The Mets have unveiled their City Connect uniform, and it’s pretty much what we expected based on leaks that emerged last weekend: a grey-ish jersey with a big “NYC” on the front, a black “NY” cap with embroidery showing the Queensboro bridge, and purple detailing to represent the 7 train, which is the subway line that serves the team’s stadium.
Here are some additional pics:
The NOB font is based on the team’s road jersey chest lettering.
I had assumed that the pants would be black, like all the other CC pants match the jersey, but they’re apparently going with white instead. This is the only glimpse of them that I’ve seen:
Update: Phil just sent me this additional shot, which provides a better view of the pants:
Is this a terrible design? No. It’s probably better than most CC releases, although that’s not saying much. More of a uniform, less of a costume. But like most CC designs, it doesn’t feel very well matched to the team — no blue, no orange. It looks more like a generic “NYC” jersey that a tourist would buy in Times Square, which I’m sure is exactly the point. This page even quotes the team’s chief marketing officer, Andy Goldberg, describing the jersey as looking “like something you’d wear on the street,” which was probably the guiding principle.
And yes, it hurts to see my favorite team wearing even a hint of purple, but whaddaya gonna do.
This uniform will make its on-field debut next Saturday, April 27, when the Mets host the Cardinals. After that the team plans to wear the CC design for Saturday home games. Here are the dates (note that the graphic simply refers to the jersey, not the uniform, grrrr):
The Mets are one of nine MLB teams getting new City Connect uniforms this season. Here’s the rundown of the other eight teams:
- Phillies: Already debuted.
- Rays: Scheduled to unveil on April 29 and debut on May 3.
- Tigers: Scheduled to unveil on May 6 and debut on May 10, but there’s been a purported cap leak.
- Guardians: Unveiling date uncertain; on-field debut scheduled for May 17.
- Cardinals: Scheduled to unveil on May 20 and debut on May 25.
- Blue Jays: Unveiling date uncertain; on-field debut scheduled for May 31.
- Twins: Unveiling date uncertain; on-field debut scheduled for June 14.
- Dodgers: Unveiling date uncertain; on-field debut scheduled for June 21.
is it just me, or is that NOB font really big? wonder if it will stay that size or if it will be the standard 2024 size when it’s debuted on field.
Agreed, looks like the old size.
Meh. Not that it matters much, but matching pants would be better. Maybe next year?
Don’t like it as a whole. If the jersey was going to be gray, well then you might as well have matching pants, right? Oh, that’s right, for some reason they can’t do matching jerseys and pants in MLB anymore. Never mind. Forgive me.
I was thinking the same thing. Pants in the same gray with wide black pinstripes; would look great.
I’d also ditch the NOBs, which don’t fit well with the old-fashioned font.
Love the color scheme, though. I was thinking they’d use Helvetica and put the number inside a purple circle, subway line number style.
Agree. My CC question: What makes this the Mets? If there isn’t a simple answer, then it is not a good uniform.
If you read the blurb on the Mets’ website, it actually explains the “city connection” rather well.
I won’t go into the whole thing here, but the grey is supposed to represent the concrete that New York City sidewalks are made from.
See the rest for yourself here:
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Ah yes as opposed to the concrete used to make the sidewalks literally everywhere else, which is also gray
I was skeptical, so I went outside to confirm.
And, yep, suburban Chicago sidewalks—also grey.
The Mets have one of the best uniforms in baseball, they are known for it. WTH are you talking about.
Addendum- I agree about the pants, but over-all not a bad look. 7 Train tribute is perfect.
Why aren’t the pants in the same charcoal style as the jersey??? (Thanks, Paul, for including that one photo that apparently shows the pants — I’ve already received THREE e-mails from the team promoting the jersey/cap, with nary any indication of what they’ll be paired with).
FFS
Also — WTF is with the paint splatter? This isn’t the first time Nike has done this. Is this little “detail” done for any other reason than to “protect” against counterfeits? It seems to serve no purpose (other than Nike’s other motto: “Because We Can”.
In a vacuum, I don’t hate these, but if they couldn’t even be bothered to make this a uniform rather than a softball top (merch dump), then I’m actually pissed.
