Creating MLB 'City' Uniforms — NL Edition

By Phil Hecken, with Tom Juettner

Follow @PhilHecken



I’m back again today with the National League edition of the “MLB City Edition Series,” a collaboration of Tom Juettner and friends. If you missed the AL Edition, which sets this up, click here. I’ll use Tom’s introduction from the AL to segue into today’s NL teams. Here’s Tom:

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MLB City Edition Series by Pinch Designer (AL Edition)

By Tom Juettner

This is the product of a collaboration among @Carolingian Steamroller, @Paul Lucas, @coco1997, @Victormrey, and @MJD7. We are calling our little group “Pinch Designer.” We were looking for idea for a project that we could pool our collective minds on and found it in an MLB City Edition.

With the NBA and Nike debuting City Edition uniforms that are designed to reflect the particular spirit and aesthetic of their individual cities we thought that applying the same principle to baseball would yield interesting and colorful results. So we held a draft for divide up Major League Baseball and got cracking on designs. Each uniform in this series seeks to reflect some aspect of the city as a fun digression from the normal MLB rhythm.

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NL East

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Atlanta Braves

From @Paul Lucas: The Braves have an iconic look daring back to their Milwaukee/Boston days. I wanted to give them a look that screams “ATLANTA.” What’s more ‘Atlanta’ than the Falcons’ red-helmet/black-top look? Taking a page out of the Hawks’ playbook, I went with a fauxback look that belongs exclusively to Atlanta’s Braves.

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Miami Marlins

At first, I didn’t know how to approach Miami. My initial idea was to use the Vice theme, but since the Heats already went for that path, I wanted to try something different. In the end, I went for a design inspired by the Art Deco District, using beige as main colour, and pastel hues of teal and pink. Also, I decided to add a subtle striped pattern based on the same architectural style.

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New York Mets

The Mets embrace their city’s “Big Apple” moniker with a throwback New York Knicks-esque logo, while the racing stripes that run down the length of the uniform represent the three colors of the New York City flag. The powder blue base is inspired by this unused prototype jersey from the ’80s.

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Philadelphia Phillies

For their City Edition uniforms, the Fightin’ Phills adopt the City of Brotherly Love’s flag colors of azure blue and gold. The Old English “P” cap logo is meant to evoke the handwriting from the Declaration of Independence, while the “PHILA” block wordmark throws back to the team’s original look from the turn of the 20th century. The Liberty Bell, an iconic symbol of American independence located in the heart of Philly, appears on both the jersey’s left sleeve and stirrups.

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Washington Nationals

The Nats beam with city pride as their uniforms are based on the U.S. capital’s iconic D.C. flag. A pair of stripes and trio of stars adorn each sleeve and stirrup, while the team’s alternate “DC” logo appears where front numbers would normally go. Big thanks to @MJD7 for inspiring this design.

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NL Central

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Chicago Cubs

The flag of Chicago is pretty much ubiquitous across the whole city. It’s on buttons, bags, t-shirts, coffee mugs, signage and anything else bought or sold. It’s easy to see why with its striking sky blue (standing for lake and river) and four bright red, six-pointed stars (standing for four major events in city history). It’s almost a cliche. We taken that theme for the Cubs. The classic cubbie face is interposed onto a red star for the cap and sleeve patch. The 1931 script is used for jersey with four stars on the opposite panel. Since the original 1931 logo was only on one side of the jersey, it was appropriate to repeat the effect but with a twist. We took advantage of the crossed placket to snag some extra space for the “Cubs” script by putting piping on only one side of the placket inspired by a Hanshin Tigers throwback. The numbers are a cleaned up version of the 76 White Sox font to best match the 1931 Cubs script.

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Cincinnati Reds

After such a great turnaround for the Phillies, it’s time for Cincinnati, another design inspired by the city flag. This time, I wanted to combine the flag’s classy “C” with one of the club’s older uniforms, so I decided to use the famous sleeveless jersey. Also, to top off the design, I decided to add the three waves from the flag on the socks.

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Milwaukee Brewers

Milwaukee has tried to redesign it’s city flag over the years and recently a designer came out with a “People’s Flag of Milwaukee” composed of four colors navy blue, sky blue, gold, and white. For the uniform, we’ve incorporated the clunky font from the Milwaukee Bucks current uniforms, on a lager gold uniform, with design elements of gears and barley sheaves.

