The Grab Bag section of Friday’s Ticker had an item about the pharmaceutical powerhouse Johnson & Johnson changing its wordmark from its longtime script to simple sans serif lettering. The linked article, submitted by frustratingly surnamed reader Blaise Lucas, had one passage in particular that caught my eye:
Many children no longer learn to write cursive in school, noted marketing consultant Laura Ries. People may recognize the [script version of the J&J logo], but they weren’t necessarily reading it, she said. The new logo, she said, is easier to process.
“Because it’s easier, it almost even draws your attention to it,” said Ries.
Hmmm, can you think of any industry that uses a lot of script logos and is also having trouble marketing itself to a younger demographic?
By my count, 19 of MLB’s 30 teams currently have a script logo on at least one — and in most cases more than one — of their non-CC jerseys: the A’s, Brewers, Cardinals, Dodgers, Giants, Guardians, Marlins, Mets, Nationals, Orioles, Phillies, Pirates, Rangers, Reds, Royals, Tigers, Twins, White Sox, and Atlanta.
That’s a lot of script jerseys! Obviously, scripts also appear occasionally in hockey, football, and basketball, but they’re most prevalent in baseball. And baseball is the sport widely perceived to be facing the steepest marketing challenges with younger fans — the ones who are no longer being taught cursive writing..
Personally, I like most of MLB’s jersey scripts and am in no hurry to see them change. But this isn’t a question of aesthetics or taste or trends; it’s a question of functional design. I was taught how to read and write cursive writing when I was growing up, while many of today’s kids are not. If they can’t read the chest scripts on jerseys — or, arguably worse, if they just think of the scripts as relics of a bygone age — that’s not good for the sport. And if a uniform isn’t legible to a team’s young fan base, then it’s clearly not a successful design.
I got in touch with Laura Ries — the marketing consultant quoted in the article about the J&J logo — to ask what she thought about script logos on uniforms.
“Script isn’t as legible, but that’s not the real issue,” she said. “Young people aren’t morons — they can figure out what a script logo says. But script looks old. Old and old-fashioned. There’s a certain nostalgia factor, but it doesn’t look modern. Now, old isn’t always bad — if you look at old wines and liquor brands, old can have a lot of value. But if you look at the big brands of the world, very few use script.”
I asked Ries what she would tell a marketing exec from a script-clad team. “It depends on the team,” she said. “You have to ask ‘Is our past so significant that it’s worth keeping, even in script?’ I mean, if you’re the New York Yankees, you don’t change a thing.” (She laughed when I pointed out that the Yankees don’t have to worry about this because they don’t use a script on their uniform.)
Ries wasn’t ready to say that the uni-verse should abandon script logos altogether, but she basically said that script is going to look increasingly dated as new generations of fans emerge without a background in cursive writing. Script logos have always looked a bit more traditional, and that impression will probably increase as fewer and fewer people use cursive in their everyday lives. MLB, of course, tends to lean heavily on tradition and nostalgia, but some people think that’s part of why baseball has an aging fan base and we have a nation of kids who are more interested in soccer. Hmmmm.
I’d be interested in hearing from you folks, especially those of you who have kids. Are your kids being taught cursive writing? If not, do you know if they have any trouble reading and/or appreciating the scripts on sports uniforms? Do they think script logos look so old and stodgy as to be uninteresting?
It’s hard to imagine a team like the Dodgers or Cardinals not using their familiar scripts. But maybe the time has come to at least start thinking about that — not for aesthetic reasons but for the good of the sport. What do you think? Discuss!
The link for the Guardians photo is not working
Fixed.
My 10 year old is learning cursive in Minneapolis Public Schools. Honestly, I’d prefer that instruction time to go to a different subject like coding or typing. Instagram has a script logo. I don’t believe that all scripts are “old fashioned”
It should take only a couple months to teach the kids cursive then they will no longer be have to be instructed and it is a much more efficient, faster way of writing…
Not to mention much more eloquent and aesthetically pleasing
You’re right that cursive/script is faster but that no longer matters, kids don’t write anything anymore. My daughter is a high school senior and everything is typed. Even notes are taken on their laptops. My daughter is part of the transition period when LA schools stopped teaching cursive, so she does write notes sometimes. Which brings up another point, kids generally don’t care about their handwriting, my generation cared about that, this is no longer the case. My daughter’s writing looks like a 1st grader wrote it.
