Whose new MLB uniform is the best?
Welcome to the 2014 Major League Baseball season.
This offseason was a fairly muted one in terms of logo and uniform changes, but we still saw several teams make adjustments to their look for the new year.
Two clubs changed their primary brand, but it was a simple re-designation of a secondary brand to primary. So minor that nobody outside of a licensee with a team style guide (or, say, a sports logo website operator) would have ever noticed. Those two teams were the Cleveland Indians and Pittsburgh Pirates, and both teams will now use their cap logo as their primary brand.
For the Pittsburgh Pirates this move made sense. The Pirates have worn their famous yellow-P logo since the 1940s, and promoting it to primary seemed like a natural move. Cleveland, on the other hand, decided to use their red-block-C cap logo as the new primary, a graphic introduced relatively recently (2009) for use on their road caps. The block C replaces the controversial Chief Wahoo, which remains but only as a "secondary logo," and which also will stick around on their home caps and uniform sleeves.
Moving on to uniforms, the Texas Rangers have made some adjustments to their home and road uniforms for 2014. The club's eliminated the black completely from the "TEXAS" wordmark across the front and the player name and numbers on the back, returning the Rangers to their original red, white, and blue color scheme.
In Boston, the Red Sox also made a minor tweak to their primary set, changing the look of their road jersey despite coming off of a World Series title in 2013 (don't they know it's bad luck to change right after winning a title?). Boston's new road uniform is very similar to what they wore from 1990-2008, "BOSTON" arched in red, outlined in blue, in that classic Red Sox Tuscan-style font. This new uniform replaces the grey jersey worn from 2009-2013, which was essentially the same with the red from the wordmark removed.
The Oakland Athletics will have both a new road cap and a new green alternate jersey. The new road cap is all green with the "A's" logo in white with yellow trim (instead of just plain yellow since the early 1990s). Their new green alternate jersey is a clone of their existing yellow alternate jersey, just with the colours swapped - green with white/gold piping down the front of the jersey with the "A's" logo in the upper left corner of the chest. This jersey replaces their old green alt, which had "Athletics" across the front in gold, and had been worn since 1993.
Chicago's Wrigley Field turns 100 years old in 2014, and to celebrate the Cubs have announced a series of throwback games to be held throughout the season. Beginning with the 1910s, the Cubs will honour a different decade right through the 1990s, on select home games. First up is the uniforms of the 1914 Chicago Federals, the first team to call Wrigley Field home, which will be worn on the anniversary of Wrigley's opening on April 23rd. You can see a detailed list of all the jerseys and all the games here. The Cubs will be wearing a Wrigley Field 100th anniversary patch on their home jerseys and caps during home games this season.
The Cubs have also added a new road alternate jersey to their uniform rotation. The new jersey is grey with "CUBS" spelled out in block lettering, very similar to what the team wore back in 1920. These new jerseys come with their own special pants, which are the existing Cubs road pants with a blue and white stripe down the side.
Kansas City introduced a new alternate uniform and it's pretty much the exact same thing the Oakland A's did. The new Royals alt is royal blue with white/powder blue piping up the front of the jersey with the "KC" logo on the upper left chest. And just like the A's, this jersey replaces their long-used alternate, the blue jersey with "Royals" across the front in white, which had been in use since the mid 1990s.
The Atlanta Braves kick off the patriotic portion of our 2014 MLB Uniform preview. The team will be wearing a new red jersey with an American flag patch on one sleeve and their "Braves" logo across the front in a star pattern, similar to the one found on the U.S. flag. This jersey replaces the previous Braves red alternate uniform. Atlanta will also pay tribute to the 40th anniversary of Hank Aaron breaking Babe Ruth's all-time home run record with a special patch to be worn on all team uniforms. Atlanta also marked the anniversary by wearing 1974 throwback uniforms in their game on Tuesday night.
