Good Tuesday morning Uni Watchers, I hope everyone had a good Monday.
Over the past four seasons, I’ve ranked all the City Connect uniforms in the year they were introduced. You can check out each year’s review here: 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.
While I stand by my rankings for the years in which they were made, a few teams have made changes to their CCs, which may or may not factor in my final rankings, and in some cases, my opinions have ever-so-slightly evolved (either good or bad) having seen the CCs in action. There are really three buckets into which these could all be dropped: 1) uniforms that could actually be worn on an everyday basis/used as primary; 2) not quite good enough to be a regular uniform, but fun to see on occasion; and, 3) uniforms that should be worn almost never/need serious redesigns. More of the uniforms probably fall into the third category than the first.
To review. Seven CCs were unveiled in 2021. My rankings of those seven were as follows:
1) Chicago White Sox
2) Boston Red Sox
3) Arizona Diamondbacks
4) Miami Marlins
5) Chicago Cubs
6) Los Angeles Dodgers (original version)
7) San Francisco Giants
Seven CCs were unveiled in 2022. Here’s how I ranked those:
1) Colorado Rockies
2) Washington Nationals
3) San Diego Padres
4) Los Angeles Angels
5) Milwaukee Brewers
6) Kansas City Royals
7) Houston Astros
There were only six CCs unveiled in 2023.
1) Seattle Mariners
2) Texas Rangers
3) Atlanta Braves
4) Baltimore Orioles
5) Pittsburgh Pirates
6) Cincinnati Reds
And nine this year (although the LA Dodgers were the only team given a second edition)
1) Cleveland Guardians
2) St. Louis Cardinals
3) New York Mets
4) Minnesota Twins
5) Detroit Tigers
6) LA Dodgers (second version)
7) Philadelphia Phillies
8) Toronto Blue Jays
9) Tampa Bay Rays
It was difficult to rank the unis in some cases by year. Ranking all 28 teams/29 uniforms? Tough but not impossible. The more difficult part is putting my thoughts on each uni into one sentence. But I did. If you want to read my longer rationales, click on the year links above.
Here are my rankings from first to worst. I’m sure you’ll disagree (in whole or in part), and I’d love to hear your thoughts — or even your own rankings — down in the comments below. Here we go…
A nearly perfect uniform, all it needs is “Chicago” instead of “Southside” on the chest, and a set of … white socks.
Another nearly flawless uniform that just needs to change “CLE” to a smaller “CLEVELAND” wordmark.
The first CC is still one of the very best.
I liked it with green pants, and I like it even better with the white pants option.
I’ll be sad when they retire this one at the end of this season.
I know many of you don’t like this, and that’s OK — but I’d love to see them wear this once with white pants.
This one was good with the the original white pants, but better with sand pants.
A very underrated, very good uniform.
Only the cringeworthy “The A” wordmark keeps this one from being higher.
These have grown on me since their introduction, but they’re still only #10.
I love the seafoam and fuchsia, and these would rank a lot higher if not for the semi-illegible San Diego wordmark.
I wasn’t overly enamored with these when they debuted, but they’ve definitely grown on me a little.
A couple tweaks and this is easily top 10, maybe even top 5.
These are thisclose to being great, but “The Lou” is just all kinds of wrong.
They look better with white pants.
Like St. Louis, “Brew Crew” on the chest and “MKE” on the caps drop these down a few pegs.
They’re not awful, but they’re not good either.
I know they’re not named for the color, but seeing the Royals in anything besides Royal or powder blue just doesn’t feel right.
The “We Are Family” harkback is nice, but that giant “PGH” across the chest is horrible.
So close, and yet so far — if only the “ripple effect” wasn’t so choppy.
With the “LA” cap and white pants, this one got better with age.
Easily a Top 10 uni but for the terrible number treatment.
Too much navy and not enough orange, but at least the rainbow guts gradient socks help a little.
There isn’t much redeeming about these (tire tracks, “MOTOR CITY”) but at least the wordmarks and numbers are legible.
The brutal gradient and funky fonts are just too clever by half.
Making the numbers illegible due to the fog motif moves this one to the near bottom.
Making the wordmark and the numbers ghosted, and thus completely unreadable from distance, is inexcusable.
See Cincy.
