The controversy over the MLB’s recent uniforms is growing.
For the reason that season began, fans have noticed visible sweat stains on the uniforms, especially the grey ones, those the Yankees wear.
In a statement issued to The Athletic on Thursday, Nike admitted it’s “testing different options to reduce the moisture-related aesthetic color differences.”
Together with the sweat issue, some have identified that teams’ gray uniforms appear to be they’re different shades — one for the jersey and one for the pants.
Twins pitcher Brock Stewart said his circle of relatives noticed.
“My dad was watching the sport and said, ‘Some guys appear to be their jerseys are a special shade of gray than their pants,’” Stewart said.
Nike has also acknowledged that issue and said, “We now have isolated the problem and are exploring an answer to reduce it.”
Stewart added that the uniform issues aren’t a subject of conversation within the clubhouse, but players wonder if there’s an easy solution.
“At this point, I don’t know. Do we have now the old ones behind the closet somewhere we will bring back out?” he said jokingly.
The Athletic reported that the fabric for the pants and jerseys comes from different suppliers — the pants come from an previously used vendor while the jerseys are from a recent one — though all of it arrives at Fanatics’ factory pre-dyed.
Previously, MLB uniforms were made by Majestic, which was acquired by Fanatics in 2017, and Nike signed a ten-year deal in 2020 for the design side for the MLB.
Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo compared it to factory manufacturing.
“Let’s say your local woodworker is making something,” he said. “They’ll put a variety of attention to detail, it’s handmade, it’s , quality product. As soon because it becomes manufactured — like, big time — normally they begin cutting the corners: ‘OK, we don’t need this detail, we don’t need that detail. We just need this product to work and we will sell it for a similar price and just mass produce it.’
“It was Majestic before. It was a smaller company. They’d mainly handled baseball,” he continued. “You then get a worldwide company that’s value billions and billions of dollars. And more often than not, they should answer to any individual who’s all in regards to the bottom line, they usually’ve got to make this profitable. I don’t know the entire story, but I just know the way business works.”
Along with sweat and color differences, some teams don’t have all of their jerseys.
The Seattle Mariners are missing their cream uniforms, and the St. Louis Cardinals are missing their powder blue uniforms.
Based on a report, Fanatics doesn’t have them in stock yet.
Nobody likes change, and with so many eyes on the MLB and MLB uniforms, Nike and Fanatics knew it could take time to get fans and players to just like the recent uniforms.
But unless they work out find out how to stop problems from continuing to arise, they could be in for a lengthy battle.
