Detroit’s Riley Greene slid into home plate and scored a run. He stood up, and when Greene arose it was clear a giant gash appeared in his pants from the slide. A common slide performed thousands of times without issue had suddenly gone awry. Wardrobe malfunctions are nothing new in baseball, but this mundane slide exemplified a larger problem which has swirled around Major League Baseball discussions since February — the uniforms.
Major League Baseball and their player’s union have agreed to make changes to the on-field uniforms by the start of 2025 at the latest, blasting Nike in a memo whilst blaming them for “innovating something that didn’t need to be innovated”. The concerns arose when Spring Training started in February when many errors — including misspelled names, tiny jersey lettering, and worst of all, see-through pants, became clear. With the jerseys being made of lighter materials, it made the pants not as opaque, creating uncomfortable situations. The lighter uniforms also allowed players wearing light colors to sweat through them, which combined with the semi-transparent pants, made for a disastrous PR scene for Major League Baseball. Many described these uniforms as “amateur”, and didn’t feel they represented professional baseball properly.
The root of the debate is around MLB’s new jersey manufacturer, Fanatics. Fanatics is in their first season being exclusive manufacturers of MLB jerseys, after acquiring retail brand Majestic in 2017. Nike became MLB’s on-field uniform partner in 2022, and after two years of Nike making them, they outsourced their manufacturing to Fanatics to make the jerseys they produced. Simply put, Fanatics is manufacturing jerseys designed by Nike. Fanatics started out as an online retail brand, mostly known for selling replica sports jerseys on their website. Fanatics had licensing agreements with all four major sports leagues (MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL), and started gaining exclusivity deals in 2015. E-sales where Fanatics got their jump, and have been a household name for sports fans ever since. The issue, many say, is where Fanatics turned from an online retailer selling replicas, to actually providing the jerseys players wear in-game.
The new jerseys debuted in the 2023 All-Star Game in Seattle, and were dubbed as “performance jerseys”. There weren’t many concerns at the time, and not much at all was said about the new threads. The concerns arose when Spring Training started in February when many errors — including misspelled names, tiny jersey lettering, and worst of all, see-through pants, became clear. With the jerseys being made of lighter materials, it made the pants less opaque, creating uncomfortable situations. The lighter uniforms also allowed players wearing light colors to sweat through them, which combined with the semi-transparent pants, made for a disastrous PR scene for Major League Baseball. Many described these uniforms as “amateur”, and didn’t feel they represented professional baseball properly.
During the last week of April the union sent a memo condemning Nike, and clearing Fanatics of wrongdoing. The union’s memo said “This has been entirely a Nike issue…at its core, what has happened here is that Nike was innovating something that didn’t need to be innovated.” The memo also stated MLB and Fanatics will change course, bringing the larger lettering back, making the pants opaque again and finding a fix to collect sweat. In terms of fixing the jerseys altogether, MLB and Fanatics expect changes to be made during the 2024 season, and at the latest by the start of the 2025 campaign.
This is not the first time a major sporting league came under fire for a drastic change made without consulting players and then walking back. In 2006, the NBA introduced a new synthetic basketball which was described by commissioner David Stern as “the best in the world”. Going from natural leather to a proprietary microfiber, it was a ball not a single player liked. It fundamentally changed how the game was played, and it caused loads of cuts and bruises on players’ hands because of how coarse the microfiber material was. Player opinions ranged from pure disgust to indifference, but you couldn’t find a soul on the hardwood who was a staunch defender. With overwhelming opposition, the NBA backtracked, and returned to the original basketball which was unchanged for 35 years two months into the 2006-07 season.
Some have asked — what is the point of fighting this hard over player uniforms? The difference between the controversies in basketball and baseball is this changed the apparel players wear, and not the actual object that makes the game possible. If MLB changed the material of bats from pine wood to a microplastic, that’s a different story, because that fundamentally changes the game. Some opponents of the players’ grief make the point that it only changes the look of the players, and slightly their feel, but it doesn’t make or break the game’s basics. Dissenters will also say “Why do you care how a player looks?”, because a player should be more concerned about how they’re playing and not how they look. However, if a player is uncomfortable in what they are wearing, and it affects their performance, then in the players’ minds, it should be addressed.
