Major League Baseball is going through an era of change. First, it was the rule changes last year, and now it’s the jerseys in 2024. We’re only a few days into spring training but MLB is already under fire for Nike’s new style of jersey for the players this year.
Veteran starting pitcher Rich Hill blasted the new cheap uniforms while appearing on Audacy’s “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast this week.
“Last year I did try on the uniforms for this year,” Hill said. “I thought the way the uniforms felt, they didn’t feel quality. It felt like it was cheap. It wasn’t fitted to the athlete; it wasn’t fitted to that player.”
When Hill broke into the league in 2005, the jersey was made of a “nice quality material” before the introduction of cool base jerseys. Most players switched over to that option given the increase in material.
“Players who were grandfathered in had an option if they wanted to wear an older uniform and the thicker material but mostly everybody, I think everybody in the league, went away from wearing that thicker material and went to the cool base, which made sense but it was still a quality jersey. It was made really well,” Hill continued. “The numbers were stitched on. It wasn’t like an iron-on kind of printed – for lack of a better term it was a major-league uniform. It wasn’t cheap. It was a major league uniform.
“And you earn that right, I believe, as a major league player when you’ve been dubbed by the powers that be who call you up to the major leagues and say ‘You’re a major leaguer now.’ Well with that should come a certain level of quality. So with that quality, uniforms should be personally fitted to each player.”
Hill explained that players would get measured in spring training and would be able to request any specifications that they wanted for their uniform that season.
“Some of the position players would get it a little bit longer so when they’d slide it wouldn’t come flying out, it would stay tucked in. Position players would get extra padding stitched into the side of their a– cheeks so when they would slide it wouldn’t rip open, or if it did they’d have another piece of fabric under there,” he said. “You could do the knees, you could do, obviously, the rear end.
“Wherever you wanted to do it you could literally make it exactly to how specific you wanted to get. If you wanted all your buttons on your jersey to be like a T-shirt so if you wanted them all together so they wouldn’t come flying open. If you wanted a velcro inside so the name stays together so it looks nice. Now, who cares? Whatever! It’s alright. We’re just out there, Sunday beer league. It’s alright. It’s OK. Screw it. It’s unbelievable.”
That’s no longer the case. Players now have the same jerseys that consumers can buy off the rack at a store.
“Now what I know that they’re doing is players are just going to be in buckets. Basically, it’s like medium, large, extra large, double extra large,” Hill explained. “There’s no difference between the average consumer buying that uniform and the major league player wearing that uniform, especially when it comes to certain measurements that the player should have.”
Hill is further bothered by the continued decrease in personalization on the jersey. Decades ago, players would have their full names stitched into their jerseys. Hill had his last name and number stitched into his pants earlier in his career, but that’s gone by the wayside.
“It was a nice major league caveat that you would get. It was like ‘OK, you’re in the big leagues, you get your name stitched in the back of your uniform,’” he said. “Now you’re a QR code on the back of a uniform. I’m serious, that’s what it turned into. It was cheap. They cheaped it, cheap, cheap, cheap all the way down. That’s where were at right now.
“The quality has just gone out the window and I think that’s unfortunate. It’s something that players have earned the right to work their entire life to get to this point and now just to be kind of a jersey off of the rack, so to speak, it sucks. It does. It sucks. Let’s put it that way. It’s not right. It should be you’re a major leaguer, you get treated like a major leaguer. You’ve earned that right to be a major leaguer and we’re going to fit you for a uniform that you feel comfortable in, you can go out there and perform.”
But it’s not just baseball. Other sports are expecting a decrease in quality as Fanatics takes over in the coming years.
“Guys that have been around will understand that there’s a certain finish to things that should be. NBA should have it. NHL should have it. WNBA should have it. Every major sport, the top of the mountain should have that kind of quality,” Hill said. “I remember growing up and going to a couple of Red Sox games and just seeing the stitching on the uniforms and stuff. You couldn’t get that. You couldn’t go across the street and buy it at the gift shop. But now you can. Now everybody can be a big leaguer.”
There should be a difference between the jersey worn on the field and the jersey an average person can buy, Hill opined. That should be a right of a major league player.
“You’ve earned that right to wear that jersey. You’ve gone through the ups and the downs and whatever, whatever linear path to the big leagues or obscure path or obtuse path, however you want to get there, you got there,” he said. “That should be for big leaguers only. That’s the way it should be. That’s just the way I feel, personally. It’s not like ‘Oh, I can get one of those too.’”
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