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Some Additional Thoughts (and Fixes) For The New York Mets New Alternate Jersey

ICYMI, the New York Mets unveiled their new blue alternate jersey on Saturday. As you can see from the above photo, the jersey is exactly as I expected (which isn’t a good thing).

Everyone has their own opinions on the new jersey, and as I said last week, before the jersey was made official…

As a Mets fan, this would be unfortunate on a number of levels: first of all, I never liked the 1987 road script wordmark, but back then it was legible — the potential new alternate creates a stealth “New York” which may make for visibility issues. Stealth wordmarks are almost never a good idea.

Additionally, the jersey pictured above is a new pullover, and a V-neck at that. I know there are some folks who like pullovers and v-necks, but I prefer button-front jerseys for baseball.

While I can live with the pullover and the weird wishbone collar, the stealth script, numbers and NOB are going to cause major visibility issues.

I thought we were done with this type of jersey…

“But wait,” you say. “Don’t the Pirates have a stealth wordmark jersey as well?” Indeed they do — but on the Pirates jersey, ONLY the “Pittsburgh” is in stealth mode; the front number, NOB and rear number are all solid, contrasting colors.

From any kind of distance, the Mets jersey is going to appear basically as a blue blob with some orange.

Obviously, the Mets aren’t going to make any changes to this jersey, but simply removing the stealth features would make it much more palatable.

There are a couple options.

1. Fill the outline in with white:

This seems to be the simplest solution to a problem that should never have been created. But this jersey is going to be worn on the road, and the Mets have in the past created a road blue jersey with silver/gray lettering (to more closely match their road gray pants). That brings us to option two.

2. Fill the outline in with silver/gray:

That would work better, and would be along the lines of previous Mets road blue jerseys. But even then, the silver/gray doesn’t really make the script/numbers pop. But, the Mets could have also made the gray a bit lighter.

Better still!

3. Make the script “New York” in orange with a white outline, and a white front number with orange outline:

4. Make the script “New York” and front number orange, with white outline:

5. In keeping with having gray accents on the blue road jersey, make the script “New York” and front number in orange, but with a silver/gray outline:

__________
Once the Mets officially unveiled the new jersey, there was a lot of love for the new look on social media. Many were loving the pullover aspect, and others were big fans of the 1987 script, which makes its return to a road jersey for the first time since then. Others weren’t so effusive in their praise. But almost every single comment was a complaint about the legibility of the script, name and number.

Any of the above proposed “fixes” would improve the legibility issues.

I’m sure it’s too late for the Mets to attempt any of the proposed changes (and even if they could, would they?).

Yes, unlike other sports, knowing a player’s number isn’t nearly as important in MLB, but it’s still the crucial identifier that really should be as visible as possible. I was hoping MLB designers might learn this lesson after the City Connect debacles of Cincy, Tampa Bay and Toronto, but apparently not.

It’s one thing to design a uniform that’s terrible, but fulfills the most basic requirement of being able to identify the team and player (that happens all the time). But to me it’s inexcusable to design a jersey that is going to basically be illegible from more than 10 feet away.

C’mon Mets. You can still fix these jerseys. Even if it takes until next season.

What say you readers? Do any of those fixes appeal to you? And if you’re one of those who likes this new alternate as is, I’d love to have your thoughts.

(Big thanks to George Noriega for the silver/gray Mets mockups!)

 
  
 
Comments (34)

    The one with the “lighter gray” lettering is probably the best, and looks close to the previous (2013-21) road blues. As I’ve said, the worst thing about this jersey is that it will supplant the primary road grays (MLB’s single best jersey) for a non-zero number of games.

    Also, has there been an official announcement from the Mets as to which home alternate is being mothballed? SportsLogos.net (along with everyone else) seems to think it’ll be the blue, but I haven’t seen anything directly from the club.

    Having the script in orange trimmed in silver/gray is a nice shout out to the 1982 road alternate and probably the best look overall.

    Totally agree! I remember that one as the first ever Mets alternate jersey and as a young fan I loved it. It was changed the next year to have gray lettering with an orange outline.

    link

    Correct me if I am wrong, but the Pirates “stealth mode” is a black jersey, black lettering, with a yellow outline. The yellow-black contrast is significantly greater than orange-blue contrast in the Mets uniform, it certainly isn’t apples to apples.

    Numbers 3 and 4 are the closest to what I mentioned a few days ago and gives the cleanest look overall.

    I’d also live with Number 5 as a compromise.

    Too much blue otherwise.

    I dont hate the script, but can’t stand the ghost numbers. MLB, and sports teams in general, need to stop with ghost numbers, sublimated numbers, or anything else that makes the numbers harder to read.

    (Insert the old man yells at the wind gif.)

    Love the idea of gray numbers/letters to match the pants. As long as we’re going retro with the script, let’s just go balls-out 80s with this thing.

    I loathe gray trim on road alts (like on the previous NY Mets road alts), but any of the orange and white wordmark concepts would be a massive improvement. Even the gray might be an improvement, ha

    Ghost numbers should be banned by all sports leagues. The primary function of sports design to convey information.

    Researching some of these past alts, I stumbled on this website and am in shock that I never knew about it. Seems to have pics of every teams uniforms over the years. Have not looked at it all yet, but seems like a poor man’s version of Bill Henderson’s guide.

    link

    It’s interesting as I feel similarly about it as I do with the City Connects but for opposite reasons.

