The first ever MLB Players Weekend taking place from Friday, Aug. 25 through Sunday, Aug. 27, will see all 30 teams overhaul their uniforms in honor of the occasion, ESPN’s Paul Lukas reports. The MLB announced the details of the affair Wednesday. The Players Weekend will take place in conjunction with the culmination Little League World Series
Every club’s caps will feature modified or, in some cases, never-before-seen logos. Some teams embraced the logo redesign more than others. The Cardinals, Giants, Red Sox, Brewers and Yankees, among others, more or less kept their everyday logos, though most of those teams altered the color schemes. In contrast, the Diamondbacks, Braves, Cubs, Pirates, Blue Jays and Mariners will wear caps bearing logos radically different from their regular insignia.
Arizona’s new logo depicts a snake with a baseball in its fangs; the Braves will wear red hats featuring blue tomahawks; the Mariners will wear bright blue caps with neon green compass roses.
Some logos will pay homage to a team’s places of origin. Philadelphia will wear blue liberty bell emblems; Toronto will wear maple leaves.
You can check out all thirty redesigned caps here.
New jerseys, all of which are “pullovers rather than button-fronts,” will be worn across the league as well. Each jersey will feature contrasting sleeves. Check out your team’s shirts here.
The league will relax restrictions on accessories like shoes, batting gloves, compression sleeves, etc, and will offer players optional socks bearing a special league-wide design.
In honor of the Little League World Series, a special MLB logo will grace the back of the jerseys’ collars. The logo, which draws from the MLB and Little League logos alike, will depict a baseball player’s progression from childhood to adulthood. It will also appear on players’ sleeves, above a white space in which players can write the name of a mentor they would like to thank.
The league is encouraging players to wear nicknames rather than their last names on their backs. Participation in this aspect of the festivities is not mandatory, but many players and teams, according to Lukas, have already jumped onboard, Lukas says.
Some teams, Lukas says, have worn nicknames before. The Braves did it in 1976; A’s owner Chris Finley encouraged his players to do it in the 1960s and ‘70s.
Many players have selected their nicknames already.
Seattle third baseman Kyle Seager will wear “Corey’s Brother” as a nod to his younger sibling, Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager, last season’s NL rookie of the year. In his second full season in the league, the younger Seager is hitting .305 for a Dodgers team that is on pace to post one of the best records in recent memory. His brother is batting a respectable .258 for the Mariners, who are hanging on to second place in the AL West with a record of 59-56, though they trail the division-leading Astros by 13 games.
Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, 2017’s home run derby champion, will wear the monicker “All Rise” on his back in honor of his fan club.
Lukas points out that Players Weekend will mark the first time Yankees players have ever worn text on their backs. The team is the only outfit in North American professional sports to hold that distinction, he says. The last weekend in August may also be the first time the Yanks take their home field without the trademark pinstripes. Instead, the team will sport blue jerseys with gray sleeves and “Yankees” written across the front in cursive font.
Other sports have flirted with uniform variations as well. In 2013-14, the NBA permitted players to wear nicknames on their backs for select games, Lukas says. For Week 13 of last year’s NFL season, the league allowed players to wear custom-painted cleats.
The first two redesigned uniforms will debut on August 20, a week prior to Players Weekend, when the Cardinals take on the Pirates in Williamsport, PA. The Little League World Series will be held in Williamsport from August 17-27.
Featured image via Flickr/Jack and Dianne
