It’s not all that unusual for an athlete to wear an old uniform from a previous season. Sometimes the newer uniform is damaged or stained, or there’s some other logistical issue, so the equipment manager just pulls an old uniform. Often there’s no way of knowing, but it’s easy to spot when the old and new uniforms are rendered in different tailoring templates. During last year’s NFL season, for example, several Bills players were wearing the older Nike template for several weeks (as I reported here).
That was the situation last night in Philadelphia, where Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper was wearing a pre-2024 uniform. The older jersey was easy to spot from behind, as it had the larger NOB lettering, barely any NOB arching, and the higher-positioned MLB logo. You can clearly see the difference in this shot showing Harper wearing the old jersey and other players wearing the new jersey:
Here’s a better shot of Harper, this time in the dugout:
In addition, the jersey had the old collar and sleeve trim, the wider placket stitching, and the chain-stitched chest script. Here’s a photo of Harper in the old jersey alongside teammate Kyle Schwarber in a new jersey, followed by a close-up on Harper (the chain-stitching is most evident on the “P” and the “h”):
But it wasn’t just the jersey — Harper was also wearing pre-2024 pants. As you can see here, he had the old belt loops, not the new diagonal-cut loops:
Let’s shift into Q&A mode:
Has Harper worn the old uniform for any other games this season?
Not that I’m aware of.
Were any other Phillies wearing the old uniform yesterday?
Yes. Reliever José Alvarado, who pitched the eighth inning, was wearing a new jersey (but without the steeply curved arching, oddly) with old pants (again, look at the telltale belt loops):
Has Alvarado done that before?
Yes. Looking back in the photo archive, it appears that he’s been wearing pre-2024 pants all season long, for all of his uni combos, and we hadn’t noticed until now:
So what does that mean?
A lot of players, especially pitchers, have complained about the fit of the new pants. Alvarado seems to have solved that problem by wearing pre-2024 pants.
Getting back to Bryce Harper, his jersey and pants were pre-2024 yesterday. That means he’s taking a stand against these lousy new uniforms, right?
That’s possible. But like I said at the top of this post, it’s not unheard of for a player to wear an old uniform. This might be just a random thing due to his 2024 uniform being damaged or otherwise unavailable. It happens.
In short: It’s hard to know exactly what to make of all this. But the Phillies are slated to wear the cream uniforms again this afternoon, and I for one will watching to see what Harper’s wearing.
Not that we needed any more indication, but ths really lays bare how truly awful the new tops are compared to the old, side by side.
I believe more than one Phillie has been wearing the pre-2024 tops, at least the cream ones, because I noticed earlier that the “Phillies” was chain-stitched. I was wondering whether at least the new cream jerseys kept the chain stitching but I guess it’s just that some players are wearing the old tops.
I thought it interesting that for this entire four game set, the Phillies aren’t wearing their traditional pinstripes…
THU – Powder blue
FRI – City Connect
SAT & SUN – Cream
Wonder when the last time that happened was…
Any thoughts on the Mets City Connect leak? Like a lot of the City Connect uniforms, I find them ok as a uniform goes, but the team doesn’t look anything like the team so it’s very confusing for fans.
Sorry. Just found the other post.
I thought the new mini-NOBs were supposed to be tightly arched. Alvarado’s looks nearly straight across.
My bet is the team just had supply problems, or perhaps they arrived but he didn’t have time to have his new uniform tailored yet. Just knowing how they fit in their factory form, and knowing how tall or short various players are, they are absolutely getting them tailored so perhaps he didn’t get his done yet.
The small NOB and bunched up MLB logo bother me sooooooo much
I’ve been wondering if the reason they dropped the mlb logo down rather than just make it slightly smaller and keep it in the old place would be as a way to save that space for a sponsor logo down the line.
“Make our logo smaller”, said NO CLIENT EVER.
I had the same thought and I hate how plausible it is.
I think they moved it down so that it stands out more. It goes right where your eyes naturally gravitate to when looking for the player’s name and number.
I’m hoping that more teams go back to NNOB as that style doesn’t get ruined as much by the weird MLB logo placement. I have a couple of minor league jerseys that have small league or manufacturer logos that are slightly below the collar, and they don’t look as awful because there’s no name getting shoved downward.
At today’s game; sadly, Harper is wearing the 2024 jersey (at least he is pre-game, anyway).
Good on Harper! My guess is that Harper was being Harper and he didn’t like the fit/tailoring of the cream unis he wore last time out. I hope this has a trickle down effect and we’ll continue to see more players going with last year’s unis. Nike/MLB won’t like it but whatever. One query I have is where are players getting the old unis? Do they tend to keep them in storage somewhere or maybe the clubbies hold on to them?
Players need to take a stand and if they don’t like the 2024, then wear 2023. Prominent players can do this. Younger or lesser named players likely won’t have that much pull.
Zach Wheeler is pitching today, and he is wearing last year’s pants also. The color difference is really noticeable. The pants are so much more whiter.
I think if I were one of these players, I’d be having a lot of mysterious durability issues and mix-ups with my 2024-issued items.
“I don’t know what’s going on, Commissioner, the Cialis patches just keep disappearing off of my Shitty Connect trousers. It’s the strangest thing!”
Harper was one of the most vocal supporters of their new CC uniforms. To me that either meant he is a Nike shill, or just has really bad taste. If he is protesting the new template I guess it means the latter, which sort of lines up with all the dumb, attention seeking costumes and gear frequently wears.
Harper is a high profile Under Armour athlete so he has no vested interest in supporting Nike. Actually quite the opp
We will see a lot of mix and match of 2024 and 2023 this season. What a mess. Could not happen in basketball, hockey or soccer (I think it might have happened in the NFL before).