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Did New Era Just Leak the Twins’ New Cap Design?

We’ve known for a while now that the Minnesota Twins will have new uniforms next season. And New Era may have just given us a sneak peek at part of the redesign.

Here’s the deal: New Era is currently selling a silly line of MLB fashion caps with a “southwestern” theme. If you go to their website and search on the word “southwestern,” 29 results come up — one for every MLB team except the Twins.

But the Twins’ version of this cap was briefly visible on the New Era site yesterday, and an enterprising fan got a screen shot of it before the link was disabled. Take a look:

If we strip away the southwestern silliness and compare the logo to the team’s current cap, here’s what we see:

You can ignore the “T” shifting from white to cream (that’s a standard feature throughout the southwestern hat program) and the squatchee changing from red to navy (there are no contrasting squatchees in trhe southwestern line). But the “TC” logo has been subtly streamlined — for the better, I’d say.

We can’t know with 100% certainty that this logo tweak will be part of the Twins’ new uniform package, but it seems likely. We’ll find out soon enough when they officially unveil the new uniforms during the offseason.

(My thanks to Jimmy Lonetti and Trevor Williams for bringing this leak to my attention.)

 
  
 
Comments (56)

    As a Twins fan I don’t mind it. It definitely fits with the fauxback design they compared to the Padres when announcing they were updating the uniforms.

    And the Bears, the Cleveland Baseball team from ’33-’73, the Chicago Cubs from ’40-’56, the Chicago Cardinals football team, the KC Monarchs, the University of Chicago from 1898 and on, and about 7 small colleges across the country, among others. That’s the wishbone C for you!

    I wouldn’t say the Bears wishbone C is “radically” different; it’s just asymmetrical. Top of the letter does not reach as far as the bottom part of the C.

    Zach,
    This man knows his “C’s”.
    I would also add that there is nothing wrong with incremental changes in sports design. MLB is especially conservative in their branding. Even a tiny shift in a design can have repercussions that could adversely effect the brands perception. On the plus side they often lead to breakthroughs that only through the lens of time seem obvious.

    Mr. Lukas hisself did a fine overview about the link.

    I agree with that assessment. I’m not sure I like the color of the “T”. The shape is fine. It depends on the whole uniform.

    Supposedly any team with white in the logo was represented as cream on that release of new era caps. So the thought is that it will actually be white.

    I’ve never understood this kind of response. Not every change has to be a *big* change. Sometimes small, incremental changes can work just fine.

    In any case, I’m fairly certain the Twins’ new uni set will have more changes than just the cap logo tweak.

    Just a guess, but I wonder if people are adverse to minor changes like this if they have a significant amount of team gear, and now feel it is outdated. But not outdated enough to be a throwback logo, only outdated enough to look like an incorrect version of the current logo? Just speculating.

    Personally I’m for teams making minor tweaks from time to time, especially when the existing logo isn’t broke to begin with. Smaller changes to modernize are usually better than full overhauls.

    Some people need the latest jersey/cap, some people like having the old stuff, even if it’s just the last iteration.

    I’d imagine the TC logo is getting streamlined to make it more digital-friendly.

    Because it’s neat, indicates a change to come, and is a potential leak. Personally I’m a big fan of small leaks like this and little tidbits on uniform changes, that’s like 1/3 of the reason to even follow this blog!

    I’ve never liked the TC logo. I wish they’d use the Kirby Puckett-era M logo more often. That looked nice.

    I’m okay with the TC logo, but I do really like the old M logo. Although I’m not sure if it’s because it’s rare or because it’s good.

    I’m the opposite… I hated the M logo from day one, and it hasn’t grown on me at all.
    TC all the way.

    Lee

    I like both logos. But with the use of the Twins throwback script the past few seasons, it makes sense to go with the “TC” logo if you’re only going to use one.

    The Twins should just blend the 2 World Series era uniforms.

    Modified TC hat with pinstripe uniforms at home. Modified Twins script (probably the one they have used on social media).

    M hat with pinstripes on the road. Block Minnesota lettering like the 1987-2009 set.

