Sweat stains, mismatching grays: As MLB uniform issues persist, Nike searches for solutions (2024)

NEW YORK —Andrew Chafin has worn almost every shade and style across 11 seasons in the major leagues. The lefty has pitched in Cubbie pinstripes and the Kelly green of the A’s. He has covered his curls with the Tigers’ D, a timeless classic, and the Brewers’ ball-in-glove, a modern marvel. With the Diamondbacks alone, Chafin donned black, white, red, yellow, gray, dark gray and even faux-snakeskin accents.

Through it all, the uniform felt worthy of baseball at the highest level, he said this week.

“You picked that up and it was like, Son of a bitch, this is something,” Chafin said.

Then he gestured to his new Nike jersey in the Tigers’ clubhouse at Citi Field. “But now it’s just like, Eh, it’s just another jersey. There’s no special feel to it. You pick it up and you should feel like you’re putting on a freaking crown and a big-ass fluffy cape, you know what I mean?”

Chafin all but sighed his conclusion, one shared by many players and fans across the majors.

“They’re not bad jerseys,” he said. “Just, in my opinion, they’re not big-league jerseys.”

The start of the season has exposed even more design flaws in the new MLB uniforms, which seem to be an attempt to answer a question nobody asked: What if we changed the most forward-facing element of the industry in the name of “performance”?

Now we know. In the past, the players’ names were clear and their sweat marks hidden. With the MLB-approved, Nike-designed, Fanatics-produced 2024 uniforms, it’s the opposite. The letters on the back are smaller, and the gray jerseys — which often don’t match the gray pants — allow sweat to seep through. Or pour through, as was the case when the Yankees played indoors in Houston last weekend. Images of Aaron Judge, Carlos Rodón and others in drenched jerseys circulated widely on social media.

In a statement to The Athletic, Nike acknowledged that they had received feedback from teams and are “testing different options to lessen the moisture-related aesthetic color differences.”

Sweat was also showing in Kansas City, where the Twins played the Royals with temperatures in the 60s.

“It’s a downgrade this year, that’s all I’ll say — it’s a downgrade,” said Twins pitcher Brock Stewart, who pitched with a sweat blob that roughly resembled the outline of Georgia on the right side of his jersey.

“My dad was watching the game and said, ‘Some guys look like their jerseys are a different shade of gray than their pants.’”

That’s an altogether separate issue, though sweat would exacerbate it. For a number of teams, their gray uniforms feature pants and shirts that are slightly — but noticeably — different shades of gray.

“We have isolated the issue,” Nike said, “and are exploring a solution to minimize it.”

It’s unclear whether any fabric fixes for sweat or color matching could be implemented in season.

Meanwhile, the games go on. The uniforms are not a big source of clubhouse chatter, Stewart said; as we learned from the smooth response to last season’s rule changes, players are adaptable. But everyone wants to look good, and players do wonder what can be done.

“At this point, I don’t know,” Stewart said, laughing. “Do we have the old ones in the back of the closet somewhere we can bring back out?”

It would seem easy enough for MLB to declare the situation unacceptable and mandate changes. But this is a delicate dance of corporations with a partnership worth more than $1 billion. The offspring of the relationship is a problem child. But the league and its official uniform supplier, Nike, have been reluctant to take responsibility.

In a statement, MLB praised Nike’s “expertise in bringing innovation and design improvements” and its “extensive multi-year process” in arriving at the 2024 uniforms while acknowledging there are issues for Nike to address.

“Nike chose the letter sizing and picked the fabric that was used in these jerseys,” MLB said. “Fanatics has done a great job manufacturing everything to the exact specifications provided by Nike. As part of this significant transition, Nike will continue to explore necessary adjustments to certain elements of the new uniforms to meet the needs of MLB Clubs and players.”

Such gentle jabs are as far as MLB has gone in putting any of the blame on Nike — while accepting no fault of its own. Nike’s statement Tuesday was only its second since players began complaining about the uniform fit and design this spring, and the first time the company has said anything about the product needing change.

In its Feb. 22 statement, Nike said, “We will continue to work with MLB, the players and our manufacturing partner to address player uniforms.” While numerous players told The Athletic this week that it didn’t appear their complaints this spring had any impact, Nike said Tuesday that it had worked with club equipment managers and made “fit adjustments for the small number of players who required changes.”