Paint splatter? Isn’t it meant to look like concrete? Surely no other city in the world comes to mind before NY when you hear “concrete jungle”.
I think many things when I think of NY. Concrete isn’t one of them (at least not any more so than any other major city). And the paint splatter on gray doesn’t remind me of concrete.
Even if I did think these things, my point remains: was the paint splatter added to “prevent” counterfeits?
From the looks of it, it looks like the piping matches the grey of the jersey. I can only speak for myself. But, as someone who left Queens 4 years ago ( In DFW), when people ask me what do I miss I always say “The food, and how grey the city was during the fall and winter”. I used to own a bodega, and I was obsessed with cellar doors in front of businesses and how disgusting (character?) the sidewalks were.
Like the Jersey, hate the cap. If you want to incorporate the bridge, then make it the logo.
Ironically, and this goes against every Get It™ principle I have with respect to baseball uniforms, I think this actually looks better as a softball top than it would with matching pants. The grey is just too dark; we all remember how awful the Diamondbacks’ charcoal uniforms looked. And if the grey were lighter, it’d be a road uniform.
Two things really make me hate this uniform, the bridge on the hat and the white pants. If the pants were the same dark grey pinstripes as the jersey it would be better. I believe baseball uniforms should have matching tops and bottoms.
Thats the same thing I hate about the Giants’ CC cap. The giant (pun intended) rendition of the Golden Gate on the side. Without it, it’s a solid cap.
Well….at least the broke the streak of black (or really, really, really dark blue) pants.
And I guess that’s the nicest thing I have to say about them.
The players in the pictures look sad. And they should.
I was about to say the same thing. #SadMets
I actually don’t hate them. I get the “city connection”.
Same here, obviously a different look than the norm but with enough little hints of things relating to New York. I had actually wondered early on if the uniforms would have a lot of purple but they restrained its use, which I actually think works well here.
I don’t hate the uniform as much as I thought I would.
Andy Martino of SNY posted an article about the new City Connect jerseys and mentioned the names on back look bigger mainly because of the wider letters of the NOB font.
Only criticism I have is pants should have been charcoal with pinstripes to match jersey.
Definitely glad Mets went “safe” with these and avoided their usual ridicule they usually can’t avoid.
This gives us a look at the patterns we wish teams like the Yankees would use on their grey uniforms; a random pattern of dark pockmarks and stitches to make the polyester look more like grey flannel. I’m liking these more than I expected to.
‘Agreed. Gray pinstriped pants would have looked awesome…
100% agreed, the pants need to match the jersey. I will say, I had no idea that charcoal, black, and that shade of purple would look so good together.
FWIW the Mets should have special baseballs to use with the City Connect uniforms. The Astros do this too but AFAIK nobody else does. IMO this is legit Uni Watch because it affects on-field looks
Could have been printed to look like the Unisphere
The thing that jumps at me first and foremost is the hat. If you need to jam a full bridge onto the front panel of the hat you may need to make the logo smaller and it seems they refused to do that so now its absolutely clogged. It looks like the worst of the bootleg fashion hats you can get off ebay.
The splatter + gray look like the dingiest depression era pajama-top ive ever seen. Something you’d expect the grandparents in Willy Wonka to be sleeping in.
I don’t hate them as much as other CC unis. (I’m looking at you, Philly.) The jersey is fairly solid as CC sets go. Not a fan of The bridge on the cap. That’s the same reason I can’t stand the Giants’ CC cap.
Gotta be on the list for worst hat ever worn by an MLB team. Just stupid by a mile.
Worst hat in MLB history? Worst hat in MLB history. This could have been an ok uniform but Nike couldn’t help itself and stuck to its guiding mantra of “MORE”.
I get why they went with the white pants if it’s a uniform that’s going to be worn primarily at home since grey is typically and historically for road unis, but it still jars the senses.
They could have avoided the whole issue by just not making the jersey grey. A white jersey with that NYC logo would look just fine!