Maybe they don’t write anything on paper because no one has taught them how.
And whether learning cursive “matters” or not is a subjective argument. You could argue (I would not) that it doesn’t matter whether kids learn the multiplication tables or long division, they can just use a calculator. Or that it doesn’t matter if they learn a second language, they can just use a translation app. Or that it doesn’t matter if understand the basics of physics and chemistry and biology or any other subject they learn in school.
There is plenty of research to show the myriad ways that sitting in front of a screen all day is bad for people’s physical and mental health. The more we can limit children’s screen time, in the classroom and at home, the better.
My kids are in grades 9, 6 and 2, and here in Ontario we are reintroducing cursive writing to the curriculum. I think it’s great. They might not end up using it all the time (although I do, despite my constant access to a phone, computer, tablet, etc.), but it’s still a useful skill to have. Just like knowing the multiplication tables.
Pedro is on point here. Writing on paper is fine, but kids today are much more efficient typing. My kids regularly bang out 10 page research papers for high school and would not be able to do that without typing on school-issued chromebooks.
One big shift in recent years has been online learning. Assignments are turned in virtually. Even the SAT is converting to online. The kids are much happier typing on the (ahem) written portion, as they can get more ideas and clarity that we ever could in the same amount of time with pen/pencil and paper.
Matt W. I think you misinterpreted my comment, I wasn’t saying it “doesn’t matter” in the sense you took it. I was saying it visually doesn’t matter to kids anymore because they don’t do it (here in L.A. is all I can speak to), kind of giving a state of affairs for people that don’t have kids the age of my daughter. If it was up to me handwriting would be taught and graded in school, but alas it is not.
It is sad that this is true, because it is equally true that people learn better by writing information down in their own handwriting. Even typing is not nearly as effective for learning.
I taught each of my kids how to write in cursive. This is one of those things where I hope people realize what is being lost and make a conscious change to bring skills like handwriting back. I am all for progress and technology but this is a change that is not as beneficial as it would seem on the surface.
I would argue learning cursive has rendered my writing near-illegible, because now my shorthand is an ugly mix of standard printing and cursive.
Aesthetically pleasing? You clearly haven’t seen my cursive writing, then.
Reading cursive may be a valuable skill, as there are some original source documents that are written in cursive, and you can never be 100% sure that a transcription, however faithful, doesn’t have errors. That said, the only things I write in cursive are my signature and sometimes a short note on a card. It’s messier, harder to read, and there isn’t much cause to use it, so better to continue to hone the script letters that I do use more frequently (though the handwriting is wretched there as well) than to have a second, even more illegible writing style.
The efficiency argument for cursive is much less convincing since the invention of the ballpoint pen. With a dip pen, it was important to minimize putting the pen up and down and making sharp angles. With a ball point none of that really matters.
As a kid in the 1970s I could never understand the Peanuts strips where Charlie Brown had a “pencil pal” because he could never write in pen without making a mess of ink blots. That story line made no sense to me because all my experience was with ballpoints which never made that kind of mess.
Pedro…my bro, always remember that it IS up to you what your daughter is taught in school, parents are the authority and if your school board disagrees, you have options….
Anthony, ponder, Dave….just because you have sloppy cursive (B-D) is no argument for not teaching children to write without a glowing keyboard in front of them….its a skill, as valid or more valid than typing…
Tom…if kids are smart enough to take complex tests online, surely they can walk and chew gum at the same time and learn how to write, not only in cursive, but other languages….
Its a matter of effort, I guess……
And in a way, Script/cursive is an art…..it should not be mothballed…..
