Red Sox Player's Unfiltered Opinion On Uniforms Should Wake MLB Up
By Thomas Erbe
Every baseball player growing up dreams of playing ball in the big leagues and putting on a Major League uniform. The dreams amplify when the uniform you're putting on is that of a team with a storied history, like the Boston Red Sox. Unfortunately, it's a whole lot different now than it was even just a year ago.
This is the first season of a deal between Major League Baseball, Nike, and Fanatics, which has Fanatics producing the uniforms for MLB. There's a whole lot into it, but all you need to know is how players and fans feel about the uniforms produced.
They look cheap, feel cheap, and are not nearly the quality of the product teams had and sold just a year ago. Chances are, these uniforms are cheaper to produce, meaning cheaper for MLB to buy, meaning everyone can save money—except for the fans buying the jerseys. They aren't any more affordable on the shelves than they were.
It's a frustrating situation for most, but MLB's response is banking on the new uniforms being something players and fans will get used to. We're two weeks in, and a Red Sox player just made the most real statement about the problem.
Red Sox Player: Putting On Uniform "Used To Mean Something"
Gabrielle Starr, a FanSided alum and now Red Sox reporter for Boston Herald, mentioned on Twitter that the Red Sox were one of the only teams to get their City Connect uniforms from Nike and Fanatics in time for the scheduled series. Someone asked if they looked cheap to her, and she said she had not seen them yet, but players complained about how thin they were.
One player's quote should shake the MLB to their core. They said that putting on their uniform used to mean something, but it's different now because of how cheap they look and feel.
MLB has to be doing something behind the scenes to fix this. Players and fans are on the verge of outrage. We've seen right through them (literally), and no one can be fooled that this quality is unacceptable for the best baseball players in the world to play in.
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