I’m generally a fan of matching the pants with the jersey, but in this case, it would be an all gray uniform being worn against a team that would also presumably be wearing gray. We don’t need to turn baseball into a Twilight fan fiction. Also, it would evoke memories of the d-bags charcoal set from a few years ago and I don’t think we need that. The uniform is fine in and of itself. I would even consider buying that hat if it didn’t encourage the very thing that is driving these sorts of things. It just the same problem with all these uniforms. You turn on the tv and can’t figure out who is playing. We’re destroying our brand recognition.
Considering the Mets messing things up “the Mets way”, these could have been waaaaay worse. They are not great, but actually better than most CConnect crap. In my opinion of course.
I’m sorry, Paul.
I do like the font a lot. The rest is abysmal.
The Mets storytelling should be: “Face it: City Connect uniforms suck. Ours just suck less!”
This! “It doesn’t totally suck!” combined with “You won’t be totally disappointed if your family member gets this for you for Xmas, just mildly disappointed”
Meh. The bar is so low, this is one of the better CC designs. But hate the white pants. And that black cap is miserable. Wasn’t there a leaked cap with the token on it? Would much prefer that.
If this used Mets team colors at all, I think I’d really like it, and even prefer it as a road uniform for the team. As a CC, it’s solidly adequate for me. Could be a lot worse, but I’m not seeing any really strong connection to fan culture/identity in the way that, say, the Brewers CC achieves. But I’m neither a New Yorker nor a Mets fan, so maybe I’m just not an informed target here. To me, it’s must Mehts. It’ll be interesting to see whether fans connect with this or not. All of the above is in response to the jersey, and assuming matching pants. The hat? Pretty bad even by CC standards. It’s a cringy fashion cap, and I don’t think I’d like it any more rendered in team colors.
Mets fan here…
1) I don’t hate them as uniforms, but do hate them for the Mets.
2) Sounds weird to say this, but if you remove the purple, change the hat logo and bridge, these wouldn’t make awful CC uniforms for the Yankees (not that they should ever have one).
If the pants matched the jersey and the bridge was removed from the hat, I could get on board with this look. Alas…
I’d agree that for a CC it is not bad, but the bar is so low for that. As a uniform in general it has lots of problems, but at least still looks mostly like a major league uniform. The bridge on the hat looks awful and not at all like a major league baseball hat.
Ditto most other commentors that if they had hints of orange and blue in there it would feel much more “Mets” as opposed to random New York gear in the style of a baseball uniform.
Don’t like it.
Nothing about it says “Mets”
The Marlins City Connect remains the only one that I like.
I for one am grateful for one that doesn’t look as terrible as the others. Jersey is nice, the bridge on the hat is silly (I think a previous leak showed a hat with the “token” which I liked better), and the white pants are better than gray would be in my opinion. White provides contrast at home, and also makes it way less pajama looking. Softball tops are firmly in the MLB uni-sphere so I don’t mind at all. And it’s only 10 of 81 home games. Let’s go Mets!
Not quite as awful as the Phillies energy drink can abomination. But this is NYC!. The center of art and graphic design. This can’t be the best we can do. Neither good looking nor cool looking. An epic failure. Anyone connected with this should be fired.
The home uniform in grey makes me think they actually feel like an “away” team in New York City with the Yankees as the “home” team. I do like the letter and number font and pinstripes. I think it would look better as a white jersey with purple stripes and letters. The cap is a disaster.
I thought the Yankees weren’t going to participate in the City Connect nonsense?! Oh these are the Mets??? Never mind, I’ll see myself out.
The Phillies is better than this one.
Lose the stupid “Bridge Hat”…..match the pants to the jersey….ditch the purple accents, and these aren’t too bad.
The hat is way too busy, the pants not matching at all is just different to be different and the jersey, which may be an homage to the NY Giants of old, really looks like the Mets want to be a Yankees minor league affiliate. Hard pass.
Nice font but that’s about all. And I’m very pleased that they won’t wear them on the Saturday they retire Darryl Strawberry’s number!
I don’t mind the font design, but it would look much better with a number below it.
I admit I don’t care for the bridge taking up space on the hat, though I do at least understand why it’s there. Other than that I think it looks good; one of the better CCs that have come out. So it doesn’t include regular Mets colors; so what? That’s not the point of these. Seriously, why do so many people here seem to hate fun things?