I think script needs to stick around in baseball. Baseball is unique in that they tend to lean on logos that are mostly script (like the Dodgers logo) or just letters (almost every hat logo in the league.) There are some logos in the MLB without wording (like Boston’s pair of Red Sox) but script just feels like baseball to me.
Compare to the NFL where only 1 team (the Jets) wears their full name on their helmet full time (Giants throwback to it occasionally) or the NHL where only 2 teams wear their name on their chest full time (The Capitals and the Rangers).
When I see interlocking letters or fancy script team/city names, it just screams “BASEBALL” to me. I know that marketing often chases trends, but moving away from it will just water down the feel.
It’s not “the MLB.”
That’s your problem with his comment? That it’s “MLB” and not “the MLB”? Grammar police out in full force here today.
The point is valid. Brand traditionalists, such as most of us who Get It, don’t want to see these scripts/logos change. But baseball is a sport with an identity crisis with younger people who view anything their grandparents like as old and outdated. It may not be necessary but it would be forward thinking to make changes.
I get that, but I don’t think baseball’s issues are with the uniforms and visuals. The pace-of-play changes they made this year are a huge step in the right direction and will hopefully start bringing baseball back into prominence.
But then again, I’m not a marketing or business guy, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
I’ve also been an old man since I was like 17 so….
I say keep the script. Particularly in the Cardinals’ case. While it is indeed script (at least, ish), the letters still look pretty much like they do in block form. That is, a “d” in cursive has a swoop, while the “d” on the jerseys, well, looks like a d, just with the connecting lines. The Dodgers and Royals have more swoopiness (word?) to them, so maybe this is more of an issue with them. The other thing is that the roads often have block lettering, so it’s not like you won’t know who the team is at home if you are a fan.
For me, it’s really unique to BB, as was mentioned before. Cursive may be a thing of the past for the most part, but the old timey nature of the logos is something I like. In the end, I’m not sure that’s going to drive away young fans.
Go Candinalo! I’m a child of the 70’s, but let’s face it cursive is kind of weird and outdated at this point. Don’t be sorry it’s over, be glad that it happened.
So this is a fair point, but it’s also worth mentioning that trends can wax just as often as they can wane, and older things can be hip and cool again just as quickly as they fall out of favor. Just a brief look around at what’s available in stores these days will tell you that Gen Z is currently IN LOVE with the hippie-bubble font of the 1960s, all sorts of shirts are around with stuff like this on them: link
Does that mean the current baseball-y scripts will ever be ‘in style’? Hard to say. But it’s also a lot of work to chase the current fad over and over. Sometimes stability pays off, and what you kept ends up being just as cool as it is classic.
Exactly @Bud. Fads come and go all the time. The “Turn the Clock Ahead” unis proved that it’s pretty darn hard to predict future trends. Plus, if the J&J logo is used as the firestarter for this… well, that new logo is… sort of a downgrade, in my opinion. I’ve read the articles and understand their reasoning, but sigh, it’s another death of a great, classic mark.
Hippie Bubble Font Old? It’s not old, it’s just “well seasoned”… I used to doodle with the HBF in high school.
I mean…we gotta keep script alive, no?
link
A Men
I personally write almost exclusively in cursive (I’m in my early 30s so I’m not super old), but I understand that’s not typical. I actually would really hope that teams don’t phase this out, because having your favorite team use cursive might create a connection for younger generations that no other avenue would. Plus it makes baseball stand out against other sports who don’t use cursive.
If people under 30 can’t read a word on a jersey, we’re screwed. Leave the script alone.
300 Thumbs Up ! ! !
As a Cardinals fan, I’d be mixed if they stopped using the script. They’ve been using the script since 1956, and basically their current script/birds on the bat since 1957, so there is a ton of tradition there, but they went without the script for around the same amount of time (either a non-cursive text or no text at all on the chest), going back to the 1880’s-90’s.
I grew up with the script/birds on the bat. so it would be hard to see it go. But as long as the birds on the bat stay, I’d probably get used to whatever way they’d want to do the “Cardinals” part.
For the rest of sports, it gets flip flopped between cursive and non cursive quite often on jerseys, so it probably wouldn’t matter to me all that much, as long as the design is good.
