Tag: city connect

Red Sox will not be affected by MLB’s new uniform rules in 2023

The Red Sox will not be affected by the new uniform guidelines that are coming to Major League Baseball in 2023, a source confirmed to BloggingtheRedSox.com on Monday.

As was first revealed by Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III earlier this month, MLB and Nike, the league’s uniform manufacturer, are limiting teams to four different uniforms plus one “City Connect” jersey — if they have them — beginning this season.

This “Four Plus One” rule has already been implemented by other teams. The Mariners, for instance, were forced to act since they ran with a six-uniform rotation in 2022. They have elected to eliminate their road gray jerseys and spring training powder blue jerseys for the 2023 season, according to Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times.

Other teams are expected to follow suit and streamline their uniform rotations in the coming weeks, per MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo. The Red Sox, on the other hand, will maintain their regular four-uniform rotation consisting of home whites, home reds, road grays, and road blues plus the yellow, Boston Marathon-inspired City Connect Jersey that was first introduced in 2021.

The club will be permitted to wear its special white home jersey with “Boston” across the chest on Patriots’ Day since it is considered by MLB to be a one-day uniform. The same principle applies to the green spring training jerseys they wear on St. Patrick’s Day as well.

In addition to these new guidelines, MLB teams will also sport advertisements on their jerseys for the first time in league history beginning in 2023. The Red Sox will wear a MassMutual Logo patch on their jerseys after entering a 10-year contract in which the Springfield-based insurer will serve as the club’s signature sponsor.

(Picture of Rafael Devers: Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images)

Red Sox ‘don’t have any specific plans’ to wear City Connect uniforms again this season

While more teams continue to roll out their Nike City Connect uniforms, don’t expect the Red Sox to bring back the unique threads they rocked on Patriots’ Day weekend anytime soon.

Boston unveiled their bold Boston Marathon-inspired uniforms in early April and debuted them during the first two games of their four-game series against the White Sox at Fenway Park on the weekend of April 17.

As they were described in a team release this spring, “the City Connect uniform adopts colors that honor the spirit of Patriots’ Day weekend, and features ‘Boston’ in a stencil font across the chest paying tribute to the Boylston Street finish line. The numbers ‘617’ are highlighted on the left sleeve as a nod to the area code for Boston and Fenway Park. The numbers appear within a racing bib, honoring one of the city’s most iconic annual sports traditions.”

With the Red Sox opting to sport blue and yellow as their uniform’s primary colors for the first time in franchise history, the unveiling of the new duds was initially met with some blowback, but — as noted by ESPN’s Joon Lee — the team “sold out of the new jerseys and the City Connect merchandise that was released along with them at the Fenway Park team store.”

That being said, the Red Sox as of this moment do not have any plans to don their City Connect uniforms again this season despite the fact that other clubs — such as the Chicago Cubs — have worn theirs in parts of two separate series against the Cardinals and Marlins at Wrigley Field earlier this month.

“At the moment, we don’t have any specific plans to wear our City Connect uniforms,” Red Sox executive vice president and chief marketing officer Adam Grossman told BloggingtheRedSox.com via email. “Doesn’t mean that it won’t happen, but we don’t have any plans. We do know that we will be wearing them Patriots’ Day weekend next year.”

In addition to the Red Sox and Cubs, the Marlins, White Sox, and Diamondbacks have also unveiled their City Connect uniforms this season. The Giants and Dodgers are slated to do so in early July and late August, respectively.

By the end of the 2023 season, all 30 MLB teams are expected to have their own version of a City Connect uniform, per Lee.

(Picture of J.D. Martinez: Adam Glanzman/Getty Images)