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Pittsburgh Pirates

The city of Pittsburgh sits at the intersection of three rivers. The main downtown area is in triangular piece of land that juts towards the center, hence the city nickname, “Golden Triangle.” This very moniker formed the justification for the late-60s Steelers uniforms. So with that in mind, we took the actual shape of downtown Pittsburgh and reworked into a triangular section for the sleeves and socks.

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St. Louis Cardinals

This set is inspired by St. Louis’ flag, which shares a similar scheme to the Cardinals. The sleeves and socks feature the wavy stripe pattern, which already has similar coloring to the Cards’ current sock pattern. The right sleeve features a fleur-de-lis patch from the flag, and the birds-on-bat is replaced for this one-off uniform by the Gateway to the West, the St. Louis arch.

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NL West

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Arizona Diamondbacks

I decided to use Claret and Cream as colours, inspired by the Phoenix flag. Instead of using their current “Arizona” script, I designed a “PHX” one, using their font style. The top front of the jersey, as well as the pants and socks feature a striped gradient, inspired by the Sunrise from the Arizona State flag.

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Colorado Rockies

This one’s pretty simple. Much like the Rockies’ current BP cap, this design goes all-in with the famous Colorado flag. The sleeves showcase the mountains from the similarly stylized Denver city flag. The undershirt, belt, and socks are red to brighten up the uniform a little bit. Comment below what you think!

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Los Angeles Dodgers

My Dodgers design pays tribute to the late great Kobe Bryant, swapping out the Dodgers’ traditional blue and white (and red) with the Lakers’ iconic gold and purple. In my head, every Dodger would wear the number “24” on his City Edition jersey just as every player around the league wears “42” on Jackie Robinson Day.

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San Diego Padres

The color scheme is taken from the classic ’70s-’80s Padres. The script is a reworking of the script of the Gaslamp Quarter of San Diego which is adjacent to Petco Park and one of the big entertainment centers of the city. The sleeve patch is the “All-American City” shield that once emblazoned the helmets of the Chargers.

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San Francisco Giants

When thinking of San Francisco, it’s hard not to think of the Golden Gate Bridge. This design embraces that, with the uniform base being “International Orange.” Cream and brown are used as accents to reflect the feel of the city. We decided to go with the Giants’ cursive “San Francisco” script (which I love), given they’ve never used it on a jersey before. The hat logo features the “ball splash” logo from the ‘07 All-Star Game.

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Thanks Tom (and collaborators)! Very interesting project — I’m not sure too many of us would actually want MLB to mimic the way Nike has ruined the aesthetic of the NBA, but it’s a very cool concept. Thanks for helping out during the uni-hiatus brought upon us by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Readers? What say you?

Gene Sanny Strikes Again!

Once again, the awesome Gene Sanny has shared a few of his recent masterpieces with us, and it’s my pleasure to bring them to you today as we continue our group fight against the coronavirus.

Here’s Gene:

Here’s some commissions I’ve done over the last month or so, a couple WFL paintings that MAY become part of the next set of WFL cards my buddies put out, and a scan of old book covers I bought on ebay from the early 80’s that are just a whole lot of fun to look at. I have thoughts of trying to use Photoshop to make some USFL and WFL helmets from these, keeping the painted, halftone look and all that. Thought maybe you could use some things for content during this slow time… If not, it’s all good. Gene

Thanks Gene — of COURSE I’m happy to share these. And what do we have from Gene? Feast your eyes (and click to enlarge) …

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Thanks Gene! They’re all incredible. I think I like the painting of Sweetness best, but each sketch is tremendous!

Guess The Game… from the scoreboard

Today’s scoreboard comes from Miracle.

The premise of the game (GTGFTS) is simple: I’ll post a scoreboard and you guys simply identify the game depicted. In the past, I don’t know if I’ve ever completely stumped you (some are easier than others).

Here’s the Scoreboard. In the comments below, try to identify the game (date & location, as well as final score). If anything noteworthy occurred during the game, please add that in (and if you were AT the game, well bonus points for you!):

Please continue sending these in! You’re welcome to send me any scoreboard photos (with answers please), and I’ll keep running them.

