Tuesday, Major League Baseball revealed the designs for the jerseys and caps that will be worn on various special-event days this year. (There are also socks. I decided to skip the socks. You can see a sample of some of the special-event socks here.)
Some of these designs are better than others; I’ll weigh in with my opinions below. There’s one thing that bothers me, though. In another case of “if some is good, more must be better,” MLB is now mandating these uniforms to be worn not just for the date of observance, but for an entire weekend.
Mother’s Day jerseys will be worn Saturday, May 13 and Sunday, May 14. Memorial Day garb will be worn from Saturday, May 27 through Monday, May 29. Father’s Day clothing will be worn Saturday, June 17 and Sunday, June 18. And the Fourth of July outfits will be worn Saturday, July 1 through Tuesday, July 4.
The Cubs play on all but one of those days (they’re off Monday, July 3). That means that the Cubs will be wearing various special-event uniforms on 10 different dates this year. Between that, the blue alternate jersey they wear on occasion on the road and any throwbacks they’ll wear this year (and I generally like those), it makes the word “uniform” kind of an oxymoron.
Let’s be honest. This is all about merchandising and selling jerseys and caps. Some of the proceeds from the sale of items from the first three events (Mother’s Day, Memorial Day and Father’s Day) go to various charitable causes.
Some of these are better than others. The olive drab of Memorial Day... I don’t care for that. On the other hand, MLB has hit a home run this year with the Cubs’ Independence Day design, I really like that one. The All-Star caps are also nice, if a bit plain. You can see above that the N.L. teams will be wearing orange jerseys for Workout Day. A.L. teams will wear a Marlins-inspired blue. You can see all the Workout Day jerseys here.
Truth be told, I’d kind of like to see All-Star players wear those in the game, too. All the other major sports do that for their All-Star games. Having said that, MLB is doing something different for the regular team jerseys for the ASG: Jerseys worn during the All-Star Game will include a new patch on the left sleeve – a black and gold star with a number in the middle that correlates to each player’s total career All-Star appearances.
Anyway, above is a gallery of all the styles.