There has been an apparent leak of the St. Louis Cardinals City Connect uniforms. The team is scheduled to officially unveil them on Monday, May 20th, but a few images started spreading on social media which purport to show the CCs.
Thus far, three images have appeared, which appear to be screen grabs. The first, pictured above, shows the team in special red caps and jerseys.
The caps are solid red, with “STL” in a white tuscan font. The jerseys, which are also solid red, have thin white soutache on the sleeve ends, with the classic “birds on bat” logo atop the script words, “The Lou.” There looks to be a patch on the left sleeve of the player in the middle. The number is below the wordmark, in white with a black outline.
While we can glean a lot from that one photo about the overall look and theme of the uniform, there were two additional graphics which show the “storytelling” (or at least a portion of that) under each image.
Let’s take a look at the images and then some of the design elements.
The Lou: Rendered in the same script as the Redbirds currently use for “Cardinals,” the nickname is attributable to Nelly, a St. Louis native.
Fleur de Lis/Arch: Two more very recognizable city symbols. This shows the full patch which will be worn on the sleeve, which was only partially visible above.
River Pinstripes: So the uniform won’t be solid red (pretty much like every other CC jersey introduced this year, none of them are a solid color and all have sublimated printing of some sort). You can sort of make them out in the photo at the top of the page, but by and large they won’t be visible at all unless you’re standing a couple feet away.
1882: This will be inside the jersey collar. Franchise founding date.
The final image looks to be a continuation of the previous one, but here we get details on the cap and the Tuscan font used.
STL Cap: Here we are told the lettering used on the cap is based on the font used during 1920-21. In 1922, the team would first add a birds-on-bat logo to the jersey front.
Lower Jersey Lettering: This will be tucked into the pants, and so won’t be visible, but “St. Louis Cardinals” is spelled out in the 1920-21 jersey font.
We can just barely get a glimpse of the jersey back, which shows player NOB in white letters with a black border. The “river stripes” are just barely visible in this shot. So unfortunately we don’t know quite what the full jersey rear will look like, nor what color pants (or socks) the team will wear, but it’s possible there will be more leaks before the official unveiling on Monday.
While not 100% confirmed, all signs point to these being the team’s official cap and jersey. This page will be updated as needed.
UPDATE #1: Looks like the pants are going to be white. (h/t Joel Shaw)
They had me until “The Lou.” (Blech!)
They had me until the placket break.
And I was hoping for red pants…
Noooooooooo. Definitely a good thing they avoided red pants.
White pants….thank God. I was dreading red or black.
“The Lou” is kinda stupid, but otherwise, these look like their red BP jerseys from a distance…so thankfully, not nearly as horrible as I was fearing.
Completely unnecessary, but it won’t hurt my eyes to watch at least.
“The Lou” is kind of a hip hop thing. As a local, I hate it, but what do I know? I definitely prefer it to “St. Louie.” Nobody here says “St. Louie.”
Phonetically, its a nickname for a toilet (glad that many others here recognized this)…..not exactly the best thing to slap on a jersey…..
Did Nelly call it this as a slight or was it supposed to be a compliment…?
Reminds me of when some refer to Pittsburgh as “The Pitt”….
The loo is barely used in the United States to refer to a toilet. As for Nelly, the phrase from the song is “I’m from The Lou and I’m proud.” So I don’t think he’s dissing the city.
I think a yellow bill, to break up the solid red cap, would have been a welcome addition.
Would also look like the yellow beak of the cardinal…interesting. Wonder why they never thought of that.
This is a long-running deliberate error. Cardinal beaks are red, and around 1997 or so the team even briefly changed its birds-on-bat logo to reflect that reality. There is no yellow at all on a normal actual cardinal. But ever since they changed the bat from black to yellow, they needed something on thr bird to match it I guess, so they adopted the same frequent mistake many others make
Yes…I am aware…but if your logo has a yellow beak, having the hat have a yellow beak would kind of be cool perhaps.
I used to live near a convenience store that sold knock-off baseball caps. Black and orange, with the S next to the F instead of interlocking. These caps reminded me of that.
Whew…as far as city connect uniforms go, this is so much better than it could have been.
That also happens to be the Cardinals marketing strategy to their fans the past several years.
Brilliant.
And we are setting a terribly low bar here.