See Toronto and Cincy, which you could probably switch for your bottom three, but someone has to be last and these numberless unis are the worst of the worst.
Good review. While my personal rankings would swap out the Padres, Marlins and Angels for the Mariners, Rangers and D’backs, it underscores the fact that it’s almost impossible to even put a Top 10 together without dipping into designs that aren’t that good. For 29 uniforms, I would argue that a third are decent, at best. It also seems that Nike never had a coherent design plan. Sometimes, they kept team colors. Other times, they avoided them entirely. Some of them looked like decent baseball uniforms, but ot
…but others seemed clearly designed not to be worn on a field during a competitive game.
Curious for anyone out there in the Pittsburgh, Cleveland, or Milwaukee areas. Apparently PGH, CLE, and MKE are actually used there, but are they used in conversation or just shorthand when writing? If they are used in conversation, are they used just as letters, or actually pronounced, that is, would people say C L E or Cle? Because if it is the former, three letter abbreviations would take just as long to say as the city names, which are two or three syllables.
I’m really confused by this phenomenon, and now that it has made its way into and produced bad designs for uniforms it really irks me. Being in the Philly area I can understand why people say Philly, as Philadelphia is five syllables. To me these airport codes as nicknames are just goofy and pointless. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Washington, and Milwaukee would have pretty good CC design were it not for this trend.
Used in conversation sometimes, pronounced C L E (I’m pretty sure).
Lots of people here (not me) say “the C. L. E.”
I don’t mind it as a written abbreviation, even on the jersey. But I just say “Cleveland.” It’s less syllables than the vocal “abbreviation” and it sounds better.
Yeah way more common in my experience to see it written, and I think unlike some other “airport codes” it works better since it’s the three first letters and still identifiable (“Chi” being similar)
PGH is so weird, particularly because the H isn’t pronounced (and so many people forget it haha). I think MKE struggles even worse – your gut it to try and pronounce it like “Mike”
PGH is never spoken aloud and is only every used to short hand write the city in my experience. “Burgh” is what people would say to shorten Pittsburgh, but Pittsburghers are pretty proud of Pittsburgh and usually don’t mind saying Pittsburgh, or will just say “dahntahn” to refer to downtown.
Ah, so then it would have made much more sense to put Burgh, or The Burgh, on the uniform. I’d still find that a little gimmicky and goofy, like The Lou, but anything beats these airport code wordmarks on the jerseys and hats.
And even if I found The Burgh a bad choice, I’d imagine Pittsburgh fans might like it, so it is much easier to accept if it is in fact something the local fans really do like.
An even more authentic Pittsburghese treatment would have been “Da’ Burgh” (Yinzers have a tendency to replace a “th” sound, especially at the beginning of a word, with a “d” or “t” sound). And it probably would have been incredibly popular. I’m just glad they didn’t try going with any other color scheme but Black and Gold. The fact that all 3 teams wear uniforms that have the same color as the city’s flag kind of makes them City Connects long before that was ever even an idea in a Nike executive’s head.
There are local shops that sell shirts and stickers and things, and CLE is pretty prominent. I have never heard anyone speak it out loud, but I have seen shirts or stickers on cars where “CLE” is rendered in the red/white/blue, or the orange/white/brown, for the local teams.
Not a fan of CC at all and would not be happy if I attended a game to find my team wearing these.
But I will say The Miami Marlins set does the job and they should be their permanent duds. Grew up in South Florida and these match perfectly so much of the city of Miami. Not even a fan of that team but its a perfect match.
YES to all that you said! I have this Marlins set as #1 on my list. It accomplished the “city connect” mission the best, IMO. Sure, the pinstripes are a bit weird, but the colors and the vibe and the link to Cuban baseball (with the huge Cuban population in Miami) says everything. Pretty sure that was my biggest disagreement with Phil in comparing our lists. (** well, that and Seattle, which I thought was one of the most disjointed uniform sets in the entire CC program.)
I think it points to the fact Nike felt the need to put so many gimmicks on to these, so that even when they do come up with something pretty good, there is going to be at least one negative gimmick in there that pulls it down. So when you are ranking them, it ends up being based on which bad gimmicks irk you more and cause you drop a design.
Exactly, Greg.
