Good morning, Uni Watchers, and a Happy Hump Day to one and all.
With Spring Training games about to start in just a few days and position players joining pitchers and catchers in camp, we’re getting our first glimpses of the 2025 uniforms for most teams, and already several of Nike’s promised uniform “fixes” are being seen, while other corrections will still need to be addressed in the (hopefully) near future. One of our new Ticker Assistants, Susan Freeman, gave us some early looks at the American and National Leagues.
Concurrently, reader, contributor, and pal Oliver Kodner — who runs the best MLB uniform database for a single team: the Cardinals Uniforms and Logos — has been examining the 2025 St. Louis Cardinals in spring training, and has graciously shared his early impressions, which are below.
by Oliver Kodner
Yesterday (Feb 17, 2025) the Cardinals posted to their instagram some photos of the team back in Jupiter for Spring Training. And it allowed us to see some early shots of the new road uniforms.
Last year Nike and Fanatics and probably MLB (and anyone else I can implicate) colossally screwed up the uniforms across the entire league. This year it seems they’re making some fixes based on well-warranted fan and player feedback.
A few main things stand out from the photos we got. Take a look.
Already from the Jordan Walker photo above, we can see that it looks like the gray pants and gray shirt match really well. Last year the shirts and pants were clearly made of two very different materials, and it created two noticeably mismatched gray colors. For more info on the grays not matching, take a look at our article last year, The Grays Don’t Match. This year, it looks like the colors are much more balanced, and it looks like the uniform fabric they’re using is a higher quality than last year’s paper towels.
The next big change we notice: as seen in the photos above, the new shirts don’t have the little pseudo sun collar around the shirt’s neckline that the 2024 shirts had. I personally did not like the sun collars from last year, I think it was unnecessary and complicated, and I’m glad they’ve gone more simplistic.
Last and worst, I regret to inform you that the Birds on the Patch has returned for the second season in a row. A machine stitched our logo onto a cheap patch and ironed it on to the jersey; at least that’s what it looks like. From the photo seen above, you can clearly see the cheap and ugly patch outlines around the Birds on the Bat logo, creating an ugly Birds on the Patch jersey.
For literally 102 years in a row, the Cardinal birds on our uniforms were chain-stitched, hand-embroidered directly onto the uniform. Nike and Fanatics and the other corporate criminals tragically ended that tradition, probably to save themselves and their multi-billion dollar companies some money. Disgusting. The other two uniform changes I see as positives, fixing the Birds on the Patch back to the real embroidery will be one of the last steps to fixing this uniform catastrophe.
In a serendipitous coincidence, reader Alex C posted the following in yesterday’s comments on the NL Spring Training roundup. He and Oliver are clearly on the same wavelength:
Big thing noticed about the Cardinals jerseys. I think these were the most telling about the future of MLB uniforms.
So, as we know, the grey roads are returning to the old fabric. These Cards unis are our first look at exactly what that entails. Two things I noticed.
1. There’s no more extra lip around the collar. IDK if that’s the proper term, I just call it a lip because that’s what it looks like.
2. The MLB logo still appears to be below the seam, closer to the name, even though the extra lip is gone and the fabric has changed.
So what that seems to reveal is that we’re not just going back to the 2023 template. It seems like the 2025 greys, and likely the 2026 and later jersey across the board, will be like a hybrid of the 2023 and 2024 templates with elements of both. Most significantly, at least for now it doesn’t look like MLB intends to move the logo back above the placket seam on the back.
We can’t see it in these photos but I’d be willing to bet the thin mesh patches that were under the arms and in the back bottom of the jerseys in 2023 will also not return.
I made a side-by-side of the 2024 and 2025 gray uniforms for comparison. It’s a little difficult to see, but you can see the different fabrics (and color mismatch) in 2024, and it appears as though the front number is ever-so-slightly smaller this year.
Last spring, Paul had our first look at the Cardinals new jersey script, and the mismatched grays of the uniforms. It looks like Nike has been able to fix the latter, but unfortunately, the glorious direct-sewn chain-stitching the Cardinals used prior to 2024 has not been addressed.
But the larger NOB has returned, along with a less severe arc, for 2025 (thankfully), and the gray mismatches are no more. So that’s good. We’ll see whether or not Nike will be able to address the issue with the “Birds on the Patch.” Oliver had a rather scathing review of the 2024 changes, so I’d imagine those concerns won’t be going away any time soon.
For most people (e.g. those who don’t read Uni Watch), the chain-stitching debacle may not have even been noticeable, but for those of us who GetIt™, it’s disappointing they can’t (or won’t) attempt to return the Birds on Bat to their pre-2024 glory. But at least the Cardinals fought to keep the chain-stitching (albeit on a patch) — the Phillies lost their chain-stitching entirely.
As a bonus, this short video with Victor Scott also shows the home uniform, with some excellent looks at the back of the jersey (with the larger NOB and the “hybrid” jersey Alex C was describing):
Lights 💡
Camera 📸
Victor Scott ✌️ pic.twitter.com/DcjYsmGG7z— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) February 17, 2025
There’s still a lot on the “To Do” list for Nike, who in all honesty have so far done a pretty good job addressing the myriad complaints from players and fans. Of course, they never should have attempted to fix what wasn’t broken in the first place, but now that they broke it for real, it needs to be fixed.
