Some Thoughts on the New Spring Training Uniforms

You may have noticed Major League Baseball unveiled new spring training jerseys. This is important. Spring training gets going in a few weeks and what would we fans be without new spring training jerseys to wear over our winter parkas while we shovel pile after pile of snow, hoping our hearts don’t give out in the process. But, if we do go down, at least we go down with our teams on our chests. And like your proverbial mother and her proverbial obsession with clean underwear, you wouldn’t want to go down with an outdated spring training jersey on. These are the stakes and they are high.

As such, I have viewed the gallery of new jerseys and I have some thoughts which is why this article is called Some Thoughts on the New Spring Training Jerseys. Because we prioritize truth here. It’s above other things, like lies, and candy corn, which, let’s face it, is just terrible.

First Thought: Diamondbacks, Why?

If your team name is too long for the front of your jersey then there are acceptable solutions. For example, you could write it like a signature, emphasizing certain letters joined by scribbles. For example, you might render my name as follows: “M [scribble] H [scribble] K [scribble] y.” Who says team names need be legible? Or, like the A’s do, you could just go with a single letter. The point is, there are options. But what you can not do is this whole “D-backs” thing, because it’s kind of awful — and, as you can probably tell from the first couple paragraphs of this piece, I am personally acquainted with awful. Going with “Arizona” and turning the “i” into a snake would let us leave the “D-backs” in the cul-de-sac of uniform design where it belongs. Good gosh, do I have to do everything, people?

Second Thought: Diamondbacks, Really?

Here we have the Diamondbacks with a snake-skin design on the uniform’s shoulders. Some people probably love having snake skin on their clothing, but may I respectfully submit that you don’t see the Orioles going with bird-feather shoulders, or the Cubs with fuzzy pre-pubescent bear fur shoulders, or… actually, that Cubs thing probably makes the point just fine.

Third Thought: Who?

When a team introduced new uniform to the public, it can reveal that same team’s opinions of their own roster. This is because they typically pick their best players to model the new duds in front of the press. As such, it’s interesting to look and see which players they pick. But, recall, this is a spring training jersey, and that calls into question the whole “pick the best player” strategy. Perhaps there’s a more spring training-y player, one who better represents the promising yet slightly chubby-from-an-off-season-spent-eating-Hostess-Ding-Dongs aesthetic of baseball’s pre-season?

In any case, it seems there is because, to take our old friend the Diamondbacks as an example, we find that they’ve chosen A.J. Pollock — and not Paul Goldschmidt — as their spring training spokesman. (And, in the process, passing up the opportunity to write the first baseman’s name as “G-Schmidt”.) The Tigers went with James McCann, who makes me think the Yankees found a place to dump Brian McCann and I was sick that day. Regardless, Miguel Cabrera is an obviously better choice. The A’s went with Billy Burns, perhaps the only player to choose ever a uniform number based solely based on how much it weighs. The Dodgers went with Clayton Kershaw, exhibiting some reason — actually no, just kidding, they used Corey Seager.

All of this makes no sense. And yet, I think I may have figured it out. Go to spring training in your mind. Go to Florida on a muggy spring day. The mosquitoes are out, the game is in the sixth inning and nine guys you’ve never heard of and will never hear about again are roaming the field in baseball uniforms. Your beer is just slightly warmer than the air. Your skin is simultaneously begging to be shielded from the sun and demanding to be released from whatever cotton dungeon in which you’ve imprisoned it. You’ve spent every non-baseball moment since you arrived sitting in traffic and every baseball moment wishing you were back in traffic just so the coolness of the A/C might ever so slightly un-burn your skin. Perhaps Seager over Kershaw will never truly make sense, but it makes more sense the less sense you have, and nothing melts your sense of sense like Florida.

Fourth Thought: What?

Most of the jerseys have some sort of logo on their sleeves, but all have an Arizona or Florida patch in the shape of a shield, like the one used for the interstate highway system. I’m not sure I get it. Sure, both states have interstate highways but then that distinguishes them from none of the other 48 states. (Although, by definition, Hawaii and Alaska can’t have interstate highways, they still have them; makes about as much sense as this patch.) I will grudgingly accept these patches in the spirit of randomness, but perhaps MLB can go in a different direction next time, like, say, a patch with the Surgeon General’s cigarette warning, or all of the FAA legalese from an airline ticket.

Fifth Thought: I’m Tired of Titling These

The Astros have a stripe from the underarms down the side of the jersey in alternating bright orange, red and yellow colors, a clear nod to the old sunburst Astros jerseys from the time immediately before people had functioning corneas. We should just be glad they waited to bring this color scheme back until more Americans got health insurance.

Sixth Thought: There’s Really Nobody With Teeth Like That

After removing Chief Wahoo from their hats in favor of what most Americans see as a less racist capital letter, the Indians have brought back the smiling offensive stereotype as a patch on the sleeves of their newest spring training jerseys. In truth, the Chief never really left the Indians’ regular jerseys, though there was some hope that perhaps his removal from the team’s caps was less an aesthetic decision and more a “maybe we should be less racist” decision. Guess not.

Seventh Thought: Unappealing Options

The Rays have eschewed their typical jerseys for a light blue version with what must be a mustard stain passing for a logo on the left breast. Ha ha, of course it not a mustard stain, but a Star Trek pin ray of light, a nod to the team’s name. When you think about it, it’s kind of novel that, by removing the word “devil,” Tampa was able to change the meaning of the team name completely. I wouldn’t expect many teams could make such a drastic change by simply removing a few letters. Let’s see! You could…

• take the “Red S” part from Red Sox and change the team mascot from hosiery to a large animal wth a handlebar mustache for horns.
• remove the “ees” from Yankees and turn a revolutionary war nickname into an offensive hand gesture.
• take the “lies” off “Phillies” and the mascot for the Philadelphia baseball team becomes some dude named Phil. Or take the “Phil” off and you get Rafael Palmeiro’s testimony to Congress.

Okay, maybe this is easier than I thought. The Rays uniform still looks like someone blew their nose on it though. [Edit: it has come to my attention that this is a less than charitable explanation and that perhaps I, myself, look somewhat like the result of a good nose-blowing. I… choose not to dispute this.]

Eighth Thought: Champions

The Royals got a World Series champions patch on their left sleeve. That’s not a sentence you’d have expected to read even in a piece of Royals fan fiction, though possibly because those tend to be dominated by tender descriptions of Ned Yost’s facial hair.

Ninth (and Final) Thought: Red Gloves?

There are two things that bother me about the White Sox jersey. The first is that the team is the White Sox. There should be some white. There isn’t, really. It’s all black. That may be uncomfortable in Arizona’s climate, but then who am I to judge?* Next, the logo. It features a figure holding a bat and wearing batting gloves. Which are red. So, to recap, we have a team with a color in their name wearing not-that-color jerseys and, when given a choice, even the logo opts for differently colored batting gloves. For a logo, this is speaking out. Logos aren’t known for their fashion consciousness or really for any other kind of conscienceless, but when a White Sox logo picks red batting gloves over white, well, that’s about as in-your-face a rejection of design values as a logo can make. For a logo, this is like one of those videos where someone dunks over someone else and everyone starts yelling, “OOOOOHHHHHH!!!!” Just so you know.

*Nobody, is the correct answer!

Bonus: Tenth Thought: I Lied About The Last Thought Being The Final Thought

You’ve been around birds. You know what happens when you park your car underneath a tree with birds sitting in it. So… do you think the number, like the team name, used to be red but then those birds came and sat on that bat? Me too.