Obviously, the first month of the MLB season has been a complete clusterfuck from a uniform perspective. But as a Mets fan who prefers the team’s standard home pinstripes and road greys, I’ve taken some small solace in the fact that the team hasn’t yet worn its blue or black alternate jerseys (the latter of which has a new design this year).
I had assumed that this was because the solid-colored jerseys hadn’t yet been delivered due to production delays. But it turns out that there’s a different explanation: The pants haven’t been delivered.
Here’s the deal: Although the Mets wear pinstriped pants with their primary home uniform, they have plain, non-pinstriped pants that go with the two alternate jerseys:
But according to Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo, who was quoted in a story published last night in Newsday, the white pants haven’t arrived. Here’s the key passage:
“There’s a serious problem when a $13 billion industry is having a tough time getting pants from a worldwide industry that is supposed to be at the forefront of apparel and whatnot,” Nimmo told Newsday. “We can’t wear our blacks, we can’t wear our blues because we don’t have our pants, and I hear that it’s a problem with other teams as well.”
[…]
“It’s one set of pants for two jersey tops that we can’t wear in a major-league season because they don’t have it available,” Nimmo said. “It’s a problem that they need to solve for sure. And not a small problem, either.”
Sounds like Nimmo really wants to wear those solid-colored jerseys! According to the Newsday article, the solid tops “are popular among players, who would especially like to be able to change it up from the usual home white.”
The funny thing is that there’s plenty of precedent for pairing the blue jerseys with the pinstriped pants, which the Mets routinely did as recently as 2021. Here’s Nimmo himself in that combo:
But for whatever reason, they apparently don’t want to go that route. That’s fine by me — like I said, I’m happier to see them in the pinstriped jerseys.
Alas, this respite from the softball tops will soon come to a close, as the Newsday piece says that the team is due to receive the white pants on May 7.
(My thanks to our own Mike Chamernik for bringing this development to my attention.)
Yes, seems idiotic that they don’t just wear the pinstriped pants if they want to wear the jerseys so badly. Also, did they really discard all of their pants from last season?
I feel like a worldwide apparel company not being able to provide the pants they want to wear is slightly more idiotic than them not wearing pinstripes as a temporary fix.
I am going to guess they cannot wear the pinstriped pant because that is not what was filed to be paired with the tops for this season.
As we all know, there is a whole system in place where the teams file what is being worn with what. What is it, two years on any alteration (I can remember the Brewers had to wait a couple of years to alter their 90s jerseys, going to a thicker blue piping to replace the thinner green piping.
Im sure they could file with the league special permission to use the striped pant, but that is an admission that the suppliers are having yet another issue.
I’m pretty sure there’s no restriction (other than mandating non-white pants for road games) on pairing the pin pants with the blue (or black) tops.
I am fine if Nike or Fanduel, err… I mean Fanatics cannot meet deadlines if it means that they are giving workers a break and enough time to make all versions of every team’s uniform for every player. Maybe next time make it two years/seasons in advance. Better yet, don’t fix what isn’t broken in the first place.
“It’s one set of pants for two jersey tops“
Is this true? I couldn’t tell from the photos if both white pants had the same color leg stripes? Are they both blue, or does the white pants with the black jersey have black stripes?
One set. Blue stripe. link
Brewers haven’t received their CCs yet which i’m ok with.
Funny how they got the brand new pants for the CC tops in plenty of time.
And yes, the Mets wore the blue tops over the white pins for a couple of years — in fact, they didn’t get the solid white pants “back” (they had worn them a decade ago) until they re-introduced the black jerseys late in 2021. Paul and I were wondering at the time if they’d have to wear them with the white pins, since they only had one home set of pants at the time.
I’m 100% fine with the team wearing only the gorgeous home pins for every game (as god intended).
“Clusterfuck”. One of my faves, only to be upped by the “Mongolian” variety.
It’s been my experience that major league ballplayers are not the best arbiters of good taste.
Reminds me of Bryce Harper whining to the Phils that they need a red top.
Ballplayers in many cases were never fans of MLB; they don’t have a connection to or appreciation of any kind of tradition, like some fans do.
