Tag / City Connect

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Connecting The City 2.0

Back in 2021, Nike announced they would be introducing City Connect uniforms to Major League Baseball, reimagining each team’s look to “celebrate[s] the bond between each team and its city.”  The White Sox were one of the first to get a City Connect, the infamous Southside set that was widely recognized as one of, if not the best rendition of the initial go-arounds.  Each City Connect uniform combination was intended to last for three years.

Four years later, the second wave of City Connects are being released and the White Sox will likely find themselves on the bottom of most rankings.  Announced yesterday, the new uniform set is the first collaboration between the MLB and NBA, as the jerseys basically adopt the Chicago Bulls look, with red jerseys with black pinstripes, black sleeves, and Chicago across the chest in a very Bulls-like wordmark.

First, the good: I like the black hat with the winged sock logo and the red brim.  And that’s about it.  The jersey looks like a cheap generic that you would pick up at Walgreens or Osco, not something a major league team would wear.  The black pants have red stripes down the sides with “SOUTHSIDE” repeated in black within the stripe.  Overall, this seems like a lazy, bottom of the barrel idea and I can’t see how this City Connect program will last long-term if they are already down to ideas like this.

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New Duds

Thursday night, on the eve of their annual fan convention, the Cubs unveiled a new alternate uniform for 2025.  According to the press release, the new Blues Alternate “pays tribute to the team’s history and Chicago’s contribution to the electric blues movement that shaped music worldwide.”  Despite having all of the story elements of a City Connect uniform, this is not that.

The jersey, described as baby blue, features a new logo insignia that “combines details from early Cubs uniforms with typography inspired by blues-era instruments.”  The sleeve patch is in the shape of a guitar pick “representing Chicago’s legacy as the birthplace of the electric blues.”  The numbers and nameplate take design elements from past Cub designs.  The jersey looks to be teamed with white pants.  The cap appears to be a darker blue, with a white front panel featuring the same logo as the jersey.  The socks feature references to Sweet Home Chicago, along with a six-string guitar stripe.

The Cubs were the first modern team to wear baby (or powder) blue, incorporating it into their road jerseys from 1941-1942.  It returned in the late 1970s, as most of baseball switched from plain gray to powder blue on the road.  The final full-time appearance was the road pinstripes in 1981.

The number font on the blue jersey gives off very strong Expos vibes, but aside from that, these look pretty good.  We won’t have to wait long to see how these look on the field, as the new uniforms will debut Saturday, April 5.  After that. they will be worn at home on Fridays during the summer months, which was the same schedule as the old City Connects.  Which, again, these are not.

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Connecting The City Part 2

Last weekend, the White Sox debuted their City Connect uniforms, which, according to Nike, reimagines a teams look and “celebrates the bond between each team and its city.”  The next team up was just up the road, as the Cubs released their version, to be worn for the first time Saturday against the Cardinals, and which they claim “ties together all of Chicago’s neighborhoods.”

The jerseys and pants are mostly a dark navy blue, with Wrigleyville across the front in the shape of the marquee on the front of the stadium.  The hat, navy with a light blue brim, has a six-pointed star, from the city’s flag, in the middle of the traditional C.  The sleeve patch features the municipal device of Chicago, representing the north, south and main branches of the Chicago River.

Much like the White Sox edition, these uniforms could have been much worse.  The initial leaks of the jersey looked like trash, but combining them with pants of the same color makes it work much better.  Including the star from the flag is a little obvious, but it is underplayed and using the municipal device, which, to be honest, I wasn’t aware of before this, was a nice change of pace.  Again, as a one-off, these won’t be so bad, but I’d hate to see them become part of the regular rotation.

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Connecting The City

Back in April, Nike announced they would be introducing City Connect uniforms to Major League Baseball, similar to their ColorRush and City uniforms for the NFL and NBA respectively, which reimagine a teams look and “celebrates the bond between each team and its city.”  The Red Sox were the first to both announce their uniforms and to wear them, a blue and yellow monstrosity based on the finish line of the Boston Marathon which they wore against the White Sox on the weekend prior to Patriot’s Day.

Yesterday, the White Sox released their design, which they will debut next weekend against the Tigers.  The jerseys and pants are mostly black, with white pinstripes and retain the olde English S to spell out Southside rather than Sox on the jersey.  The white sock patch, currently only seen on the black alternates, graces the left sleeve.

All things considered, this could have been much worse.  They retained the team’s color scheme, which has been a constant since the end of the 1990 season.  Assuming they only appear for the weekend series and then go away for the remainder of the season, I have no complaints.  In fact, one of the videos the team posted on Twitter showed the Southside logo on a sweatshirt that may end up in my closet one day.