I’d love it if the Cardinals would go to the large round C they used during the Gas House Gang era.
Por que no los dos? I see no reason to ditch script uniforms, because uniforms exist as part of a collective now. It’s just one of a larger set of four (+1). The Texas Rangers, Guardians, Mets, Royals, and Brewers all have script home uniforms and lettered away/alt uniforms and they look fine. No reason not to have a modern block uniform and a heritage alternate or vice versa.
My three children were never taught cursive in our suburban PA public school. This not only made it difficult for them to read script font (difficult, but not impossible), but also had the unintendend outcome of my oldest not knowing how to sign her name on a legal document. Luckily, she had a business class and involved parents that spent time teaching her how to sign something. It made her first experience writing a check pretty comical.
As someone who recruited, having applicants sign documents is a struggle. I found myself teaching my recruits how to sign their name (and use cursive) for the first time. I don’t think we need to teach cursive in school, however, I don’t want my beloved O’s to lose their script.
This was my sobering realization as well, when my oldest had to sign something and had no idea what to do.
I think script should only be avoided when you’re making a sign that will primarily be driven by, offering only a glimpse of a logo or name…
Script is so hard to make out on a lot of local businesses, leaving the nature of their business a mystery and while block isn’t as pretty, it is much more legible at a glance…
Otherwise subtracting script simply supports the dumbing down of our civilization much like how common speech has become crude compared to a century ago
I’m all for new rules, I like the way that MLB is trying to market in a way to appeal to younger folks but this suggestion is just serious overkill. I’m not one of the traditionalists who flips out just because something doesn’t appeal to me specifically. But I don’t think it’s a stretch to expect kids to understand that spells Cardinals.
My kids learned cursive in grade school, but it wasn’t the “punitive” instruction we had in the 1970s. There wasn’t three lines and they didn’t practice how to make p’s below the line and h’s above the line and they weren’t graded on it and they couldn’t fail it. They can read it and write it.
That said, it rarely comes up. They type everything. School is online and even exams are completed on their laptop now. I think they’re spending the exact right amount of time on “learning” cursive, which is very little.
No need for math either, with calculators and such….
Even Algebraic equations no longer need to be taught, with advanced apps…
AI can write our essays, so no need to learn to type anymore….
….and with those fancy self-driving vehicles, no need to learn to drive….
And screw teaching children etiquette or manners, even, saves us time, they probably won’t ever use them, just like cursive B- D
Hell, why bother to learn a damn thing these days…..LOL
No, my kids are not learning cursive in Texas. They do see it every now and then in some books and other stuff and have a hard time reading it, but that’s it.
I don’t think teams will do away with cursive on uniforms. After all, they have so many jerseys now that younger people can choose the ones they like the most and that’s it.
Script is such a big part of baseball jerseys it should not go away. I can’t wrap my head around the fact kids might not be able to read something if you give them something hand-written.
The scripts on baseball jerseys aren’t intended to be read as words like text on a page, or even like the NOB lettering on the back. The script on the front is a graphic. Ries kind of gets at that in the interview – terrific interview, Paul, thanks! – in that yes, kids aren’t morons and will figure out what the script on the jersey says. But even if they couldn’t read it, a jersey script can still work as a logo as long as the fan viewing it recognizes it as representing a particular team. Like, I didn’t mind that the Rangers used to not wear a jersey with “Rangers” on it, just as I don’t mind that the Yankees don’t wear a jersey with “Yankees” on it. In the latter case, it’s not important that the Tiffany NY reads as the letters N and Y; it only matters that the glyph formed by combining the N and the Y clearly and distinctly represents the New York Yankees. Same with jersey-front scripts.
It seems less important, to me, whether a jersey script is a good script or a bad script, and more important whether it functions effectively as a team-identifying logo. Like, the original Minnesota Twins jersey script is just an objectively terrible script. If you took a class in calligraphy and submitted the 1961 Twins script to the teacher, you’d earn an F grade. It breaks all the rules of legible lettering. For that reason, I’ve hated it all my life, even as I’ve been a Twins fan since that script was still in use. But as a brand logo, it was a very effective and clear mark, and I understand why most Twins fans love it and feel strong nostalgia for it. Bad script! But a good logo for the front of a jersey.