    Red alt at home (don’t care if it is the TC one or one with Twins in white on it) and blue alt on the road (love the one they had from 1997-2008 with the white lettering.

    Nice improvement. The thicker strokes, simplified crossbar on the T, more ompact C, and more even negative space all renders much better than the current. I’m digging it.

    I tend to agree, though in the larger sense I fear that any new uniform based on a TC cap logo is likely to fail in the basic mission of improving on one of the worst uniform sets in modern baseball. The Twins are a muddled mess, a unitastrophe of Marlinesque proportions, so it’s almost impossible for a full redesign to not be an improvement. Almost. The one thing that could augur a worsening of the very very bad status quo would be a continuing chase of nostalgia, since integrating bad revivals of mediocre-to-bad retro elements is how the Twins tweaked themselves into their current state of ugliness.

    But thickening the lines and simplifying the T serifs will improve visibility of the TC. The current TC most often looks like a broken T, since the red has low contrast with the navy and so the C tends to disappear from view. The mustard outline in the current set helped that significantly, and thickening the line width of the C will have much the same effect. That element will be an improvement, even if its presence makes me fear that the overall new uniforms are likely to continue to wallow in the team’s ugly status quo.

    That’s excellent analysis. I like this new TC miles better than the old one, which looks hollow and fragile. The thicker letters make me think of the Milwaukee Bucks more than the San Diego Padres they’re fawning after. I’m hopeful for a nice new look. Will it happen? Eh, who knows.

    I definitely don’t mind the change at all. I’ve always loved the TC logo. If they’d drop the gold trim it would improve their current set immensely so I hope we’re looking at tweaks and not a complete redesign.

    They need something closer to a complete redesign. Four alternate jerseys, gold trim, red and blue confusion (not Texas Rangers bad but still), 2 different “Twins” scripts – it’s a hot mess. Too many tweaks ends up in visual chaos. A total re-design, utilizing maybe 2 elements of the current set, is called for.

    Texas Ranger fan here. I want to counter to the red/blue confusion charge. One of the higher-ups here threw it out years ago and it stuck. I disagree. For one, the Rangers were red/blue from day 1 and almost every version used both colors (only a tiny amount of blue in the 90s red uniforms). No confusion at all – they are a red and blue team.

    Secondly, there are a bunch of teams in baseball using red/blue combo. Red Sox, Blue Jays, Cleveland, Twins, Angels, Braves, Phillies, Nationals, Cardinals, Cubs, Reds (at points during history also used blue, though not now), and Dodgers (minimal).

    By the way, no worries about disagreement. Uniform discussions are fun.

    This update to the TC logo is understated, but looks great. The negative space between the T and top of the C is much better now, and the new style letters are cleaner and sharper. Over all, an improvement on a traditional logo.

    Padres, Blue Jays, Brewers, and to a lesser extent, Astros (specifically logo)
    a ‘nod’ to throwback with a modern update. I’m 100% on board with this.

    IMHO that’s how you go back to an old look. Subtle, sometimes not as subtle, but smaller updates to modernize the look.

    Only thing I hate about the Astros update is the spacing on the jerseys that have the Astros script.

    Boston’s in the running. Until the ’80s they had a giant space where the placket is: BOS   TON. Really any even-number-of-letters team has to really tweak things to keep it from looking bad.

    When I first got interested in baseball as a kid in the 60s, I had no idea what the TC stood for as the team was called the Minnesota Twins. I distinctly remember my mom, hardly a baseball fan, telling me it meant “Twin Cities,” which I’m sure confused me even more. But I do love that logo.

    Being a Vikings fan not actually from Minnesota (Iowa), it took me awhile to realize the ‘other’ Twin City was St. Paul, not Bloomington.

    Lee

    The “TC” is a better “City Connect” than pretty much anything the Swoosh has come up with. While it may be just me, the Puckett “M,” reminds me of the logo of the All Valley Karate Tournament from Karate Kid, so I can’t unsee a fist striking.

    A little bit of TC history from the Calvin Griffith era Twins. When it was introduced in 1961 upon the Twins move from Washington, Calvin joked the TC stood for Thelma (his sister who was part of the family ownership group) and Calvin. Another TC reference by Calvin is “Twenty Cubans” given the high number of this nationality on the Twins roster.