I think in case because you have the 7 line army making super fun Mets fan gear and this all Nike can come up with. I don’t truly hate the look and compared to some of the others it’s not horrible, but when the amateurs are blowing big old Nike out of the water that’s probably a bad reflection on Nike.
I mean compare T7LA spring jersey to what they came up with, it’s kind of sad in a way.
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This logo on the cap would have been :::chef’s kiss:::
I’m not allergic to purple but I don’t get it in this context. Their standard orange would have popped on that sleeve patch and sleeve accent stripe
It’s the color of the logo for the 7 train, which stops at Citifield:
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Dennis Abrams a couple of posts up absolutely NAILED it with a white interlocking NY inside of a purple circle.
If they were going to use purple, THAT was the way to do it .
I don’t remember where I originally saw the idea, but I agree with the assessment that this looks like it was originally designed as a CC for the Yankees, then adapted to the Mets.
Don’t hate them as much as I thought, but that isn’t saying much. The cap would have been better with a Mets stye interconnected NY with this new font, minus the bridge.
Overall, kind of reminds me of the NY Giants mixed a bit with the Negro League “GRAYS” or at least a throwback pinstripe hat of theirs that always stuck out (in a good way) to me.
Mixed feelings.
I like the jersey (for the most part) and the grey. I like the numbers and the typeface, but I don’t like the “NYC” wordmark. I’d much prefer “New York City” or “Mets” or something spelled out. There’s really no need to abbreviate here, and in order to accommodate the 3-letter version, they had to make the letters way bigger than jersey-front lettering should be.
I’m surprised they didn’t go with matching pants, because I think that would look better. I guess it makes sense to have white pants if the uniform is meant for home use, but it’s a little strange to have a grey home jersey in baseball. I don’t think these are going to look good with white pants when we see the full thing in action.
The hat….I just can’t look at that bridge and not see the tiara on a 6-year-old magical birthday princess. It’s almost adorable, and it seriously undercuts the dark-and-gritty look they seem to be going for with the set.
I think they could have done this same set with blue-and-orange instead of purple and it would look way better.
I don’t know, it should say QUEENS on the front, first of all. And going with a dingy, piss-stained concrete motif doesn’t really capture the vibrancy of the neighborhood. What’s so unique about the concrete in Queens anyway.
File this under “At least the pants are white”.
Whose idea was it to have the jersey be gray when they are going to be wearing these as the home team?
Yeah I don’t truly hate these. They could have been massively worse and it seems that Mets aren’t exactly pleased by them either. It definitely looks like a Yankee reject with the color scheme though. I have no idea why charcoal at home either. It seems like a road uni and isn’t it going to contrast with teams wearing grey?
It’s probably fixable and honestly if you used some Blue and orange it might be pretty good. The more damning indictment of Nike here is that for all their story and theming they can’t hold a Candle to what the 7 Line Army jersey look like. T7LA jersey actually does what Nike is trying to do only better. Their jerseys are funky and weird, they do invoke their team and city better than what all the design groups at Nike came up with it. Nike should be embarrassed here being shown up by the amateurs, I mean it feels like they saw what the T7LA didn’t and didn’t even try.
Again it’s not objectively terrible and thank heavens for that. But if Nike is so devoid of creative idea why not farm this one out to the 7 Line guys?
With the initial “purple!” teaser and everyone saying it was based on the color of the 7, I did expect graphics based on the purple circle with the 7 inside. Thought it would be a given that player numbers would be in purple circles on the jersey front, in the MTA font. Now I’m sort of shocked at the dearth of subway references. Agree with so many of these comments – an NYC token on the hat would be so much better than that bridge. The pants should match the jersey – it would not be as confusing against teams wearing grey as some comments say. But most of all – will the NY Presbyterian patch be modified so as not to clash with this flawed but certainly not embarrassing design?
These are all, to a team, just poorly-designed and completely unnecessary rags & lids. A more appropriate name would be “Wallet Connect” which is all the swoosh/teams care about, anyway.
