Good morning! By the time you read this, I’ll be on my way to Hawaii, where I’ll be spending the next week or so, but I wanted to check in this morning with a bit of MLB news.
So: I’ve been working on the annual MLB Season Preview (more on that in a minute), which entails a lot of photo research so I can create those “Old/New” side-by-side comparisons. While poring over some Angels pics the other day, I noticed something about the back numbers on their red jerseys. In the past, those numbers have always been red, followed by a navy outline, then a white outline, and then a grey shadow. This year, however, the grey shadow has been eliminated:
I asked my MLB Style Guide source for the page showing this jersey, and sure enough, it shows that the back number no longer has the grey shadow:
If you zoom in on the “New” image, you can see that the grey shadow is still present on the front number, and also on the chest lettering. And that’s when I realized something I’d never noticed before about the Angels’ uniforms: The typography is very inconsistent. For example, the home whites have a grey shadow on the chest lettering, but no shadow on the front or back numbers:
Similarly, the road greys have white outlining on the chest lettering, but not on the front or back numbers:
Up until now, the red jersey has had grey shadowing on the chest lettering and the front and back numbers (thus making it the only one of these jerseys where the number designs matched the chest letter designs), but now the shadowing has been removed from the back number (thus making it the only Angels jersey where the front and back number treatments don’t match):
The real story here, of course, is that it’s silly to have red lettering on a red jersey, but that’s another battle for another day.
Like so many of this year’s MLB uni changes, the removal of the shadow from the red jersey’s back number has, to my knowledge, not been announced or acknowledged by the team. Just another bit of weirdness for this year’s MLB uni sideshow.
Have the Angels even officially announced their throwback uniform yet? Same with the Yankees’ new road jersey… seems pretty strange.
Have a great trip Paul!
So the red letters/numbers on the red background were outlined by white with a light grey shadow.
This simplification was a step in the right direction.
Have a great time, Paul!
Red softball tops have always been a “guilty” pleasure of mine in an MLB setting, but the Angels softball tops are brutal with the red-on-red.
The real story here, of course, is that it’s silly to have red lettering on a red jersey
“Silly” is too kind.
When I saw the headline, I was hoping the Angels finally had come to their senses and gone with contrasting numbers.
I wish they’d just trash red as their primary color and go back to navy blue caps with red bills.
Wow, I never even noticed they had that gray shadow next to the white outline.
While I 100% agree having red letters/numbers on a red jersey (or on a red cap), isn’t a good look, I think at this point it has become sort of a signature look for the Angels, so I can live with it.
But of course, the simple answer is white at home, gray on the road, and no colored softball tops. Unfortunately, the ship has sailed on that one.
Oh man, I’ve always hated the inconsistent typefaces on the Angels white and grey uniforms. The road greys look especially bad with the white outline only on the team name. The reds, while having silly red on red, were the only ones I didn’t mind because they were at least consistent. While I like the change to remove the grey drop shadow, it’s a downgrade to only do it on one side. So weird.
Wow yeah I never noticed a silver shadow until now, let alone the inconsistencies! Now I can’t unsee it. Which I guess is the whole point of Uni Watch!
I wish the Angels would go back to their 1993 uniforms.
Who’s watching the cats while your in Hawaii?
We’ve all got high-definition TVs and I’ve never had a problem reading the Angels’ numbers.
Red-on-red markings is fine as long as it doesn’t become a trend. In my ideal universe, every team is trying its best to be unique, even in small ways.
People in the stands don’t have hi-def TV’s.
Announcers in the middle of calling a play can’t turn from the action to look at a press box TV.
If you’re going to shell out big bucks and deal with lots of potentially obnoxious fans to see a game in person, you should have the same luxury of immediately knowing who’s on the field as the fan who stays at home. Sports need to stop being so TV-centric.
Unique is fine if it serves a higher purpose. Hard to read numbers are Unique For Unique’s Sake and serve no purpose other than to annoy.
For the Angels, uniform non-uniformity appears to be a feature, not a bug.
This is an org that turned a roster gifted with Mike Trout (who *averaged* 8.9 fWAR from 2012-19) into a single Postseason Series, which they lost 3-0. They’re all-but-completely incompetent.
I’ve long thought the Angels have one of the worst, most generic looks in all of MLB. More than overdue for a major overhaul. Now the inconsistent drop-shadowing (which I hadn’t noticed before) will further infuriate me.
To my eye, the Angels have the largest gap between the quality of their logo marks – excellent! – and the quality of the use of their marks on actual on-field uniforms – pretty bad!
The gray/silver drop-shadow is one of the few things I think the team gets right, at least on the home whites. If the red alts color-reversed the lettering such that it was white text with navy and red outlines, then the gray drop-shadow would work nicely on the alt. But just dropping the home lettering in full, unchanged, onto a red uniform makes an absolute mess of it. The outline becomes the visually dominant element, and the drop shadow behind it draws too much attention to itself as a result. Eliminating the drop shadow on any element of the softball top is an improvement, but it’s still just a better grade-F jersey.
Regarding the red-on-red uniforms, plenty of teams do it. As long as the white area is big enough to break things up visually… it looks better than what Atlanta does with their red jersey.
Safe travels, PL!
So, where I live it’s pushing towards 9PM EST and
Temperature 44°F equals 7°C.
Love comparing this stuff to people I know who have travelled 1000s of miles away from where I am.
My biggest gripe with the Angels has been not the inconsistency in drop shadows or outlines or even the red on red numbering but the double A they used to sport: the logo on one sleeve and another halo A on the other. The ad took care of that and now I want those double A’s back. So be careful what you wish for, is the conclusion. Good trip, Paul!
But the home whites now have gray outlined numbers on the front when they never did before. Strange changes.