So many of these uniforms have, what Ricko (remember him?) used to call, one too many bumperstickers (gimmicks). For example, if the Dodgers just had normal, readable numbers on their new CC, they’d be 10 times better. If St. Louis simply had “St. Louis” instead of “The Lou,” etc. If Washington didn’t have the gaudy “WSH” it would be a really solid uni, one that could be an alternate for sure. But so many of them try waaaaay to hard with the “connect” part. Put the City Name (as some teams have) on the jersey, not a nickname or abbreviation or airport code. Some designs are terrible, for sure, but most of these are salvagable with just a few simple tweaks.
I want to thank the Yankees for not drinking the Kool Aid. However, If they ever did decide to debut City Connect Unis, I think the inverse of the homes (navy shirts/pants with white pinstripes, white numbers, and interlocking white NY might look pretty cool.
It’s a proven look, the White Sox CCs are top tier. Might hit different from the Yankees tho since their uniforms are so iconic
would love to see a variation of the washignton ones with washington is swoopy white script. they are the only ones where the grey works (for me) and the cherry blossoms are delightful.
so close. prolly needed two more revisions.
GTGFTU 1994 NFC championship game
I am interested to see where the CC program goes next year for the teams that are getting new CC’s next year. (Running on the assumption most of the 2021 teams will get new CC next year)
Based on this year, it seems like Nike has started to mail it in – dark jersey, dark pants, illegible fonts. Go.
Hopefully that trend doesn’t continue next year.
Yes, I was going to ask if we have confirmation that the 2021 teams will get new CCs in 2025. As a White Sox fan, all I have to look forward to these days is their CCs and the excitement a new uniform may bring.
To my knowledge, Nike/MLB have said nothing about the CC program going forward, but with the Dodgers getting CC 2.0 this year (and 8 other teams only getting their first CC *this* year), I’m pretty sure it will continue.
As far as who gets a new CC for 2025? Obviously the likely candidates are the six of seven remaining teams from 2021 who were in the first group to receive CCs. But to date, we’ve heard nothing on that front. MLB has got a lot of uniform problems to deal with (and which they will supposedly fix) before the 2025 season starts. I’m sure we’d rather they focus their efforts on that before turning their thoughts to another set of CCs. But Nike gonna Nike.
As a Mariner fan, I know when they released theirs, they mentioned this one being worn every Friday night home game for the next three seasons. Which leads me to believe we’d get another one after the 2025 season. It makes a boatload of money for Nike and MLB so I don’t see why they’d stop.
“It makes a boatload of money for Nike and MLB so I don’t see why they’d stop.”
And therein lies the rub.
Paul always said he could make much more money by turning UW into a porn site, so why didn’t he?
That’s the problem with pretty much everything these days — almost everything is about money. Now, I certainly don’t begrudge those who want to earn a comfortable living, and I’m not opposed to innovations that will inevitably bring about the demise of some professions. The world’s best buggy whip maker couldn’t compete against the automobile. How many of us still have land lines? I don’t think anyone would argue against the car or cell phone.
But when making money becomes the sole pursuit, such that it comes at the detriment of a product or service, some of us might question if this is really for the best. Without going off on a really wrong rant, I’ll just end with this.
Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.
The CC program (and uni ads) have been a license for Nike/MLB to print money. But at what cost. If there is no pushback, they’ll continue to turn out this retail slop. Unless and until teams/fans say “enough is enough” with the CC uniforms, of course they’ll continue. But that doesn’t mean they should.
At least the Phillies and Rays have nice caps.
GTGFTS June 1 2012 Dodgers vs. Rockies
LAD Lineup features Gwynn, DeJesus, Hairston, Van Slyke, Strange-Gordon, all sons of major leaguers. Also Matt Treanor, who was married to one of the most famous beach volleyball players in the US.
I mostly agree with the list. I would move the Marlins and the Angels into the top ten ahead of the Mariners and Cubs. KC as well. If you’re going to put the Yellow Sox at #3, I don’t see why you would ding the Royals for wearing the wrong color. To me it’s a really nice-looking uni, though I would make the pant stripes match the jersey.
Also, I think the STL on the Cardinals’ hat looks bad. I’d drop them a few spots just for this.
