Major League Baseball’s regular season is already a week old, yet one spring training topic continues to be a focal point — that being (what else?) the new uniforms manufactured by Nike and Fanatics. You may recall that players spent the exhibition season criticizing how the nameplates looked and how the pants fit. MLB Players Association head Tony Clark even uttered a quote that should endure for as long as the game does, saying:”Universal concern is the pant.”
More recently, the criticism has been directed toward gray road uniforms — specifically, how the players’ sweat soaks through the tops, turning them a darker shade than the pants.
That is, to state the obvious, not the desired effect that Nike was going for with the tops. Remember, the intent was for the jersey to be more breathable, so that the players would find it more enjoyable to wear during the hot summer months. One can only wonder how much worse the sweat issue will get as temperatures rise across the country during the coming weeks.
The good news is that this suboptimal aesthetic is no mystery to the Powers That Be. Indeed, Nike issued a statement to The Athletic saying, in part, that they’re “testing different options to lessen the moisture-related aesthetic color differences.” The bad news is that it’s unclear if they’ll be able to make meaningful changes that can correct for the problem this year — after all, it takes time to figure out a fix and then to manufacture a league worth of uniforms. Here’s hoping that Nike can find a way to get it done — if only so everyone can talk about what the players are doing on the field as opposed to what they’re wearing.
If you want to read more about MLB’s new uniforms, our Kate Feldman spoke to various fashion experts about their flaws back earlier in the spring.