If they lose in these the opposing team will make a joke about “The Lou”
These could honestly pass for regupar alternate uniforms. I always wanted the Cards to wear a red jersey. This will be one of the best uniforms in the league, the white pants make it looks great, so glad they didn’t do red pants. Although, red pants would’ve looked great with the white tops or a tan jersey.
The Fleur-de-lis/Arch should’ve been the cap logo. That is one boring looking hat.
Not a single living St. Louisan in 2024 refers to the city as “The Lou.” Most people either refer to it as St. Louis, STL, or I occasionally hear “The 314” (The area code here).
It is fitting that a franchise that has spent the last several years shoving nostalgia down our throats instead of trying to field a competitive team would be making Nelly references in their CC uniform.
I own many, many Cardinal jerseys and hats. I am the kind of fool who buys that kind of stuff. This is a huge pass for me.
They belong in the… wait for it… loo.
Agreed. I was hoping for a hat I might purchase. Definitely saving $45(!) here.
I’m having the same conversation with my wife right now about “the land” for Cleveland. We got lucky, you didn’t.
You did get lucky. Philly did not either.
The Lou? Ohmygod, how embarrassing.
was hoping for red pants
Certainly better than the last few/what it could have been. At least it’s not as bad as Rays or Tigers. Ugh.
The Rays is defy better than this.
Why bother?
The city connect designers are getting real lazy at this point. Seattle has been the only good one in the last couple years.
The river striping also shows up in the City of St. Louis flag.
This is how dedicated Paul is to Uni-Watch…cranking out this post after the Purp Walk Happy Hour…
While Paul is very dedicated, the byline says Phil.
The fleur de lis for the Cardinals?
“The Lou”?
The fleur de lis makes sense, as it’s literally in the City flag and you see it all over the city.
The fleur de lis is a prominent symbol in St. Louis (founded by the french). It’s on the city flag for starters. The Stl Browns wore it on their cap at one point.
Much like the nickname “The Queen City”, the fleur-de-lis gets around. I’ve seen it used to represent nearly every city/locale with a French connection: St. Louis, Québec, Louisiana, Louisville, and the city I am writing this from, New Rochelle.
The flag for Detroit also has fleurs-de-lis on it.
link
The city was founded as a French fort in 1674 and is named after King Louis IX of France.
“The Lou”… meh. Maybe “Gateway City” or just “Gateway”? A lot of missed opportunities here, IMO.
Hahahaha. The Lou?? As in, bathroom? A fitting reference when it comes to Nike.
The bathroom reference was my first thought too. Anybody else?
The Lou-sy. Good fit for the way this group is playing.
Also, I respect and admire most of Nellie, but to make him the symbol of the city is… well disrespectful to the history of our city.
It’s just a red jersey for the Cardinals. That’s all I’m seeing.
Come on Nike…… Come up with something more than giving every team a three letter acronym or “the” this and “the” that…… They have already worn out the “the” this and “the” that in the NBA.
I think the numbers/letters have blue outlines (not black) but it’s hard to tell.
The sleeve patch outline is definitely blue.
Whatever.
The misspelled loo. City connect is a shitty concept, though.
The Cards showed the historical precedent, but I have to admit I’m a bit over the constant use of Tuscan font in baseball.
so many better nick names to put on the jersey. Why “The Lou” when you’ve got “Mound City” or even better the “Gateway to the West”. I actually don’t mind the stripes they seem to be really subtle, but we’ll see what they look like at the game in better detail.
Atlanta, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Washington, and now St Louis, otherwise not awful gimmick uniforms ruined by Nike’s instance to use stupid abbreviations or otherwise identifiers instead of city / nickname on the jersey. Southside, Philly, Cincy, Motor City, NYC, those aren’t gimmicky and can work.
Today for the first time I saw someone wearing a city connect (Phillies) jersey out in public. All I could think was it was a fashion designed merch, not an actual uniform top.
On typical Cards uniforms, the lettering and bird-and-bat graphic are shifted a little to the left, to make room for the front numbers, so that the bird on the right is a little closer to the placket than the bird on the left. On the away unis the lettering is positioned so the large script L is centered right on the placket.
On this, inexplicably, the whole element has been shifted to the right, so the bird on the left is closer and the placket breaks in the middle of a lowercase e. We don’t have a full look at it here, but I’m guessing the design is going to be crowded on the right side.