Fair points Joe! I know I’m one of probably only a few (outside of New England, anyway) that is so enamored with Boston’s cc — but their colors (which I love) are specific to the marathon angle; KC could have had *any* color and still have been as effective. I’m sure there are biases I have, even if I don’t recognize them, but IMO we have enough navy (and dark blue) teams. The CC program produced even more. Part of Boston’s appeal to me is, in no small part, due to the colors. Baseball needs more brighter colors, and less dark (especially blues and blacks). If you put the Chicago (NL) pants on KC, they’d look almost identical. It’s also probably why I like Colorado’s CC as much as I do — unique colors. MLB/Nike know that dark colors, especially blues and black, sell. To me, that’s in part why a lot of the CCs are a failure. When you limit your colorscheme, you need to create more gimmicks to make the *same* jersey stand out.
The ubiquity of the dark uniforms is why I dropped Seattle (I hate the black pants) and the Cubs in my ranking. I like that the Royals incorporated the fountains in their logo, it’s one of the more inspired efforts on that front in my opinion.
I’m a Red Sox fan, and I really do like the uniform. It’s extremely well-designed in utilizing the marathon colors and wordmark, and as you say, the bright colors are great. Though I do think it’s interesting that the yellow-clad PGH Pirates rate one spot lower than KC. Then again, the yellow is probably the only thing going for that uniform. There’s approximately zero design there.
Agree on the Angels. I think their word mark and revised A logo are far superior to their standard designs. They really should take those and use them as the primary look in a rebrand. Also the Angels uniform looks 100% like a baseball uniform instead of a costume, it gets extra points for that. Aside from the sleeves stripes on only one side and the clunky diamond around the numbers this is just a really good, traditional baseball uniform. The font and stripe style giving off a mid 20th century Southern California beach vibe.
Too early in the morning for me to think about how I’d rank all of ’em, but the bottom three is spot-on.
Whatever you might think of the Blue Jays’ red jerseys, it’s a shame they’re spoiled by that big green ad patch.
I didn’t realize the Angels wore white socks with their cream uniform. That’s awful and drops down what was definitely top 10 CC uniform for me.
I’ve posted this before, but the Jays’ CC uniform looks so much better with white pants (as we already guessed):
link
I think the Angels could keep the cream-colored socks and go with red pants and still have a great uniform.
Cream-coloured socks would be fine, even with your red pants suggestion.
The issue for me is that I don’t see cream socks. I see white socks in the photo above – they are clearly a different colour from the pants.
It’s near-impossible for me to rank the City Connects as a cohesive uniform because teams with some of the best jerseys have the worst hats, and vice versa. The Rays hat is so, so, SO good, like maybe one of the best MLB hats in history, not just CC hats…but the jerseys are one of the worst and most illegible of the CC program. Meanwhile, the Brewers have maybe my LEAST favorite hat in MLB history for their CCs, but their jerseys are more-or-less solid, at least within the larger CC program’s context.
There are far more teams with good hats and bad jerseys, though:
Tampa
Baltimore
Cleveland (seriously, just put ‘The Land’ instead of CLE and you’d be fine)
Pittsburgh
Toronto
Atlanta
Texas
My cousin also had a good observation over the weekend:
“There are a handful of newer CC uniforms I think I’d like a lot more if they weren’t the 18th straight all-navy or -black CC uniform in a row”
BRO!!! You need another perspective when you make this list. My top 3 are your bottom 3.
I get you like traditional, I like fun. I am sure taking both perspectives into account would give a more accurate rating.
Bro.
I like to know what teams are playing and what numbers the players wear. If that’s traditional, then so be it. The bottom three teams fail at the two most important requirements a uniform is for: identifying the team and player (by number). Your Rays have a great cap, and would have ranked much higher if only they had filled in (even in gradient) the ghosted TAMPA BAY and uni number.
We can agree to disagree.
In my opinion the rays and reds uniforms are legible. I was watching the rays game against the nationals recently and I could make out the team name and number from every distance and angle they showed. The same goes for the Reds. I do agree with you on the blue jays though. When I saw them play I couldn’t read the team name even when it was a close-up. If the rays and reds units don’t work for you that’s fine but you have to admit that the rays have better city connects than the Jays. The entire concept is much better, the hat is better, the colors are better and they weren’t just like lets throw the skyline on a uniform and call it a day.
Why would PHIL’s rankings need another perspective?