When Sports Return…

Let’s Honor Our Heroes in Uniform

And no, I’m not referring to the camopander ones.

What you see above is a photo taken at a May 2018, Altoona Curve game by Matthew Huha. As MiLB teams are wont to do, they created a specialty jersey saluting medical professionals.

I’ll let Matt take it from here:

With everything that is going on now, I wanted to share this special Altoona Curve game worn jersey that I got in 2018. It was a salute to medical professionals night that they had done. I thought it was a clever design, especially when you had some players walking in a small group, because they looked like they were coming into/out of surgery. I paid around $100, and it was Pedro Vasquez’s jersey. They had them for all of the players, and I think the most expensive auction was for Cole Tucker’s jersey at $450. A team-signed one went for $300-something. Best, Matt Huha

Here’s a look at the jersey on-field:

Here’s the one Matt won:

Here’s how the promo looked:

And here’s a closeup of the front of jersey:

And the back:

What a great promotion!

But that got me to thinking. Once this whole COVID-19 pandemic has gotten somewhat under control, and we can return to some sense of normalcy (but let’s face it, NOTHING is ever going to be the same), when sports return and new uniforms are being introduced — how about the major and minor sports start doing specialty jerseys HONORING the real heroes of this crisis: the doctors, nurses, medical professionals, delivery persons, restaurant owners, gas attendants, media bringing us emergency updates, pharmacy owners, and all their employees who are literally putting themselves in harm’s way so that the rest of us can try to live a semblance of our lives? No offense to the military, but it’s high time we honor those who are working so hard now to get us through this crisis (and while we’re at it, we should be honoring a lot more professions like teachers and artists and service workers and sanitation workers and scientists working to find a cure or at least a vaccine for this disease … and so many more) — these folks deserve their own specialty jersey night, perhaps more so than ever.

We’re (hopefully) all doing our part to get through this — even if that part means just staying home and not spreading the coronavirus — but there are so many, too many to ever properly thank, who are going above and beyond the call of duty these days. Once we’re past the worst of this, let’s make sure we can thank them however we can.

Instead of another Star Wars Night, Spongebob Squarepants Night, (insert popular 90s theme) Night, how about teams start giving some props (and some free tickets) to these folks?

I don’t think a specialty jersey night is too much to ask. In fact, I think it’s needed more than ever.

Who’s with me?

(Big thanks to Matt for sharing this.)

And now a few words from Paul

Hi there. In case you missed it on Thursday, I’m now taking submissions for another round of Question Time, where you get to ask me anything and I do my best to answer.

So if you have a question for me about uniforms, sports, design, or literally anything else, send it to the Question Time address (please note that this is not the usual Uni Watch email address). One question per person, please. No topic is out of bounds, but I reserve the right to not answer questions that are too personal. I’ll post the questions and answers to the site sometime soon.

As long as I have you here: I’m honored and humbled that so many people are choosing to keep Uni Watch as part of their daily routine during this stressful time, and the entire Uni Watch team is doing its best to be here for you and to make Uni Watch a positive factor in your lives. But we could really use your support right about now. If you value the site’s presence and you have the means, please consider making a donation or a purchase. As a gesture of solidarity, I’ve lowered a lot of our prices until further notice, as follows:

• You can get 15% off of anything in the Uni Watch Shop and the Naming Wrongs Shop by using the checkout code COMMUNITY.

• Membership cards, which usually sell for $25, are now $20 — a 20% cut.

• Seam rippers, which normally cost $6, are now $4 — a 33% cut.

My thanks, as always, for your consideration.

And now back to Phil. Please join me in thanking him for remaining at his post and doing his usual excellent job during this crisis. We’re all lucky to have him on board.

Some Scary Shit…

Lest you think this COVID-19 pandemic isn’t some serious shit — although I highly doubt any Uni Watch reader feels that way — I wanted to share with you a series of graphics, some of which you may have seen if you’ve been watching CNN (or any of the networks which covers Governor Cuomo’s daily pressers). The following graphics have been run just this past week. We’re at ground zero here. If you click the splash photo above showing Nassau County — that red dot is basically right where I live, just a stone’s throw away from the City, which has become the epicenter of the pandemic in the states.