Full disclosure–I’m a diehard Cardinals fan, so I’m looking through homer-colored glasses here. I echo everyone else who is saying not embarrassing but also totally unnecessary. It feels to me that this is an instance of an ownership who “Gets It™” pushing back as hard as they can against the Nikefication of MLB’s uniform program so that at least they get something not hideous. So for that I’m thankful! Certainly not buying these but also I won’t turn off the game when they’re wearing them. The pinstripes are barely legible. “The Lou” is annoying but is at least rendered in a recognizable design motif.
Now if only we could get ownership to get it when it comes to winning games.
Yankees ownership said no thanks to the whole program. DeWitt should’ve followed suit.
I have no real insight into how these work but I suspect the Yankees can more easily say no than the Cards. But yeah—ultimately I wish all the owners simply said no!
Another fail.
Not a fan of most city connect jerseys, and not much of a fan of this, even as a Cards fan. I was hoping for a navy jersey, and I think this would work better if it was navy so that the birds would stand out. The Cardinals’ marketing seems to now be taking ques from the soccer team which shows the whole organization is getting lazy.
Whoever is in charge of the site today, I wanted to let you know that the alignment of this Cardinals entry is currently formatted way too large on my cell phone. It’s impossible to read. It seems like this problem occurs almost exclusively on the weekends.
Try it now.
The problem (we *finally* discovered) occurs when someone puts a *bad* link into the comments, which doesn’t translate into an actual link and distorts the proportions. I removed a couple of those, so I think it’s fixed, but if you can let me know that would be great.
Thanks
I think that was me…sorry comm-uni-ty!
I wonder why the team is changing its history date to 1882 from 1892, which it used to be very stubborn about? As recently as 2017 the team had 125th anniversary patches (which New Era still approves as side patches on new hats) depicting the 1892 date. 1882 would add a 12th championship to their record
1892 is the year of joining the MLB
1882 includes a decade with the American Association
(Still sticks to 1892 for anniversary purposes, but giving a nod here)
Well, they could have been worse.
They just couldn’t help themselves with the name, and that’s ultimately the killer here. If these said “Cardinals” I would probably love them. Some of the other choices mitigate the damage somewhat. I’m glad they stuck with red caps at least, and a red jersey makes sense. They did well to resist mono-red, or getting too crazy with wavy pant stripes, or making it all about the Arch.
The sublimated details on the jersey seem to be a requirement for CC, but these are relatively unobtrusive and the connection makes sense.
The cap logo isn’t great, but at least it throws back to something and doesn’t do what Detroit did. It’s a similar situation in that it’s almost impossible to improve on their existing monogram.
I assume they’ll have some awful new socks with these, which is a shame because the Cardinals have traditionally had a great sock design.
If The Lou is a nickname for St Louis then should the SF Giants have a Frisco City Connect?
Using “The Lou” on the front seems embarrassing and only made worse by the placket break. There’s two words there and you had to run one of them through the placket?! C’mon Nike! Other than that I think it’s an OK uni. I’m glad they’re not going mono-tomato, the subtle river stripes seem OK by me, I really do like the patch. The font on the cap would seem to go better on a pillbox cap.
Completely, completely agree about the pillbox hats.
As a Cardinals alternate uniform, I mostly like this. As a City Connect project, I think it looks more like a failure than a success. Just in the most basic terms, if “The Lou” is so popularly connected with civic identity, then the city name doesn’t need to be literally spelled out on the cap. The FDL/Arch logo belongs there. Or keep the cap and out the FDL/Arch on the jersey.
I’m coming to think the CC program heralds two long-term things for MLB uniformery: 1) There will be more programmatic alternates. Watch for an equivalent of the Copa in the big leagues soon. 2) Sublimation will soon be a regular part of the uniform palette. These river stripes will probably seem tame in years to come.
Clearly I’m in the minority but I don’t hate these at all. Clean and not over the top like many of the CC and The Lou is a fine name.
Gotta say I disagree with the other St. Louisans in here saying nobody says “The Lou,” because I hear it a lot. And even say it myself sometimes!
Not defending the unis, FWIW, but the phrasing works for me.
Given the shout-out to Nelly, and where he was educated, I guess these can be identified as the “U-City Connect” uniforms.