“Unnecessary” is the right call. Few if any of these have any compelling reason to exist. I do still like the Marlins’ CC design, because it tells a *baseball* story, not a lifestyle-marketing story. The rest are pure merch dumps.
Lets get one player from each team on a field wearing their CC uniforms. We can have a calliope playing in the background. And clowns.
Can we get back to a single brand/representation identity?
Lifelong Mets fan here. Might be an unpopular opinion (at least on this site) but I wish these had MORE purple, hope they wear purple socks/accessories with these, would pop well against all that dark gray. I’m guessing that was part of the thinking behind going with white pants (gray cap, jersey, AND pants may have been just too drab, and also an all-gray uni that’ll mostly be worn at home would be a bit odd) but I think I would’ve gone with pants that matched the jerseys and put some more color in the caps instead. “Queens” on the jerseys instead of “NYC” would have been cool too, especially with the 7 train purple already integrated into the design, but I do love that they used the road uni font for the whole thing, NOBs and numbers too. Overall I have to say that these are at least generally good-looking, respectable baseball uniforms with tastefully done local flourishes, which is more than I can say about most of the other City Connect unis.
I agree, maybe they could have used purple pants
It’ll be interesting (bad?) to see what happens when the Mets play the Rockies in their black, purple, and road grey uniforms…
I had a very, very negative initial knee-jerk reaction to this, but the more I looked at it and thought about it the more I came to think that it’s really not half-bad, certainly as [wholly unnecessary merchandising cash-grab] “City Connect” uniforms go.
Part of the reaction was based on how much I like the Mets’ primary home uniforms (I like the primary roads even better but those are not affected by this), and would want to see them whenever I go to the ballpark; since I can only go on weekends this cuts the chances of that in half. And I’m still kind of stung by the resurrection of the BFBS alternates after they were mercifully mothballed in 2012. Plus, of course, “the fans are true to the orange and blue,” not the grey and purple. Plenty of people have commented on that, viz., “It’s not the Mets” or what have you, but that’s kind of the idea of the “City Connect” program; connect to the city, not the franchise. Whether one likes that idea or not is a separate question.
I guess the problem most of us have is with the Mets even having a “City Connect” uniform in the first place, let alone planning to wear it so often. Personally, I think I’ll get used to it. Like the Jets’ BFBS….
The pinstriped gray makes me think of the Minnesota Twins road uniforms. link
Key phrase in this article:
“The pinstripes on both the shirts and pants are made up of circles and diamonds, representing New York City’s local and express subway lines.”
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The tiara look on the hat is . . . something. Yikes.
And imagine the LOLs if they went with “Queens” on the front of the jersey.
The Mets unveiling a uniform with purple is the perfect culmination of Paul’s uniform writing career.
Thanks for everything.
Paul – Now you can wear a Mets hat to the Baltimore Purp Walk!
In all seriousness, I hate the bridge on the hat. It just looks cumbersome and clunky.
Also, I feel like a lot of the teams got lazy and did BFBS/GFGS. Specifically BAL, CIN, ARI, TEX, PIT, and now NYM. They all kind of feel the same to me. At least BAL, CIN, and PIT are in team colors. If you’re going to depart from team colors, go crazy like SD or COL.
Honestly, I’m in. Better than most of the CCs. My wife even likes it. As previously posted, I’m a retired NYC subway conductor(worked letters, no numbers, tho grew up in Jackson Heights), and really felt it was integrated thoughtfully. Realized late that the font is the away font, but never saw the numbers like that . I want to see it with a T-shirt underneath, not big on bare necked modeling. Want to see who will mess up the vibe. Wanna bet Lindor wears purple shoes?
Mercury Mets uniforms looked better than this, and THEY were crap!
LOL, of all the internet hyperbole about these, this is the worst.
They should have let some who would wear this in the streets of NYC have a say so in the design. Should have had a design contest in NYC many artistic ideas would have been better. Still love my Mets.
They play in Flushing, Queens. They missed an opportunity by not putting F Q on the jerseys.
I’ve noted that since Flushing is occasionally known as “Koreatown” (it’s home to one of the largest populations of Koreans outside of, well, Korea….) that they simply could have put the name of the team on the front IN KOREAN.