    Calvin actually wanted to name the team the Twin Cities Twins but MLB would not let him. That led to them using Minnesota, the first major league sports team to be named fora state.

    An alternative possibility: A few of the “Southwestern” caps in the series use Cooperstown Collection logos. None of the Cooperstown Collection logos being used in this series are monstrously inaccurate, but some Cooperstown Collection cap logos are terribly, ahistorically, inaccurate. Such as the Cooperstown Collection versions of the 1970s Brewers M logo or the 1960s Senators Curly W logo or famously almost all Brooklyn Dodgers cap logos. I don’t recall seeing a Cooperstown Collection version of the 1960s TC logo that’s this inaccurate, but it’s on a par with a few others that are. So I hold that out as a possible explanation here. Not likely, but possible.

    I feel like the more the Twins make changes, the worse their uniforms look. They pretty much peaked in the 90s and it’s been downhill since then. I like the M caps, frankly. All this TC business is just a distraction. Why have letters on your cap that aren’t in your team name? Like, kudos for quirky cuteness but come on. Pick something, stick with it, let it become a classic–worked for a lot of teams.

    I basically agree in whole with Ross here, though I strongly prefer the 2010 updated jersey script to the 1987 home jersey script. But I will defend the TC, even though I also very much prefer an M cap logo. The geographic designation Minnesota is a compromise; the norm in 1961 would have been for the team to be the Minneapolis Twins (or Millers or whatever nickname). There wasn’t a good precedent for naming a team in a metropolitan area with multiple coequal core cities. If pro sports didn’t exist but was invented today, and a new team was formed in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, it would probably be the Twin Cities Twins (or Wild or Vikings or whatever). Minnesota was a square-the-circle solution at a time when Minneapolis was not seen as inclusive enough and Twin Cities wasn’t within the bounds of accepted naming practice. The Twins are in a fairly unique situation in several regards, and a TC cap logo speaks to important aspects of the team’s identity, location, and history.

    Still, if I owned the team, the TC logo would either be reserved for a sleeve patch or, at most, used as a road cap logo paired with 1987-style MINNESOTA jersey lettering. M cap at home above the TWINS jersey lettering.

    If Wikipedia is to be believed, Griffith proposed to name the team the “Twin Cities Twins”, but MLB objected. They did however allow him to retain the TC insignia for the caps (were they already produced?).
    Did the Vikings announce that they would be “Minnesota” before the Twins…who then just followed suit?

    I should have scrolled all the way through comments before I replied to a post above. Basically posted same thing you did. GMTA

    I agree with most of what you said, but I’d pair the TC hat with the TWINS home jersey because it’s more of a personal hometown touch. I’d use the M logo on the road hats because fans would instantly associate it with “Minnesota”, whereas the TC logo needs to be explained before it’s understood.

    100% agree. The latest tweak in 2016 was a significant step backwards. The 80’s – 2000’s unis are far superior. Clean and tight. And the TC should be relegated to alternate status.

    I love the Twins TC logo. It has been bastardized by the gold trim unfortunately.

    If this leak is legitimate, so be it. It does have a nicely rendered old-time feel to it, I suppose, but seems pointless.

    If true, it’s a beautiful redesign. It accomplishes the very difficult task of making the logo cleaner and more streamlined with a better balanced, while also retaining an old, almost timeless, feel. And the more I look at it, the more I like it. VERY well done!

    I’m a lifelong Minnesotan and Twins fan. I both like the new logo (if this is it) and think it’s unnecessary. It’s certainly could have been much, much worse.

    My friend works for Twins and they already previewed the new logos to the employees in October. He said there is 3 new logos and this isn’t one of them. New logos will be dropped Nov 18th or 19th.

    Both TC and M are good for the Twins, as long as the two guys shaking hands are on the sleeve of any uniform. I love that logo. Hope the Twins keep the slightly darker shade of red with the navy and the occasional powder blue. Lose the gold and leave that for the Royals.

    What is odd is if you asked me to draw the “TC” logo from memory, it would look like this and not the actual logo.

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