If this is all there is, the apparel company didn’t put a lot of effort into this one
Starting two years ago, MLB and its primary jersey company Nike have been gradually designing and releasing what they call “City Connect” jersey designs, new alternates into the mix that are intended to have designs that show off something about the culture of a team’s home city.
Seven teams had jerseys unveiled in the first wave two years ago, with seven more coming last year. Some of these have been really interesting, such as (to my chagrin) the cherry blossom-themed ones designed for the Nationals. Others are at least memorably bad and distinct from a team’s usual jerseys, such as the Red Sox yellow and blue ones inspired by the Boston Marathon, which even seem to have some fans around there.
The Orioles get their turn this year. The jerseys will make their on-field debut on May 26 when the O’s play the Rangers. Some time between now and then, they will be shown off to try to get suckers excited to buy the replicas.
On Monday afternoon, Twitter user 410Beck posted what appears to be a leaked picture of one of the jerseys. I am not able to independently verify the photo. It’s… not exciting.
Leaked – Orioles city connect jerseys pic.twitter.com/bu2mqyhJOu
— Beckett (@410Beck) May 8, 2023
It is reminiscent of the Great Britain jerseys from the World Baseball Classic, where the overall vibe of the design was “Someone forgot they were supposed to be working on this for months and only remembered about it on the day they had to finalize the design.”
There do at least seem to be some kind of little flourishes going on. The edges of the sleeves have something black and white, and there’s an emblem in the space where the Orioles logo/Maryland flag combo is on a regular jersey. Near the bottom is a patch saying, “You can’t clip these wings.” There also seems to be something colorful on the inside on the back side.
Perhaps there will end up being something more interesting going on with either the hats or the pants of the jerseys. The ones so far have tended to be themed, complete looks. here may be hidden depths that will change the initial reaction. Or maybe they just didn’t put a whole lot of thought into the Baltimore jerseys, which is maybe what we all should have expected all along.
What do you think about this leaked jersey design? Let us know in the comments below.