We’ll look at a few more teams throughout the spring to see if the promised changes have been made, but from what we’ve seen so far, they’re off to a good start.
I’ve put out a call to my source to see if the Cardinals Style Guide actually shows the changes (like removal of the “sun” collar), and will update this article once I receive them.
Your thoughts?
“A machine stitched our logo” As far as I know you are not affiliated with the Cardinals. It is not “your” logo.
Oh stop, enough with the pedantry. Fans claim teams as their own all the time, it’s ok.
It would also be hilarious if he was, in fact, affiliated with the Cardinals.
Oh stuff it. The concept of the team being “Ours” is a huuuuuuge part of what makes sports engaging. Sports fans have an emotional bond with their team. Its why we cheer when they win and cry when they lose.
Sport are a business in the US, it’s not like its an actual club like in Europe. It’s like calling Coca-Cola my soda.
This is an objectively untrue comparison. Coke doesn’t only sell Coke in Atlanta, or call itself the Atlanta Coke. Whatever community outreach it does in Atlanta it also does or can also do across the country or even the globe. Sports teams are businesses to a point, but they’re also MEANT to bring cities and areas together to bond on a common activity in a way other ‘businesses’ don’t or can’t.
Oh, you’re european. That explains it.
Paul, Zach may or may not be European, but either way he’s wrong. As far as I know, Germany is the only country where the fan ownership/club model is still dominant.
Thanks Charlie, and yeah, I was pretty sure that most of the big clubs are billionaire-owned but I wanted to spare everyone a wall of text
“Can I go to the bathroom?”
“I don’t know, can you?”
Same energy.
The correct way is “May I use the restroom?”.
Should say something to the extent of “the machine stitched the Cardinals logo”.
This was Game 7 of the 1979 World Series between the Orioles and Pirates, in which the Pirates won that game and the series.
It’s a shame St. Louis isn’t on the roadies, regardless of tradition. Represent your home!
Yes! Native St. Louisan here and I’ve been waiting years for them to do this!
Agreed, but at least the alt-powder blues they wear on Saturdays has “St. Louis.” IIRC, when they introduced those a couple of years ago it was the first time they’d had “St. Louis” on a jersey since sometime in the 1930s.
Chain stitching is a beautiful option, be it very labour intensive when compared to glueing a sticker or stitching a patch onto fabric. When maximizing profits comes into play, chain stitching directly on to the fabric will always lose out, unfortunately. I have a weakness for hats with chainstitched monograms and therefore own several Yankees hats while I do not like the Yankees at all. But their monogram looks very beautiful in chainstitching. As do the White Sox and Athletics. Any team looks great this way.
I really hope the Cards greys represent the template we get going forward. I can live with the MLB logo being lower.
But it seems they kind of took the best of both, because I didn’t care for the mesh elements on the 2023 template either. So if they just go 2023 fabric all over, no mesh, no weird lip/sun collar, that’s ideal for me. I’ll definitely buy a new jersey next season when the changes are made across all uniforms.
GTGFTS – August 3, 1979. The day after Thurman Munson’s death.
Re: ironed-on chain stitching — at least it’s something. The minors have basically ditched any and all sewn or applied patches and scripts in favor of sublimation, which looks cheap even from a distance. I hope MLB has the clout to avoid this unfortunate trend forever, but who knows?
Looks like specs for the names and numbers (and front numbers where applicable) have reverted to specs similar to 2023’s, based on the Cardinals jerseys and the Cubs numerals posted in the ticker. The Cardinals numbers on the front were smaller (I vaguely recall Paul writing about this back when the chainstitched script was enlarged and repositioned several years ago) originally so this is actually going back to what they had instead of the taller but skinnier numbers last season.
What is a sun collar and a pseudo sun collar?
Wild guess on the scoreboard quiz: Yankees’ first home game after Thurman Munson’s death.
Okay, why did my previous comment go into moderation?
You must have typed something questionable?
I cannot imagine what it could have been.
Oh well, I suppose the world will survive.
Happens to me fairly regularly over seemingly innocuous comments. My best guess is the program detected the word “death”.
Is the front number smaller, or just placed a bit higher? Looks like it could be the latter.
Did you catch the white, home Cardinals jersey at the ;39 mark of the Victor Scott video? It’s the home white, but with the St. Louis across the front and a round red patch on the sleeve. St. Louis across is usually reserved for the cream and power blue unis for Saturday games.
Noticed the 18 uniform has the inside Velcro closure visible in the script between the buttons on the placket…
Not sure why they’re not visible in the other pictures because I’m guessing all uniforms now have that feature, but maybe they found a way to hide the outside stitching on the placket.
I am sure the Cardinals front number is smaller, reverting back to the way it was before last year. The Mets and Dodgers front numbers both reverted as well. Paul did write a few years back in an interview wit a Cardinals exec that they wanted to go with small front numbers. Of course, back in the day, the Cardinals had very large front numbers:
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