While a few of these are pretty good as fun alternates, I always thought that the Angels should just go ahead and replace their regular uniforms with their CCs.
initially i disliked anything cc, because i don’t like change but some have aged well. chi sox and rockies appear really nice. thank you Phil for this!
That Tampa uni is everything I hate about the marketing of uniforms, but they still speak to me.
From a midwesterner with kids that play youth baseball: The Reds CC design has become very popular option for travel baseball teams. Just change the name on the front and the letter on the hat. Still ghosted and everything. Ive seen multiple, multiple teams with it.
OK, but your major criticism of EVERY DANG JERSEY is that the wordmark isn’t the city name. Y’know, isn’t that the whole POINT of the CC jerseys? The reason the White Sox’ CC jersey is so successful is because it ties it to a place, the South Side of Chicago, where they actually play and where a majority of their fans are. Saying “Chicago” might as well mean Naperville to a lot of people, so it’s dumb to use the same city name to showcase a specific place within that city. You also may have noticed that PRETTY MUCH EVERY CC UNIFORM has an alternate wordmark in place of the city name. THAT’S THE FRIGGIN POINT, PHIL!!! Showcasing DIFFERENT aspects of a city, including nicknames. Why St. Louis is named after a toilet is anyone’s guess, but I feel a lot of your criticism of these uniforms misses the mark completely.
OK, but your major criticism of EVERY DANG JERSEY is that the wordmark isn’t the city name. Y’know, isn’t that the whole POINT of the CC jerseys?
I’m not sure what the point of the CCs is, other than to ostensibly create fan gear that doubles as an on-field uniform. But even if you take the cynicism out of it, the point is to connect to a City. In some cases, that may be a specific *part* of a city (esp. Chicago with two teams), but in most cases, the City itself. I don’t necessarily mind “Wrigleyville” or “Southside” (which really should be two words) for the Windy City, but in most cases, teams should have the city name on the jersey. Of course, Nike can’t really do that with COLORADO, MINNESOTA and TEXAS. Why don’t those have “Denver,” “Minneapolis” (or “St. Paul”) or “Arlington”??? How is that connecting a City?
Because it’s not. And that’s why the whole program is flawed. It’s a gimmick to sell more merch first, and whatever else follows is just explained away with storytelling.
I rank these as UNIFORMS, not on how they supposedly “connect” to a city.
YMMV.
In the Twins defense they always wanted to avoid being one or the other and have both cities represented. Granted they could’ve just had Twin Cities on the jersey or used “TC” but maybe it’s just me.
Speaking of, as good as the Rangers jersey is I’m surprised they didn’t incorporate “DFW” (Dallas-Fort Worth) into their CC’s. They’re wedged between the two big cities (more towards Fort Worth but still) and would’ve fit the uniform’s point better. Maybe for a future revision…?
Nothing brings out a little heat quite like uniform rankings.
Love it!
Agree with your Top Five, but thought that the Angels should have been ranked higher.
Agreed. Angels should be #3 behind only Cleveland and the White Sox. Maybe behind the Nats, but that’s a toss-up to me.
I don’t understand the love for Boston’s CCs. Those things are terrible.
Ah well, different strokes . . .
Numbers are becoming less and less important in MLB. Probably the least important in the four major north American sports.
Players play specific positions and are restricted from shifting out of that position. The DH is in both leagues so pinch hitters and double switches are less common. Pitching changes are a lengthy ordeal and provide enough time to know who is replacing who. Players identities are not concealed by a masked helmet. You really don’t have a need to quickly look up and have to identify a plyer by number in a pinch.
I’d be fine going back to the first 28 years of the modern era and eliminate numbers. You could still have the player name on the back if you want to ID someone.
Try identifying players in an extended rundown, or even just when they’re backing each other up on a routine play.
Numbers may not matter to *you*, but they matter to scorers trying to accurately record assists, putouts, etc. etc.. They also matter to radio broadcasters who are the eyes of the listeners. The easier it is to identify the players, the better the broadcast will be.
Numbers are just as important in baseball… especially with Money Mad Manfred in charge. Take away the numbers and he’ll fill the space with giant ads. And it will be your fault.
1: Washington Nationals. The cherry blossoms are perfection.