Just check out the daily progression, seen below:

And this was yesterday morning:

It would not surprise me to see New York’s cases close to, or over 20,000 today. If not today, then very soon.

We’ve seen what has happened in China, Iran, Spain, Italy and other countries, and we’re approaching a breaking point here too. That’s why I implore you all to be safe and to take care of yourselves and your loved ones. If you think a curfew, or social distancing, or no sports is bad, think of the alternative.

I know you didn’t come to Uni Watch for this shit — rather, you come for an escape from it — but we can’t really escape from it any longer. If it’s not in your neighborhood now, IT WILL BE. Don’t be stupid, please. We can get through this together if we all pull together.

Thanks. Thanks for listening. Thanks for caring.

Stay safe, please.

PH

Uni Watch News Ticker

By Phil

Baseball News : “Heard on Only A Game (yester)day,” writes Joe Makowiec, “Perry Giannias has the world’s biggest private collection of Montreal Expos’ memorabilia.” … With baseball (and all sports) on hiatus, Jon Vieira brings us this 2017 article which asks “Who Came Up With The Iconic Chicago White Sox Look?” … More from the ‘athletes in different unis’ shtick that’s making up a lot of our uni news these days: three iconic Minnesota Twins wearing non-Twins unis. … On March 21, 1968, Kansas City’s new expansion team was named ‘Royals’, a runaway choice out of thousands of fan-submitted entries from the ‘Name the Team’ contest (from Josh Claywell). … Tweeter Anthony Tucker asks, “when did the Royals go orange for their secondary color? Weird find at the sports store pre-apocalypse.” … If ONLY MLBers had Paul’s UW seam ripper: Reader Eric G. writes, “Saw this hit from FB page of a baseball card shop in Renton, WA. Yes, those still exist. I’m glad that you are, thankfully, leading the charge in removing the NE logos from the MLB caps. Topps Inception is kind of doing the same thing.” … Bowen Hobbs writes, “All this social distancing has given me a chance to work on another illustration. So I present to you, all-time Phillies third basemen, Mike Schmidt.” … We got a look at the 2020 edition of the Pulaski Yanks Agriculture Night jerseys. Coming to an Appy League near you (from Minor League Promos). … Here’s a rather random fact from Mike Chamernik: A blogger found that Mallex Smith lost his helmet in nearly 70% of his stolen bases in 2019. … Whoa! Check out this awesome 1997 MLB Logo pottery project from The Fresh Doug Life. … Everything Is Alive is a podcast where someone interviews inanimate objects. In one of the episodes they interview a baseball cap. At the 4:19 mark of the episode, they mention the squatchee (from Derek Linn).

NFL News : In yesterday’s ticker we had the news the Rams will announce their new logo and colors on Monday. But that new Rams’ logo that supposedly leaked earlier this month? Yeah, well, the Rams deny it is legit. I guess we’ll find out soon enough. … If you’re sick of stories about Tom Brady in a Bucs’ uni, here’s a sobering thought: what if he never wears that uniform because there is no NFL season? … And if there is a season, shockingly, Tom Brady will wear #12 for the Bucs. … The women’s football team that was stranded in Honduras due to the coronavirus arrived safely in South Carolina with the help of the U.S. Air Force (from Timmy Donahue).

College Football News : Well…Someone had to do it — I’m just surprised it wasn’t me or my Duck Tracker, Dennis Bolt. But, yes, someone has ranked the best Oregon Ducks football uniform combinations for the 2019 season. We’re all entitled to our own opinion, of course, but any combos involving “Nightmare” green deserve to be at the bottom, not the top. … On the other hand, while I wouldn’t go so far as to call Clemson’s all orange combo the “best in college football,” it’s definitely Clemson’s best look, and a great one at that.

