Not a whole hell of a lot going on this season. Only one team, the brand-new (err… established in 1905) Washington Nationals have a new uniforms, and the number of annoying tweaks is minimal this year. Let’s start there, shall we?
The Red Sox, to celebrate their championship, will model this mild, gold-accented home jersey for their opener. I like it. It’s simple and classy, which isn’t much done in baseball anymore.
Going in the opposite direction are the Braves, with this nasty bloodshot-red alternate. Didn’t we go through this with the Twins and Indians already?
The Devil Rays make a mild change to their road jersey lettering. The change is really so minor to be meaningless. They also add a nice alternate green jersey. Again, I like the current D-Ray color scheme, but this looks a little too similar to their current BP jersey for my taste.
The Pirates have a new pinstriped alternate home uniform. I know the Pirates have done the stripes before, but other than the Yankees and maybe the White Sox, pinstripes are never necessary. I just don’t like this look for them. Besides, the sleeveless jersey and black alternate is enough.
According to Paul Lukas’ UniWatch column (this man is an idol of mine, getting paid to do this), the Rockies are coming out with a black vest/purple undershirt combination, but no pictures seem to exist. This should be predictably hideous.
Now for the Nationals. I still dislike the name. It’s bland and seems sort of stale, which is not what you want right out of the box. I was a strong supporter of the Grays name, and I could have gone with the Monuments. Senators is okay too, though DC politicos not liking it because the District has no senatorial representation is rather amusing. The logo and color scheme is good, perhaps a little overmuch with the gold accents, but I can live with that. The Nats best look is their road grays, with the Washington in navy and gold outlined with red, and the interlocking DC logo on the sleeve. The home jersey is pretty much the same, though with Nationals on white. I do have a problem with the home jersey. It adds the player number on the belly, and I’ve never liked that. It disrupts the symmetry. I haven’t seen the road jersey in-game, so it might do the same. I hope it doesn’t.
The biggest problem with the Nationals are the caps. They’re virtual copies of the old Senators caps, and were chosen far before the logo or jersey were designed. They don’t match. The hat features a looping W, everything else is in block letters with the navy and gold. The Senator caps were a nice touch, but they should have been an alternate or some such. The BP caps, featuring the DC logo also on the road uniform, work much, much better. The Nationals’ uniforms are a pretty good indication of the thrown-together nature of the franchise. The look is there, it just needs some tweaking. And no awful red alternates like the BP uniform.
Posted by Frinklin at April 2, 2005 11:15 PMTwins have pinstripes and have always had pinstripes. All they need to do is ditch the road hats that use the stylized "M" and go back to to using only the hats with interlocking "T" and "C".
Posted by: Steve at April 7, 2005 07:30 AMI had forgotten about the Twinkies. You're right about the caps though. That horrid M looks like it came off a beer bottle or something. The TC is much better.
Posted by: frinklin at April 7, 2005 05:56 PM