Like Laura said, the issue isn’t legibility (kids aren’t morons, I think were her words above), but rather if it comes off as old-fashioned. I tend to think it doesn’t, kids can figure it out and classic teams have great looks. This year had a big uptick in attendance across the league, probably mostly due to the new rules. From what I hear from younger people, the mostly get annoyed that players can’t “express themselves” and the “old-fashioned” unwritten rules. They like bat flipping, mismatched shoes, alternate uniforms, etc. etc. more than those who appreciate the more traditional approaches.
“Old and old-fashioned. There’s a certain nostalgia factor, but it doesn’t look modern. Now, old isn’t always bad…”
So that is the thing, baseball’s greatest strength is playing to its history. Every new generation wants modern, sleek, etc. so it is not as if baseball is all of a sudden dealing with a new generation that wants modern things. And baseball has been selling its history for decades. So that presents two questions: is this new generation suddenly unable to appreciate baseball for its old fashioned nature like other generations did, is it somehow fundamentally different with regards to appreciating the past as compared to other generations? And, if the answer to the first question is no, then take a long look at other things in baseball that aren’t connecting with younger generations.
So second question first, baseball is already attempting this. Pace of play is a major problem, they are addressing it. I haven’t seen numbers yet, but I’d have to imagine that the quicker game pace and shorter game times are improving viewership.
With regards to the first question, well the quote in the article at least partially answers it; no, old isn’t always bad. It just has to be marketed right and fit the right product. I’d argue that MLB doesn’t do a great job presently, with regards to marketing the tradition, history, etc. of the game. If anything, stuff like the CC uniforms do baseball a disservice by trying to make the game something it isn’t.
I think since baseball is sort of by its nature of product of a different time, something that doesn’t really match with a lot of modern things, if you attempt to force modernity on it, you risk ruining the appeal for existing fans, and you’ll lose more fans than you gain, because your changes still aren’t going to make it appealing to new fans.
I’d compare it to candy, let’s just say candy starts losing in market share because our culture begins to value their health more and become more careful what they put in their body. Suddenly candy brands are attempting to change up their product to match the social shift. But now the people what still eat candy in spite of the changes in social trends think the product is different and don’t buy it as much, meanwhile the health conscious people still know that even though the ingredients are better, it still isn’t healthy and something they want. This is what baseball has to manage right now.
There are no rules to design when you really break it down. Things work because they work and often because they buck trends and preconceived notions. The new Johnson and Johnson logo is more legible, but it’s also completely indistinguishable from any other companies logo that has also moved to a plain sans serif font. It’s also been around for so long that everyone knows what it says whether you were tought cursive or not. It does also smack of catering to a demographic that does not care at all what the logo is anyway.
No more cursive writing? It’s official. Cancel culture has gone too far.
On the contrary, its not that it was cancelled… It’s that it wasn’t deemed necessary in the curriculum by someone who wasn’t smart enough to see it’s importance to one basic necessity as an adult: Creating one’s one unique signature.
(Blame No Child Left Behind for setting that in motion, not Cancel Culture).
So now kids think signing anything means writing their name is regular print on a document. Yeah, that’s not unsafe at all…
I’d like to see a concept series of the cursive uni teams with regular font, that’d be kinda dope
Don’t forget the Reds.
[Reds](link)
Now added!
Things to keep the youngin’s confused:
Manual Transmission/stick shift
Writing anything in Cursive
Now stay off my lawn!
Don’t forget rotary phones.
I am an educator in Kansas. Cursive writing does not necessarily align with the Common Core State Standards. There are over 180 English language arts standards we have to cover. Social studies only has five standards. Science and math have quite a few, but not as many as English.
That is not to say that cursive writing doesn’t have value, it does. However, the text we interface with on a day in and day out basis is print. Digitally it is print. Closed captions are in print. Books are in print.