2: Cleveland Guardians. I for one do not mind CLE.
3: Miami Marlins. Phil, I’m shocked that these aren’t higher on your list.
4: Chicago White Sox. If they had white Sox they’d probably be #1.
5: Colorado Rockies. Green pants are the best look, but white pants are good as well.
6: Texas Rangers. If Texas rebranded to this color template and uniform, I would not be disappointed.
7: Arizona Diamondbacks. It’s a good CC uniform for Arizona
8: Seattle Mariners. I’m an M’s fan, but this ranking is unbiased. (Nota bene: Seattle is 7-0 this season in CC unis.)
9: Los Angeles Angles. Love the Surfer vibes. I’m also a big fan of the first two panels of a hat being white.
10: Atlanta Braves. They should go back to their retro unis.
11: Kansas City Royals. Good baseball uni.
12: San Diego Padres. Multiple neon colors done right.
13: New York Mets. Looks like a New York uni
14: Saint Louis Cardinals. I was worried about these ones before they were revealed, but they did a good job of keeping the classic look while switching it up a little. Probably could have done a better job, but not bad.
15: Minnesota Twins. The sublimated Ripple Effect really holds these unis from being higher.
16: Boston Red Sox. Blue pants would make this uni much better.
17: Milwaukee Brewers. If only they didn’t have MKE on the cap.
18: Houston Astros. If all players were obligated to go high cuffed, these would be much higher.
19: Pittsburgh Pirates. I’d be interested to see black pants and the batting practice cap
20: Chicago Cubs. I don’t like how long “Wrigleyville” goes across the chest.
21: Los Angeles Dodgers. What are we doing with paint splatters and numbers
22: Philadelphia Phillies. Great cap ruined by the jersey.
23: Baltimore Orioles. Boring white font with too much black.
24: Detroit Tigers. It’s bad, but not as bad as the following.
25: San Francisco Giants. Same reasons as Phil
26: Cincinnati Reds. See Giants.
27: Tampa Bay Rays. If only we could see what’s on the jersey, these could possibly be top 10.
28: Toronto Blue Jays. What are we doing.
The Angel’s city connects use the “Jersey Mike’s” font.
1. Cleveland The hat is the cherry on top
2. Miami
3. Arizona
4. St Louis Actually I like The Lou better than the cap
5. Angels
6. San Diego works for them
7. White Sox
8. Kansas City
9. Cubs
10. Pittsburgh White Pants much, much better
11. Baltimore White pants much better
12. Mets
13. Washington
14. Boston Simple and crisp but look like highlighter
15. Braves Remind me of a time when team was terrible
16. San Fransisco
17. LA #1
18. LA #2
19. Colorado With white pants, green pants much lower
Next tier not very good
Minnesota
Tampa
Toronto
Philadelphia
Cincinnati
Seattle Maybe higher with white pants
Almost last
Tigers
Astros
The caboose
Texas what in the world is it?
No Brewers?
Knew I would forget at least one! Put them at 11. Decent uniform that would look better with powder blue pants. Hat is terrible! Hard to beat ball in glove but maybe a grill with a dark hat would be a big improvement
@ Phil I would love to see a ranking of city connect hats separate from the rest of uniforms. It would be fun to see how much the list is inverted. My guess is your # 1 Would slide way past your # 29?
Hmmmm. I never thought about just ranking the caps. That would be interesting, because the rankings would most definitely be VERY different. I can assure you Toronto and Tampa Bay (two of the better caps) wouldn’t be bringing up the bottom.
Maybe I will…
The Mariners dropped from first in their year to sixth overall, like a division winner with a .500 record.
I ranked 2024’s crop of unis back when you ranked those and started quite a bit of controversy on the rays uniforms. Here is my complete ranking:
1. Rays: Even without bias this is still my favorite.
2. Mariners: They used a classic mariners color scheme and honored the history of Seattle in a uniform that not only connects with the city but also looks good.
3. Padres: These uniforms really reflect the vibe of the Baja California. The colors are also unique which is a plus. The only issue is that the NOB can be bit difficult to read bit that could change with a pink or green outline. It is in no way a deal breaker though.
4. Marlins: Like the mariners uniforms, these honor the history of baseball in Miami that looks great.
5. White Sox: This uniform does its duty of being a city connect and the gothic look is just cool and general. Putting Southside on the jersey instead of Chicago is a nice touch.