    -The Mets city connect feels like a baseball jersey. It’s not objectively bad at that and while the numbering and lettering have some contrast issues, it works. It’s just doesn’t feel like a Mets jersey, it feel like it should belong to the Yankees or a Giants Fauxback as it takes a lot of cues for the late teens Giants look ( link ). When I turn a game on it doesn’t feel like my team or something that represents NY. As I’ve mentioned before if this was done in Blue and Orange it would be excellent. Good execution poor connection

    – The new road jersey very much feels like a Mets jersey. It has call backs to the Mets past, it’s the right colors and it doesn’t feel out of place the way the City Connects do. But the execution is poor. The stealth issue is just not practical and could have been easily avoided in an attractive way. The pullover is a turn off for a number of fans and besides which if you’re going pullover why no racing stripes? So this has a good connection but lousy execution.

    Neither is totally bad but I have major problems with each. Frankly any of Phil’s options would be an easy improvement and hopefully they can tweak it for next year. I personally prefer the Silver/Grey and I’m actually surprised that Nike didn’t lean into a bright silver to stand out, but Nike is gonna Nike.

    Does anyone know what caps will be worn with the uniforms? The blue doesn’t seem to be the same blue as the now-retired blue alternates

    I really like the new jersey. The ‘fixes’ are fine but I don’t really think it needs any fixing. I’m 100% into the version rolled out.

    I’m glad the orange and blue are prominent, but some white in the lettering and numbers would be helpful. No to the gray in the numbers which just doesn’t belong and makes it more challenging to read.

    I also don’t care for the odd V-neck style.

    No doubt the Mets did a lot of prep work, experimentation, and market research (including player feedback) before making a decision on the final look and MLB approval, so they must have considered a lot of options including white in the lettering but came to another conclusion for reasons not revealed. The Jersey looks the way it does because they drew conclusion it was best option for their criteria.

    I always thought the blue alt was in the upper tier of mlb jerseys and I still can’t believe they would replace it. Options 3 and 4 would be a completely lateral move – maybe even an upgrade. The ghost script is much less visually impactful to me and I don’t understand why they would do that.

    Using no white or no grey in the new design keeps open the possibility that the Mets can use this jersey for both home and away games. Perhaps that entered into the decision.

    Looking at these variations just makes me realize how awkward that “r” looks in “York”. It’s a bad word mark any way you color it.

    All the revisions are dusty, predictable and boring.
    Any top outside of the traditional home and road should experiment and push the envelop a bit, and for that the pullover is doing it’s job

    I guess the variation shown above with the lighter shade of gray filling in the “New York” script and numbers is a viable solution, but it’s still like polishing a turd. Like others, I feel that our road gray “NEW YORK” (in NY Giants style lettering) is all we need. But I actually kinda like the ’93-’94 style script with the underline, and wouldn’t have been so against this if they had reworked that one (with more than two colors!).

    The light gray looks good and would make a solid road alternate. I prefer the Orange “Mets” version to this script with Orange font.

    The white infill fixed this jersey so much. Really confused as to why Nike has gone with the 2000’s era v-neck NBA collar on this and the Nats/Angels pullovers?

    I love pullover jerseys, but that collar is just gross, and collars are one of the biggest reasons I like pullovers. The 70s/80s era pullovers had great collars. Putting that collar on any pullover is nothing short of a travesty.

    Glad it’s not black with drop shadows. Any of those options are better. Love the word mark…always have. If not for legibility, I might buy one.

    I think it’s fine as is – as mentioned, knowing a players’ number isn’t nearly as important in MLB, and if anything, this and the City Connect jerseys mention demonstrate that the league is fine with it (probably only as long as it sells – but that goes for everything) and it’s not a debacle. It looks good to me, I’ve always liked that script and wondered why it disappeared after only one year- the pullover is still a retro novelty and with road pants I think it’ll be a nice look.

    The white lettering with orange outline is miles ahead of that silly ghosted lettering! The orange lettering with white outline is good too but just doesn’t have the same pop. These mockups were exactly what I was looking for.

    Agreed (and thanks).

    Funny thing: I was working on the white and orange mocks, when George — unsolicited — sent the the gray ones (clearly, great minds, etc.) ;)

    I wasn’t a huge fan of the home blue alt that this stealth jersey is replacing, but it’s MILES better than this unreadable mess.

    Definitely digging the light gray lettering in number 2, as I was a fan of their previous road blue alts. I have a feeling that the ghost lettering is only gonna last a year and they’ll change to one of these options for next year due to fan response (if they in fact keep this jersey).

    Phil,

    You write “Stealth wordmarks are almost never a good idea” and I hate to say this but you are wrong.

    Stealth Wordmarks are never a good idea, period.

    The word “almost” implies that somewhere on planet earth exists an exception to the rule in which stealth wordmarks actually are a good idea.

    You can climb to the top of Mount Everest and descend to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and I challenge you to find an example in which stealth wordmarks are a good idea.

    Hit the nail on the head. These jerseys have potential. But without the color inside the letters and numbers they simply look incomplete. Like you say, They could’ve filled it with any color of orange, white, and even gray (since it’s a road Jersey) and this would’ve made the colors of the jersey pop. Bc of this it’s a big fail. Can we petition or put pressure on them to change this quickly??

    White or silver would look much better for the main lettering than what they’ve got. Or maybe have the NOB in this ghosted blue with only the number having white or silver.

    It doesn’t seem very hard to take this from meh to very good. Uncle Steve, please get on the phone to Oregon and ask them to take one of Phil’s suggestions. Just do it. (see what I did there?)

    Prefer white over light gray and light gray over dark gray. Honestly, any of these are better than what they went with. What about white wordmark, outlined orange, with orange front number, outlined white?
    And none of these fixed that godawful collar.

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