baseball

Ranking All 16 MLB City Connect Jerseys – Through the Eyes of a DArt Student. 

Sports

Sean Cornely, Staff

Cover photo courtesy of MLB

In 2022, Nike shocked the world by taking over Majestic as the sole distributor of Major League Baseball jerseys. A year later, they introduced a new and creative concept that has driven a rift between baseball purists and new fans: The City Connect Series. Each year, a few MLB teams slowly roll out a new uniform set that has to do with the team’s city history. Many of these designs are bold and quirky, angering the old fans, but exciting the young ones. Below I have ranked each uniform, from worst to best and have given reasons why.  

16. The San Francisco Giants 

Courtesy of alamy

Starting in dead last are these hideous uniforms. The Giants design team has committed the cardinal sin of sports uniform design: They used a gradient. In addition to adding a cheap looking gradient to their main logo, which makes it hard to read, they also decided to brighten up the orange color in the jersey, resembling that of a highlighter. While I do like the Golden Gate Bridge on the sleeves, it can never take mind off the horrific gradient. The Giants missed the mark on this one.  

Ranking: 3.5/10 

15. The San Diego Padres

Courtesy of alamy

ESPN has this jersey ranked in their top five, probably because the Padres design team had the absolute correct idea behind a story for these. They wanted to tap into the Latin culture of San Diego by providing a jersey with pops of bright color everywhere. But that is also the reason for this being ranked last. I think they missed the mark with the way the jersey is presented though. The font is great, but having a mint and pink split color scheme across the word mark makes it hard to read and reminds me of children’s cereal that has mint and berry in it.  

Ranking: 4.5/10 

14. The Los Angeles Dodgers 

Courtesy of Gettyimages

Yet another California team resides at the bottom of the rankings with these City Connect designs. While I once again enjoy the story behind these jerseys, it’s as if no effort was made with these at all. These uniforms are quite literally their normal jerseys with “Los” slapped in front of Dodgers with the colors swapped. At least the Padres took a bit of risk. However, these aren’t hideous looking. 

Ranking: 4.8/10 

13. The Boston Red Sox 

Courtesy of Gettyimages

Sporting News and I agree wholeheartedly on this ranking. A design revolving around the Boston Marathon is an incredibly cool idea, however, I think these fall short as a Red Sox jersey. While they have a sweet replication of the marathon’s finish line, there is no red to be found anywhere on this jersey. This has a great design, but a Red Sox jersey with no red simply cannot be a Red Sox jersey.  

Ranking: 5/10 

12. The Houston Astros 

While I love a good cohesive jersey where the top and bottom are the same color, the Astros did not execute it well at all with navy. These jerseys remind me of my high school softball team’s jerseys and not “two-time” MLB champion jerseys. The numbers on the pants are a bad look, but I love the NASA font and “Space City” is a cool and mysterious name. Perhaps if they wore white pants with these, I’d like them a lot more. 

Ranking: 5.2/10 

11. The Chicago Cubs 

Courtesy of the MLB

Once again, the full navy uniform is an odd look. However, they stuck with their typical branding and didn’t take a whole lot of risks. I’m always a sucker for a powder blue and navy combo, though. Solid jersey, just a bit boring. 

Ranking: 5.5/10 

10. The Atlanta Braves 

Courtesy of Gettyimages

No risks were taken here, but that’s okay. These are replicas of their timeless jerseys from the Hank Aaron era. “The A” patch on the chest is clean and not too busy, and the number on the front is nice. Good jersey, but nothing we haven’t seen before 

Ranking: 6/10 

9. The Texas Rangers 

The most recent City Connect release has had fans up in arms. The rangers debuted these with people almost instantaneously calling them “trash.” But I think they look cool. While I’m not entirely sure about the story behind them, I think they did something different with the two tone look. The font on the front is cool and they have a very “old-timey” feel to them.  

Ranking: 6.5/10 

8. The Milwaukee Brewers 

Courtesy of the MLB

The Brewers design team did a fantastic job with these jerseys. Powder blue, navy and gold is going to hit the mark ten times out of ten. I only have one slight problem with them that brings the entire design down, and that’s the “Brew Crew” saying on the front. It feels cheap and like something that I’d see on an MLB The Show game. If there was any other wordmark on the front, these would have top 3 potential. 

Ranking: 7.2/10 

7 and 6 TIED. The Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Angels 

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A California team is finally featured in a good light on this list! The Diamondbacks and Angels jerseys are tied because I find them to be very similar. Both sandy colored jerseys pay homage to the sand in the state (beach and desert). Both contain numbers on the front left of the jersey. Both are overall really clean-cut and sharp jerseys. I love the different fonts they both used and I think these are absolute wins. 

Ranking: 7.8/10 

5. The Colorado Rockies 

Courtesy of the MLB

Now that I have reached the top five, I want to put a disclaimer: Any jersey that is below another, I do not find to be “worse” than, it just so happens that I think the other is better. The Rockies did an incredible job here. Their uniforms are paying tribute to the state’s incredible license plate and they translate so well to jerseys. The deep green is a sleek color and everything about it is amazing. I would like to potentially see some purple in the mix, or white pants instead of the green, but other than that, these are perfect. 