6. Red Sox: This uniform might have the best storytelling of any of the city connects. The color scheme rules as well.
7. Twins: I was hoping for Prince themed uniforms but these have SERIOUSLY grown on me.
8. Guardians: The sandstone color is nice and it represents not only the city but also the team name. As far as the CLE word mark, it works on a city connect but if this was an alternate it would need to say Cleveland. I do hope a variant of these uniforms becomes the Guards main set.
9. Angels: Cream colored jerseys almost always work and the laid back California vibe these are going for is great. A simple look but it checks the 2 main boxes: Does it connect to the city? and Does it look good?
10. Astros: The hat is elite and the gradient piping is cool. The socks are a win as well.
11. Reds: This is a cool uniform for sure but I’m not entirely sure how it is supposed to connect to Cincinnati.
12. Rockies: The hints of purple are a great touch and using your states license plate as a uniform is a cool and unique idea.
13. Nationals: The sublimation is cool and the city connection is perfect but for some reason it feels like this isn’t as good as it could be.
14. Mets: The bridge on the hat is cool and the purple is nice. GRIMACE!!!
15. Phillies: This one has some pretty nice details but there’s just a little too much navy.
16. Diamondbacks: A cool concept but the sand color is a bit harsh on the eyes and they can’t really seem to think of a good hat.
17. Royals: A nice nod to the city of fountains but from a design standpoint this is pretty average.
18. Rangers: Lots of cool Easter eggs including an awesome sleeve patch but the blue pants look weird.
19. Cardinals: Keep the birds and bat but otherwise? Go CRAZY! These are a little too safe and the hat is incredibly generic. Also, the lou is what people in Europe call the toilet so…
20. Brewers: The hat is weird and brew crew is positioned in a weird spot on the jersey. I like the grill patch though.
21. Cubs: Wrigleyville is a cool nickname and I love the hat but there is just too much blue and the rest of the uni feels kinda bland.
22. Braves: These are just C versions of their throwbacks. The A sounds incredibly cringey. Actually try next time Atlanta.
23. Pirates: PGH is too gimmicky, these don’t really connect to the city of Pittsburgh in any way and the batting caps are an abomination.
24. Dodgers 2: These are higher simply for not being as bad as the Dodgers first city connect. In the end though, MAKE A HOLLYWOOD THEMED JERSEY ALREADY!!!
25. Tigers: Motor City is a cool nickname but the hat sucks and there is too much navy. These should be so much better than they are.
26. Giants: There’s more to San Francisco than fog and these just don’t look good.
27. Orioles: Painfully bland.
28. Blue Jays: Every City has a skyline and a nightlife. There’s much more to Toronto than those things. Also, these are about as impossible to read as you can imagine.
29. Dodgers 1: Congratulations Dodgers, you succeeded at making a jersey that is not only beyond boring but also exceedingly ugly at the same time. This is the worst and it is not close.
Just a few thoughts..
I wish the Cubs would’ve gone with “North Side” instead of “Wrigleyville” – matches up better with the White Sox’s jersey. Local sportscasters like use phrases like “The northsiders bullpen blew another lead”. and “The southsiders losing streak has now reached 12 in a row”.
My favorite items of the whole CC program are the Cubs Municipal Device patch and the Grill patch of the Brewers.
If I ranked these, I’d put the Angels a lot higher. Maybe all the way on top. That’s the only CC uniform that whenever I see it, I think “they should just wear this full time”.
I’d probably round out my top three with Cleveland and Texas. The Cleveland CC is very easy on the eyes, and I don’t even mind the abbreviation in this case; in fact, it actually seems to suit that font. The Texas CC gets honors for impressing even a die-hard uniform traditionalist like me with the potential of a non-traditional look. It just works, and has really grown on me since its introduction.
Down at the other end, I place Detroit’s dead last, for not only a terribly uninspiring look, but also maximizing the dropoff in viewing pleasure from the regular home uniform, which is such a clean and classic beauty.
Truly hideous. I stopped watching after they changed the rules and added the pitch clock and I’m glad I won’t have to see these in action. Go back to traditional unis, please.
Why would you care what they wear when you’ve already declared that you no longer watch?