Specifically, I teach English to new comers in secondary school. I have not come across a student in that demographic that has mass (or minimal) exposure to cursive before coming to the United States.
From my life, I remember spending a 4th-grade semester learning cursive. That was over thirty years ago. I had elementary school teachers tell me that if my penmanship didn’t improve, I would not be able to get into college. When I was doing my undergraduate studies, my grandmother would write to me and I would have to scan the letter and e-mail it to my mom to decipher it.
Now, I am a semester away from completing a doctorate, a doctorate focusing on English instruction, and I have not used cursive since that 4th-grade semester.
Should baseball abandon cursive writing or script? No. Let them do what they want. However, their broadcasts, apps, press releases, etc don’t use it. I would be curious to know how horse racing, boxing, and European football have adjusted. Those sports also have a shared history with baseball’s timeline.
Your youthful experience is similar to mine. Midway through 3rd grade, I moved from a Philly-area school district that had cursive on the 4th grade curriculum to a Minnesota district that had Palmer Method cursive on the 3rd grade curriculum. I don’t think I ever really caught up with the early weeks of cursive instruction I missed, and while I’m grateful to have learned to read cursive with fluency, my cursive handwriting was never better than terrible. Cursive was mandatory on assignments in 4th and 5th grade, and I struggled on with it in those years. But as soon as it was no longer mandatory, I switched to a more-comfortable-for-me print handwriting style mainly inspired by comic-book lettering.
You use Cursive for the one function is serves:
You created a signature that differentiates you signing off on documents and not someone else.
But to your point, outside of that, not one thinks they are actually using it on the regular.
The article mentions that few of the “big brands of the world” use cursive, but arguably the biggest brand in the world still does: Coca-Cola. If they ever abandon script, we’ll know for sure that baseball should.
Will kids associate script with “old” or will they just think it’s different? Script could be baseball’s exclusive brand in the future. Unique to them. I just can’t see a kid looking at a Cardinals or Dodgers jersey and thinking, “What the hell does that say, old maaaan sport?” The more it shrinks from society, the more exclusive it is to baseball.
I tend to go towards what it is on the jersey is a graphic – leave it alone. No one is truly “reading” it. Everything about the uniform, combined, is what identifies the team.
That said, I am almost 50. Once past second or third grade when making the letters “correctly” stopped being required I started using my own weird combination of block and cursive letters depending on what I was writing, what letters were previous or next, etc. I also had the best handwriting in my classes (at the time, rarely writing anything kills it now). It has evolved to if I sign something the “C” is the only “normal” letter if I sign my whole name. If I sign quickly it combine with the “V” from my last name to look like a W which I started doing for my “job” d
To finish (sorry, the site is being weird for me)
I started during my “job” during Boys State in high school. In the end, cursive on uniforms isn’t the same thing as writing/reading cursive. People can still read it and us “old” people rarely use it either. Leave it, change logos if you want but the cursive argument isn’t the reason to do so.
My son started out learning cursive (before print) in first grade because it was a Montessori school. Problem was it was 2021 and COVID protocols didn’t allow as much over the shoulder observation from the teacher to realize he wasn’t forming the letters properly so it became a struggle which carried over when he started doing print.
What about autographs?
The Tigers 1980’s road uniforms are vastly superior so I am all for ditching the script.
You’re my new best friend! Let us rise up and overthrow the script road jersey. It’s not that I can’t read it but more that I dislike it.
You missed the Giants, who have script on their Friday orange jersey.
Good one! Now added.
Would be curious to see mockups of the uniforms with script in a non-script font!
How are legal documents going to be handled without signatures?
Not all signatures are written in script.
Case in point: link
Would it be fair to say that without you learning cursive, you wouldn’t have been able to create you own signature font? I think that’s actually what most of us do. Some letters we are okay using in cursive, others we prefer not to.
(Imagine your outlook on uniform fonts without being introduced to cursive, or seeing script letters on uniforms)
Don’t give Nike any ideas.