Paul,
I feel I should know this by now, but have you ever commented on the possible verbiage of writing you are a Mets fan, a Met fan or a Mets’ fan? In speaking, I will say I am a Met fan. Writing it gives me pause. This also arises when writing something like the Mets logo, Met logo or Mets’ logo.
I know you didn’t ask me, but here’s my two cents:
Mets’ fan doesn’t make sense, unless you were saying something like “The Mets’ biggest fan(s)”.
The Mets’ logo or Mets logo both make sense depending on the context.
Charlie is 100% right.
I prefer “Mets fan.”
The use of the possessive when referring to the logo (or uniforms, etc.) depends on how the sentence is constructed.
Would Met fan be incorrect or a matter of preference? Imagine correcting your friends on that…you might not have any more friends.
To my mind, “Met fan” is incorrect (unless the person in question is a fan of only one specific Met), but I’d never correct someone on that point.
FWIW, I would describe myself (however reluctantly) as a Pirate fan, not a Pirates fan.
A Met fan would be a fan of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I’ve heard that they hold galas. Probably not a regatta gala, though…
Sigh between this and the Uni recall (? not sure what exactly it is)) it really just goes to show out of touch Nike is with the sports they work with. I mean if they weren’t prepared to have uni sets ready why make the change at all? Hopefully the MLB looks elsewhere when it’s time as this is clearly not the answer. I mean I’m happy for the classic mets look as result but it’s kind of ridiculous.
They wear the blue tops during spring, assume they wore the pinstripe pants during spring then? Just go back to last years pants, don’t think anyone would complain. Since it seems they are going back to that design by next year anyway.
The Nationals also have yet to debut their white capitol dome pullovers they announced.
“Why don’t the Mets just wear the Alternate jersey with the striped pants?”
Because MLB would consider that a uniform combination.
Remember the 4+1CC rule?
That’s a rule for different jerseys, not pants.
The sad reality of NIKE not delivering and causing collateral damages follows precedent set in 1958:
link
Small, indie, mom and pop company, cut them some slack.
No, seriously, can you help them cut some slacks? The sweatshop workers can’t keep up with the demand for ugly new CC uniforms and they really need some help in the factory.
It doesn’t help that they have to keep re-making pants because they rip too easily due to terrible design. I mean, um,…because of their advanced ablative technology.
I always hated the pinstriped pants/solid jersey combo so I’m okay with them not going that route… but to not have the black jerseys for their Friday night games is killing a big marketing push for the team. And as superstitious as players generally are, I’d suspect that Nimmo would like to try a new uniform to kick his season into gear.
Well Paul, your Mets will look a lot better in those pinstripes tonight when they play my Cubbies :)
Oooooops. Didn’t know they were going to wear the CC unis tonight….
Sorry about that.
I can only guess that Seve likes them, and the Mets are wont to permit their starter to dictate the jersey (or in this case, entire uni).
Could have been such a good looking game. Now just a bunch of gray……. Yikes. Cubs should have worn the blue jerseys to kinda add some color. But, in the grand scheme of things, I love baseball and won’t let it ruin the game tonight :) GO CUBS GO!
I’d love to know why (and until we know for sure, I’m going with the assumption that Severino was allowed to pick the jersey/uni).
I’m pissed off about this too. These are supposed to be worn specifically (and ONLY) on Saturday home games. It’s bad enough we’ll soon have Friday night BFBS games.
See, these Nike miscues aren’t all bad.
I volunteer the Phillies to send their CC pants up to Flushing Meadows in a care package.
Watching the game tonight. Why couldn’t they were the CC white pants with the colored tops? Wouldn’t look any more ridiculous than what they have on now.
It was stated above and it is true: a lot of professional athletes have a peculiar taste in uniforms that I would like to describe as leaning towards the minimalistic with a twist of garish and a huge dosis of BFBS or camo. Sadly, my Mets seem to be no exception to that rule. The blue and black softball tops should be warmup jerseys or BP jerseys or even pre-season jerseys but not part of the actual rotation. But both are still better than the CC as that uniform comes with a real ugly hat with a cobweb up front.
Not only that, but the Cubs wore their solid gray unis. Not much contrast. Cubs should have worn the blue tops to at least break it up a little bit. But, maybe nobody told them in advance. And, since the Mets were only supposed to wear these on Saturday home games as stated by Phil, the Cubs just assumed they were going to wear their usual pinstripes.