Those Amazin' Mets were another team to get all patriotic on us for 2014. New York's Senior Circuit club will wear an all camouflage version of their blue alternates, with a matching camo cap, for a handful of Monday night home games. New York is also paying tribute to the memory of former team announcer Ralph Kiner with a special patch featuring a microphone, worn on all club jerseys during the season.
Wrapping up the "USA! USA!" updates are the Cincinnati Reds, who will look anything but in their new camouflaged military appreciation jerseys. The uniforms are all-over camo with the team's batting practice "Reds" script across the front in green. The Mets and Reds join the San Diego Padres as teams to have camouflage jerseys in their official uniform rotation.
Who says the United States gets to be the only patriotic country out there? The Toronto Blue Jays, the lone non-American team in the Majors, will play to their own nation's patriotism with their new "alternate batting practice" cap, which is all red with a red maple leaf (trimmed in white) on the front. While the Blue Jays are free to wear this cap whenever they choose during the season, it is expected they will only do so for the July 1 Canada Day game and the "Baseball Canada Day" on August 10.
Getting back to baseball uniforms based on baseball, the San Francisco Giants have a new orange alternate uniform which is an homage to their 1970s design. The "Giants" wordmark across the front is an exact copy of those 70s uniforms, while the actual design of the jersey fits in with the styles of the current Giants uniforms. This new orange jersey replaces San Francisco's orange uniform, which they had been wearing in recent seasons.
Our last new uniform of 2014 is the Los Angeles Dodgers' new road grey alternate jersey. The new jersey returns "Dodgers" to L.A.'s road uniform, which the team had worn throughout the 80s and most of the 90s. With the new jersey comes new special pants, plain grey - no stripes. Los Angeles will continue to wear their "Los Angeles" scripted road grey jerseys for the majority of their away games.
The Chicago White Sox wore throwback uniforms for every Sunday home game in 2013, in homage to the 30th anniversary of the '83 AL West champion team. The promotion proved so popular the team has brought them back for 2014, but now with it's own special cap, one that the club never actually had wore before with this uniform. The cap is navy blue with a white front panel and has the classic ChiSox "Batterman" logo on the white. Chicago used the "Batterman" as their primary brand during the 1980s. Chicago is also wearing a patch on their jerseys in honor of David Reinsdorf, the son of owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who died last month.
When Miami introduced their new uniforms way back in the Fall of 2011, a lot of fans were looking forward to seeing the bright orange caps take the field. Sure, it wasn't traditional, but this was a club whose brand was clearly steering away from tradition, so why not go all the way? It was a disappointment for sure when the team stopped wearing the orange after only two appearances in 2012. That's no longer the case. The Marlins will wear the orange caps for every Friday home game throughout 2014, already making their return this past weekend. The road greys, however, are still on the shelf, - the Fish have not worn their grey road uniforms since 2012 and told me in an email that they will also not be worn in 2014. Miami will instead wear black or orange for all road games in 2014.
Finally, a host of teams are simply adding a special commemorative patch to their jerseys. In addition to the patches mentioned throughout the post above, Baltimore will pay tribute to their 60th anniversary as well as former part-owner Tom Clancy (yes, that Tom Clancy) with special patches on their uniforms. The Philadelphia Phillies are honouring former part owner Claire Betz with a "CB" patch on the front of their uniforms. Minnesota will be wearing a patch on their jerseys and caps celebrating their hosting the 2014 All-Star Game. Pittsburgh is wearing a black "4" in a black circle in memory of former player Ralph Kiner. San Diego has a navy blue star with the initials "JC" inside for former broadcaster Jerry Coleman.
As with 2013, we'll be tracking all the uniforms worn throughout the 2014 Major League season over at SportsLogos.net, including each team's performance in each uniform as well as league-wide jersey color stats. You can check out our 2014 MLB Uniform Tracker here.
Chris Creamer is the creator and editor of SportsLogos.net. You can follow him on Twitter at @sportslogosnet.