Fascinating article and a topic that has been of interest to me lately. I am a teacher in Calgary, Alberta and cursive has been a hot topic this year (for the first time in a long time). I have been teaching since 2010, and I have not seen cursive taught until this year. We brought it back in our school because we want kids to balance writing by hand and using the computer. We are limiting technology in school for a variety of reasons.To not belabour the point, we are teaching cursive so students have options for their writing. Also, the province of Ontario added cursive back to the curriculum and will be mandatory for students. I imagine a lot of this is done in the face of AI and so that teachers can focus on students doing their work in class and not at home. This has many benefits—one being students may connect to old cursive in uniforms once again.
Back to the article, many schools and ministries in Canada seem to be bringing or thinking about bringing cursive back so perhaps cursive on uniforms can remain (I think it should personally).
Maybe it’s the irony, but for a generation that’s using script fonts less and less, companies like Nike are introducing script fonts as alternate uniform options, especially for football helmets and basketball jerseys. This font is similar to what many schools have been using in recent years: link
My answer/question to the lead are why?.
..so the marketing department can address the young by using capital abbreviations on uniforms ie. CRDNLS, GNTS, DGRS?
It’s like my kid texting me using “ur, or rn or wut” as words and thinking these are real world words.
The young are a lot smarter and quick than us. We have the patience to wait and read about it in the newspaper whereas they will capture a screenshot and quickly share it just because it caught their attention quickly. And the share will at least be 2-3 sales in merchandise.
Today, the old style sells quick to the young.
The teams that have had the script for generations should keep it. The Cardinals and Dodgers come to mind, but even a team like the Mets, which started play in 1962, fall into that category. Even with the two-year dalliance of the swoop under the wordmark, the Mets have always had a script wordmark on their home jerseys. Why would you change from that?
Some other teams, maybe you could drop it. But that would be only because their scripts aren’t as synonymous with the team. Cleveland is one. Milwaukee is another.
If it looks good, keep it. That’s it.
Here in Pittsburgh three of the most beloved uniforms/logos are the Pirates road grays and alt road blacks which feature the city name in script, and of course the University of Pittsburgh’s Pitt script. The latter of which was too long of a hiatus.
I think if someone suggested they drop these logos because cursive isn’t being taught in school anymore, you’d have weeping and gnashing of teeth.
One doesn’t have anything to do with the other.
You can make a case for getting rid of scripts in hockey. The logo is big and proud and centre on a hockey jersey, and scripts are generally a misswd opportunity.
In baseball, the main logo is on the cap. The jersey is part of the look, but its not the main sell. The Giants 4 main (non-cc) unis have a logo-ish word mark, block letters of their city, the logo and a script. Choices for all, but all with the consistent black cap and orange logo, so no problem here…
My 5th grader learned cursive in 2nd & 3rd grade, but isn’t required to use it. That’s exactly the same as it was for me 30-ish years ago, albeit in a different school (2nd grade teacher told us we’d have to get used to learning it as the school’s 6th grade English teacher would require it from that point through 8th grade; when I made it to 6th grade, she told us we could use it if we wanted, but she wasn’t going to require it).
I am from a country where cursive style lettering is literally called baseball lettering by a lot of people, including graphic designers. Witnessing from what teenagers wear for logos in the streets they still love baseball lettering. They may not like the game anymore, but they do love the aesthetics. Might be the same in the USA as well.
This should be a case by case basis, so my answer is no. But my answer is a yes to any team that wishes to freshen up. It should not be verboten by ornery fans to make changes, especially when many scripts (particularly MLB) are iconic but visually unattractive (oakland a’s, dodgers, royals, guardians if you want to call that script but also their previous name’s wordmark was ugly).
But because cursive is out of popular fashion? No way. A list of things that are out of fashion/obsolete/etc but still used to represent American sports:
Kings, knights, swords, gladiators/etc, jazz, blues, velociraptors, sabretoothed tigers, knickerbockers, sea-faring pirates, clipper ships, wizards, gold miners…
My kids (10 & 11, 4th & 6th grade) can both write in cursive and read it. They’re both in public school