We know that the St. Louis Cardinals are getting a City Connect uniform this year. Since they already had five other jerseys — home and road primaries, plus home alternates, road alternates, and spring training — the addition of the CC uniform would put them over the “four plus one” limit, so something has to give.
That something, a source has told me, is the team’s red spring training jersey. Per my source, that means the team will be wearing their standard home whites and road greys for spring training games this year.
I ran that info by team owner Bill DeWitt III, who replied, “That is correct information.”
This will be something of a return to form for the Cards. When other MLB teams were wearing their colored BP jerseys for spring training games throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, St. Louis stuck with their regular season uniforms, as seen in this shot from a 2013 Grapefruit League game:
The Cards began wearing their red BP tops for spring training games in 2014, but that decade-long run will be coming to an end this spring.
Personally, I’d love to see all teams scrap BP jerseys and caps.
While I think alternate jerseys have gotten completely out of hand, especially in the NBA, this 4+1 stupidity is just that. Of course many teams just wear their batting practice jerseys in spring training anyway. But Nike, which loves putting a million crap jerseys out there imposing this rule is just pure BS.
Wonder if the Cards will stick exclusively with white home/gray roads for all ST games, or if they’ll wear the cream alts on home Saturdays and powder blues on road Saturdays. And alt caps on Sundays.
As noted in the article: I ran the white/grey info past Bill DeWitt III, who confirmed it.
Right. My question is whether the white/gray were the ONLY unis being worn for ST, or if they’d wear their alts on Saturdays (as has been their protocol during the regular season), or their alt caps on Sundays.
1) My interpretation of my interactions with my source and DeWitt is that they’re sticking to white/grey.
2) Even if my interpretation is wrong, it’s hard to imagine them wanting to load/ship all that extra stuff to Florida for a couple of weekend Grapefruit League games.
Even back when they wore white and grey during spring they only wore it with the red cap (Note this was before red became the primary road). No Sunday cap or road navy cap. Side note, really neat of DeWitt III to respond back to your request. Not many owners would take the time.
This is interesting. I never thought of the BP jerseys as counting against the 4+1.
In theory, they shouldn’t. But some teams — like the Phillies — wear their BP tops during actual counting games. I’m not 100% certain why they couldn’t wear the BP tops ONLY for ST, but maybe Nike & Fanatics have realized there just isn’t a consumer/retail market for jerseys worn solely for ST.
By this logic, wouldn’t the Phillies, who have also dropped their solid reds this year, also be dropping them for Spring Training? Why would 4+1 apply here but not there?
Yes, it will probably be the same for them. But that’s not news — we already knew it.
This upcoming city connect jersey had better knock all the others out of the water if Nike made the Cards drop the ST reds. I guess it made sense that they chose the red top because it was the only jersey with white NOBs and numbers versus red, but I was really hoping BP jerseys wouldn’t count against the 4+1 policy. No more “sea of red” on the backfields this spring, how sad…
Nike and its consequences have been disastrous for MLB.
Most guys wore pullovers and hoodies during practice in recent years. I think the sea of red will be there on the back fields still.
Perhaps this question is silly, but why do teams have Spring Training and BP specific sets in the first place? Just a way for more product? I’m assuming there was a time when teams just wore the normal freaking unis, yes?
I remember BP jerseys becoming popular in the late 70s and early 80s. Memory serves me the Phillies were an early adopter as were the Yankees and Pete Rose wearing his BP in the 1979 All Star Game helped make it more widespread. I don’t have time to check Bill Henderson’s Guide, but I know he chronicles BP jerseys.
This is one of the few colored tops that I actually like (along with the blue Mets and green A’s). But everything with those birds on it I really like, even if I am not a Cards fan. Best team identity in MLB.
Paul/Phil: Do the awesome green St. Patrick’s Day jerseys count against the 4+1. And is there a similar 4+1 rule when it comes to pants? Could teams trot out eight different pairs of pants in a season if they were so inclined?
My understanding is that the 4 + 1 rule is unaffected by “limited use” alternates (Negro League throwbacks, other throwbacks, etc.) so long as those uniforms worn five or less times per season — although that may have changed. I hate to assume, but I will assume the St. Paddy’s Day caps and jerseys will still be worn.
Phil is correct. One-off’s like St. Paddy’s don’t count.
How many different pairs of pants can a team wear?
I don’t think there’s an actual limit (some teams, especially those with CC’s, have 3 or 4). I believe the ONLY restriction is the road team cannot wear white pants.
When did the white pants for the home team only become a rule? The 1980s Cubs wore royal softball tops and white pants on the road, and white pinstriped pants at home.
No idea, sorry.
Not the biggest loss, although my pre-Mitchell Report nostalgia has McGwire taking BP in that color to the delight of zillions. More sad for Seattle losing their powder ST and road greys to this arbitrary stuff.
Shame, I’m not a fan of anything but white (or cream) at home and gray on the road in the regular season, but for Spring Training I am all about wearing batting practice color tops. They are practice games after all, wearing practice gear just makes sense.
As expected, nothing good is coming from Nike taking over MLB uniforms.
Agree 100%. I liked them in red for spring training. Kind of said they weren’t real games, since STL doesn’t wear them in regular season.
I had no idea the uniform limit applied to anything worn in spring training. I thought it was just enforced to what was worn in the regular season. I wish they would scrap the light blue alternate instead. I don’t like that one as much.
As far as softball tops go, I think these were some of the better ones, although I’m glad they never got into the habit of wearing them in-season.
My choice would be to drop the cream option, which has never looked good to me. Curious to see what they do for the city connect. Lots of options for a city with such a rich history (baseball and otherwise). I don’t think they’ll get too crazy with it, which is fine by me.
I am expecting that their upcoming City Connect jerseys will be some sort of a blood red design top to bottom. Yuck