under their jersey. In 2014, well, they're at it again.

Seven teams are getting the special treatment this time 'round: the Braves, Indians, Rockies, Royals, Marlins, Rays, and Nationals will be wearing jerseys where the front half is one colour and the back half is something completely different.

While this idea is new to baseball, we've seen this before in basketball when the Toronto Raptors wore a half-purple/half-black jersey for several seasons in the early 2000s, and again by the East and West Conference during the 2008 NBA All-Star Game. It'll happen again in a few weeks in the NHL when the Buffalo Sabres take to the ice for the first time with their new half-yellow, half-blue alternate uniform. All of these designs have been panned by players, fans and critics, there's no doubt in my mind that the baseball version will yield the same response.

Some of these teams (KC, Miami, and Washington) already wear caps which already have a separate (and different from the jersey) front and back colour. When paired with these new double-coloured tops it'll create all sorts of front-back colour mismatching. This is a great example of the kind of problems you get having separate companies designing separate uniform elements. The Royals will have a white cap with blue jersey when viewing them from the front but when you turn them around they have a blue cap with powder blue jersey. Why? ... I'm getting a headache just trying to picture this.

The rest of the league looks quite similar to their 2011-13 designs, the only change is the all-the-way stripe on the sides are now limited to just the armpit area and there is a small, single stripe around the collars.

You can see the whole collection of new BP jerseys in the pic above, to see a larger version click here.

Other noteworthy notables from the new batch:

The Majestic logo which is worn on the sleeve of every team jersey (every jersey, not just batting practice) is getting an update, a side-by-side comparison of the difference between the 2013 and 2014 versions can be seen here.

Houston is keeping their rainbow striping alive by incorporating it into the much smaller side striping of their new BP jersey, the Astros are the only team to do anything other than a solid colour on their armpit.

There will be six teams who wear two different versions throughout the season: the Red Sox, Reds, Twins, Yankees, and Padres will have a home and road set while the Brewers will wear a special retro version for throwback uniform games.

The LA Angels and Minnesota Twins have coloured their armpit areas the same colour as their jersey base, creating a nice, clean, jersey design. 

Potentially hurting jersey sales but making it much easier to reassign uniforms during the chaotic Spring, there will be ten teams who will not wear a player name on the backs of their jersey. They are the Orioles, Cubs, White Sox, Rockies, Angels, Twins, Yankees, A's, Rangers, and Blue Jays.

Chief Wahoo is nowhere to be seen on the new Cleveland Indians BP jersey, instead using just the "C" logo. A potential victory to opponents of the controversial logo.  Chief Wahoo had been previously placed on the sleeve of the Tribe's 2011-13 BP design. The club has insisted to me in the past that they are not phasing out the logo but it's hard to keep believing that when they keep eliminating it's exposure bit-by-bit.

While many casual fans may not see the point of the BP jersey, there is at least one real positive we can all agree on - it's a very inexpensive purchase. At $80, the BP jersey is by far the least expensive piece of authentic on-field merchandise a fan can buy, more than 60% off of the price of an authentic on-field regular season jersey. Just a taste of what it's like to wear the exact same jersey a big leaguer wears ... until 2017 of course, when they re-design the whole lot once again.