I am concerned the guy who found the Mets’ CC cap in Japan was right and also found a Tigers’ CC cap, too. The Mets’ cap had too much going on (re: the bridge) and the Tigers’ is just uninspired, generic, and awful.
I don’t hate them but would like to see them in a lighter shade of gray with matching pants and then lean into the purple (as a tribute to the 1916 NY Giants) with purple pins and lettering and numbers. The bridge on the hat is beyond stupid and I would rather see a more Mets-connected Queens landmark like the Unisphere.
Is it just me or do these look like the city connects they wanted to give to the Yankees? Switch the cap logos from Mets to Yanks and it looks like a Yankee alternate
Well yes and no.
The “NYC” is rendered in what looks to be either a modified “Tiffany” or “Tuscan” font, which is what the Mets use for their road jersey. The Yankees don’t use this in any capacity. So that part, at least to me, seems unique to the Mets. Now, if you strip off the jersey lettering, you could maybe argue it would work for NYY. But purple and black aren’t Yankees colors (regrettably, black is a Mets color). Since they’re not using NYC flag colors (which the Mets already use — blue and orange), this seems like a fairly generic jersey that could really apply to almost any MLB team. Nothing about it particularly “screams” New York. So, could it have worked for the Yanks with a few differences? Sure. But it could probably also work for any MLB team.
I agree with those who say the pants should match the jersey. If you’re going “old school,” go old school. Matching pants and I wouldn’t hate these.
Surprise, surprise. Nike fashion designers make another uniform that looks like ass…..
They could have just gone with this, saved a lot of time and energy, and not drawn half the ire.
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This looks like it was designed for the Yankees and they said no. So instead of wasting the design they through a Mets NY on the cap and called it a day. Not a Mets fan, but as someone else said, I don’t hate this as a uniform but I hate it for the Mets.
The Mets always wanted to be The Yankees. Now they are. For a day.
My version of the Mets CC uniforms would have had the team name on the front in Korean:
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And I’d have used the Unisphere for a shoulder patch:
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Be that as it may, if you want to put something on the uniforms that refers to something that ties all five boroughs together, ditch the circles and diamonds and use the Helvetica font, the “official” font of the MTA.
A rip-off of the 1976-81 White Sox’ number and lettering font.
So ten times a year the Mets will not wear their team colors, the blue and orange that uniquely identifies them among N.L. teams and that ties them to the history of National League baseball in New York City. Fantastic. The only good thing to say about these is that they could have been a lot worse.
I remember the excitement the first time I went to Shea and saw the Mets’ crisp white pinstriped uniforms with blue-and-orange hat and trim with my own eyes after having only seen them on TV. I feel bad for the kid whose first game is this summer who heads out to Citi to see his heroes in person for the first time and finds them unrecognizable.
I thought the Phillies’ new abominations were eye-searingly bad, but these Mets’ jerseys looks like they are wearing tire treads. Somehow, they are only slightly less worse than the Phillies’ ones, and despite the fact that I hate any and all things Mets, I’d say this a better look in the way it’s better to get pissed on than crapped on.
I personally love these. I’m a sucker for old school uniforms and these feel very old school from the color to the font, with the only real modern aspect being the purple sprinkled in. (Maybe purple was used at some point on an older uniform, not too sure tho) the hat I’m actually okay with. At first I wasn’t crazy about the bridge when it leaked but I’m fine with it now.
For the people that don’t like it you have to admit… it’s way better than most cc unis!
This jersey is okay. But I hate not knowing which teams are playing. This is already the sad reality in the NBA, and now it’s infiltrating MLB. I miss the simplicity of two uniforms: One home. One away. Don’t know why everything needs to be so complicated. Actually, yes I do. Money.
And again an underwhelming effort by MLB, Nike and the Mets within the CC territory. Aimed at people who do not care about baseball or the Mets and never will. Shameless attempt at grabbing more money, nothing more and nothing less. Getting into what I do not like about this uniform would take too long, what I do like is the pinstripes made out of diamonds and circles representing the subway lines and the inside band of the hat doing the same.