The Rays are scheduled to unveil their City Connect uniforms on Monday. Unlike so many CC releases, this one has been airtight, with no leaks — until now.
Twitter-er @romanporican spotted the CC socks for sale and tried to purchase them, but apparently they weren’t supposed to be out on the shelves yet:
@RaysTheRoofTB so I went to try and pay for them and it was not sellable and they immediately took them off the shelves pic.twitter.com/mylbXa4auv
— romanporican (@porican727) April 27, 2024
Here’s a better look at those four photos, along with a couple of additional pics that @romanporican posted:
In addition, @romanporican is one of several Rays fans who’ve been tracking the progress of a mural that’s been going up in St. Petersburg. Here’s how it looked as of yesterday:
If you look at the skateboarder on the left, the three palm trees on his T-shirt and the devil ray sticker on the underside of his board both match graphics on the socks:
That devil ray logo, incidentally, is clearly meant to evoke the Skyway Bridge, which spans Tampa Bay. Some fans are already referring to the logo as the SkyRay.
Based on all of this, it appears that the Rays’ CC uniform will include garish colors hearkening back to the team’s original 1990s Devil Rays design, the ray/bridge logo, three palm trees. and perhaps something related to skate culture. The blacked-out area in the center of the mural will presumably be filled in on Monday with the CC jersey’s chest insignia, which will likely be the “Tampa Bay” script seen on the socks.
So that’s where things currently stand. We’ll see the full design on Monday.
(Big thanks to Twitter-er @Jumbie00119657 for letting me know about the sock leak.)
these could be one of the few good city connects: actually looks like the team’s brand, connects to the team’s uniform history, and reps the team’s city.
I’m getting an alien abduction feel from the glowing green sky elements.
This could be the one team that should designate their city connects as their regulars because they are so bland.
CC loves bridges I guess
“Well you see, bridges, they connect… cities.”
I can only assume that whichever Nike designer said that first is being worshipped as the Messiah in Beaverton, Oregon now
The SkyRay logo is SPLENDID. They need to keep that around.
Yeah the fact that I INSTANTLY said “ah it’s a SkyRay logo” the second I saw it, before seeing other people say the same, really speaks to how strong a design it is.
This has real promise.
I’m going to need a Rays-Padres CC matchup
Are those 90’s tattoo flames coming off the top of the letters?
Is everyone going to ignore the pelican w the sunburst logo for eyes?
For a street art mural this looks far too straightlined and commercial but this site is about uniforms. This logo could be quite nice and the Rays original colors were garish to start with. This might actually turn out OK, bit I am not counting on it. Nike and the team will find a way to mess it up.