Hockey News : Apologies if this has already been tickered before, but just in case: are the Edmonton Oilers going to add a fourth jersey next season (whenever that may begin)? … “I can’t remember if we’ve seen this before, but I was watching this video of Stompin’ Tom Connors’s iconic “The Good Old Hockey Game” and noticed that number 19 of the Maple Leafs is wearing a protective helmet with a football-style white stripe down the center,” says Robert Kahn. “I can’t tell who the player is but the song debuted in 1973 and it appears the Maple Leafs started NOBs in 1977, so sometime in that period.” Here’s the video, and the shots of #19 are at approx 1:35 and 2:21. … No hockey? No problem (from Mike D.). … The Islanders’ Lou Lamoriello likes “small” jersey numbers.

NBA News : Obviously there’s not much NBA uni news these days, so we might as well read an article based on someone’s opinion of the best NBA throwback jerseys in the history of ever. Clearly anyone’s definition of “best” is an opinion, so I won’t judge too harshly, but the number of 1990s jerseys are always a big divide amongst uniform aficionados and most of us either love ’em or hate ’em. … Speaking on 90s unis, Tom O’Grady explains how he came up with some typography for the Bucks. … James Gilbert writes, “Superdome had a court with NBA jump circles and 3-sec lane but no NBA 3-pt line. Jazz old court? They left N.O. before the 3-pt line was implemented.”

College Hoops News : There may be no college hoops, and by extension, no March Madness right now, but CBS has been running some March Madness moments — which prompted our own Lloyd Alaban to make this observation: “Something must be wrong with this broadcast. This starting lineup isn’t “sponsored” by anyone.” … From Clemson Uni Tracker: DeAndre Hopkins played 5 games for Clemson MBB during his freshman year in 2011. In his first game vs GT, Nuk wore a #22 jersey from the previous season. After that he switched to #44. Note the opposite placement of the American flag / tiger paw.

Soccer News : ICYMI: New Mexico United unveiled their 2020 home kits on social media Friday evening. The home uniforms still have the Meow Wolf logo across the chest, but they also have added some new touches, like the PUMA logo near the shoulder. … FC Isloch Minsk have what looks like a nameplate on their shirts (from Ed Żelaski). … The 2020/21 NFNS (neon for neon’s sake) Atletico Madrid third kit has leaked (from Josh Hinton).

Grab Bag : The resumption of sports may be of secondary (or tertiary) importance in these days of COVID-19 pandemic, but whether or not the Olympics will go on as scheduled is a pretty big decision. In a lengthy interview, Thomas Bach, the president of the I.O.C., said that “cancellation is not on the agenda,” but that it was too early to make a decision about postponing the Summer Games in Tokyo (NY Times link). … Jeff Ruprecht has a pretty cool project called “Pinpoint Love,” which is “basically … a concept where we have taken the 4 main pro sports leagues and their home arena/field/ballpark latitude/longitude coordinates in the style of one of their jerseys. Typically it’s their home jersey, but some aren’t as nice as their road jersey so some may be the other way around.” … From Ted Arnold: Great article about the agate page in sports sections, entitled, “If you’re missing sports, imagine how the agate page feels.” … A dry cleaner in Casper, WY is offering free dry-cleaning to Police & Medical Workers through April 11 in response to the Coronavirus Pandemic (from Timmy Donahue). … Also from Timmy, Siegel’s Uniforms in Evansville, IN which ordinarily makes uniforms for 1st responders is using the skills of some of its seamstresses to make masks for medical professionals fighting against the Coronavirus Pandemic. … One more from Timmy: So, it’s come to this — “Love that this background has no advertisements, just the Ferrum College logo, the Old Dominion Athletic Conference logo & the NCAA logo.” … Still pining for sports to watch? Enough said — Andrew Blockchain tweets, “I’ve got a youtube playlist of mid 2000s Canadian curling broadcasts.” … More from Timmy Donahue: Swiss cyclist, and former Olympic kayaker, Elise Chabbey has traded her cycling uniform for doctor’s scrubs to help fight against the coronavirus. … Are you a plaid fan? Well, even if you’re not, here’s 25 facts about plaid you didn’t know before (from Jon Vieira).

And finally , thanks to everyone who expressed their support for my mom in yesterday’s comments. She’s still in the hospital, I still can’t see her, but so far so good. With any luck she’ll be home Tuesday. I’ll catch you guys next weekend — let’s hope things are better (or at least starting to improve) with the COVID pandemic by then.

Stay safe & Peace,

PH