Ranking: 8.2/10 

4. The Miami Marlins 

Courtesy of the MLB

With that being said, I love these Marlins jerseys. Paying respects to their former minor league team “The Sugar Kings” is a great idea. The orange pops against the blue and white and it just screams “Miami Marlins.” Everything here is amazing. 

Ranking: 8.5/10 

3. The Kansas City Royals 

Courtesy of the MLB

Not many people were excited by these uniforms when they were released, but I’ve loved them forever. The Navy with the light blue is gorgeous, the “KC” in the style of the many fountains within the city, and the large arm bands that are a nod to former Royals jerseys make these one of the best in baseball. Amazing. 

Ranking: 8.9/ 10 

2. The Washington Nationals 

Courtesy of the MLB

After seeing the horrific attempt that their NBA counterparts made, I was terrified when I heard that the Nationals were going to be making a cherry blossom jersey. However, when I first laid my eyes on these, I was left speechless. The textured gray is perfect, the cherry blossoms on the hat and the chest don’t come across as cheap, and the large “WSH” font is amazing. These are incredible fashion forward and I can see people wearing these in public at any time. Washington, despite being an awful baseball club at the moment, at least looks good. 

Ranking: 9.3/10 

1. The Chicago White Sox 

Courtesy of the MLB

Perfection. Absolute perfection. From the full black jersey, to the white pinstripes, to the “Southside” on the front, there isn’t a single flaw in this jersey. There will always be the classic Yankees pinstripes, and the Phillies powder blues, but these jerseys may be one of the best of ALL TIME. They’re intimidating, cool, fashion forward and look amazing on the field. These are the best  City Connect jerseys we have gotten so far. It’s just a shame that this was the third jersey to be released, because Nike will never top this one. 

Ranking: 11/10 Nike has a long way to go with these uniforms. I ranked half of these uniforms below a 7, meaning there’s a lot of D tier and F tier jerseys out there. They have 4 more to debut this year alone and then 10 more to go with some iconic teams. My only note for Nike is to not mess with tradition when it comes to the Yankees, Mets and Phillies because they will anger a lot of fans.

Save La Salle Baseball

Commentary

Commentary Staff

Header image: goexplorers.com

It was one of those “where were you?” moments.

I was in my living room, checking my email, when that message from President Colleen Hanycz popped up into the top of my inbox. It was paragraph upon paragraph of fluff, with the University doing their best to soften the blow that was buried further along in the email. But can you really sugarcoat announcing that seven of the university’s athletics programs would be terminated after this school year?

The most shocking program on that list, at least for myself, was baseball. To my knowledge, as someone who knows quite a bit about La Salle sports, baseball had always done fairly well. They seemed like one of the most popular sports at the University, their athletes some of the most well-known around campus. There were some sports on the list that were understandable…but baseball? Really?

None of the teams were given a chance to fundraise for themselves before the announcement came out, which is an issue in and of itself. This piece is not trying to suggest that baseball is somehow more deserving of being saved than any of the other sports that are being cut, but their performance this season is really leaving La Salle with egg on its face.

Let’s start with their record: 20-11 overall, 6-2 in the A10. It’s close to being the best record at this point in the season, and has included some truly spectacular games, comebacks that left fans on the edges of their seats, absolute dominance over opponents (e.g. the 22-2 victory over Penn earlier this month) and players wearing their hearts on their sleeves. They’ve been vocal about how hard they’re willing to fight to keep their program alive, but it’s not stated more loudly than in how they play.

Freshman pitcher Frank Elissalt could easily throw in the towel and not care about how he pitches. What’s the point, right? But he does the exact opposite. He’s now earned Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week four times, along with earning Pitcher of the Week twice.

Junior catcher Tatem Levins has options outside of La Salle. He doesn’t need to show up in the batter’s box and behind the plate the way that he does, but he has not let up in his incredible and consistent performances.

There are plenty more individuals that could be named here (Elijah Dickerson, Ryan Guckin, Nick Di Vietro, Connor Coolahan, etc.) and that should tell you something. These players don’t have a certain future at La Salle. They chose to come here to play the sport they love and represent the University with everything they’ve got, only to be blindsided by a program slashing that was purely driven by financial interest with little to no regard for the welfare of the student-athletes it would be affecting. Shouldn’t it tell you something, President Hanycz, that even though you and the University turned your back on these players, they’ve still fought tooth and nail and put their blood, sweat and tears into ensuring that La Salle is currently sitting at the top of the A10?

Legendary soccer defender Tony Adams once said, “Play for the name on the front of the shirt and they’ll remember the name on the back.” That’s what this current La Salle baseball team is doing. The University’s name will be attached to whatever accolades they collect this season, but as a community, we’ll remember the individual players that didn’t let their team be taken away from them without an admirable fight. Whether or not the team is able to be saved, this particular team won’t be lost in the shuffle of decades of iconic baseball squads.

Forget Hank DeVincent. No matter what, the names of these current players will be the ones permanently etched in the earth between McCarthy Stadium and St. Basil’s.