MLBPA executive director Tony Clark told the Wall Street Journal this spring that the uniform issues were “a league and Nike dynamic.” An MLBPA spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday, “We’ve engaged with all parties and continue to work alongside Fanatics to try and find solutions. It’s disappointing, however, that uniforms remain a topic of discussion among players and fans with the season underway.”

While the uniforms have changed drastically this season, much about the uniform process has not. It’s the same three parties involved: MLB, Nike and Fanatics. Fanatics acquired the league’s previous uniform maker, Majestic Athletics, in 2017, and has manufactured the jerseys ever since —at the same Easton, Pa., factory Majestic used. Nike began its 10-year contract with MLB in 2020. For the first four years, almost nothing about the uniforms changed. Nike muscled into the sport with the stamp of a swoosh on the front of every jersey, but those jerseys were, in nearly every other way, the Majestic template.

Few complained.

Then came the new uniform, the Vapor Premier. Nike claims it is more breathable, lightweight and moisture-wicking. “We created the most performance-driven uniform in the history of MLB,” Nike said Tuesday. But players weren’t aware the trade-off for a material Nike says will “move moisture to the exterior of the jersey so they dry 28 percent faster” was sweat splotches.

“I don’t think it feels heavier or anything,” said Yankees starter Marcus Stroman, who had sweat through his uniform before he even stepped on the mound in Houston. “It just looks wetter to the public eye. I feel like these jerseys retain water rather than kind of wicking it off.”

Issues like sweat stains go beyond matters of taste. But the MLB/Nike alliance has encountered those, too, notably with the decision to use generic uniforms for the All-Star Game, dumping decades of tradition. With the player names harder to read, a similar sense that the brand is the priority pervades the new season.

“I feel like these jerseys are more about Nike than individuals,” Chafin said. “They want to put their stamp on things.”

So does MLB. The collar on the new jerseys is narrower, so the MLB logo no longer fits within it. Instead of using a smaller version — or putting it elsewhere — the logo dropped below the collar. To accommodate for that, the letters shrunk.

One team, the Royals, requested the old, full-size lettering and wore that in spring training. But before the regular season started, the Royals were told to use the smaller lettering to maintain consistency with other clubs. (Nike declined to comment on that decision.)

“I feel that a big number and name presentation is part of the marketing of these players,” said Joe Buck, who called baseball for Fox from 1996 through 2021. “A father or mother wants to be able to recognize a player and tell their child who that player is in an instant. And making it more difficult to do that is not the way I would go.”

Smaller lettering, in theory, makes a garment geared toward peak performance a bit lighter. But as much as MLB trumpets the notion that players liked the new material when they wore it at last July’s All-Star Game, there’s no consensus that change was needed.

“It’s not any worse, but I don’t feel like it’s a thousand percent better, either,” said the Mets’ Brandon Nimmo. “I certainly didn’t have any problems with it. I’m not sure why they changed it. They claimed that it was ‘performance,’ but I haven’t noticed any difference in the first few games, or even in spring training.”

As Nike set out to design the first fully Nike MLB jersey, it prioritized standardizing embellishments and reducing the weight and stiffness of the uniforms. Numbers are smaller and perforated. Names are 2 1/2 inches tall, with a consistent arc. Sleeve trim has changed. Patches are no longer embroidered. And, for some teams, decorative flourishes have been scrapped. The Phillies’ chain-stitched wordmark is gone, though the Cardinals kept theirs. Nike also standardized belt loops, meaning an end to the Tigers’ narrow loops and the Braves’ navy-and-red outlines, at least on the road. Those are small details, but for Detroit, they offered a throughline from Ty Cobb to Al Kaline to Miguel Cabrera. And the Braves were the only team that made a point to stylize belt loops; greats from Hank Aaron to Greg Maddux to Freddie Freeman all wore it.

“But that’s what happens, right?” said Nimmo, when shown a before-and-after photo of the Braves’ uniforms. “Let’s say your local woodworker is making something. They’ll put a lot of attention to detail, it’s handmade, it’s a good, quality product. As soon as it becomes manufactured — like, big time — usually they start 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 can sell it for the same price and just mass produce it.’

“It was Majestic before. It was a smaller company. They’d mainly dealt with baseball,” he continued. “Then you get a worldwide company that’s worth billions and billions of dollars. And most of the time, they have to answer to somebody who’s all about the bottom line, and they’ve got to make this profitable. I don’t know the whole story, but I just know how business works.”

The blowback should have come as little surprise to Nike.

The issue of mismatching grays was evident even in November, when the Diamondbacks unveiled their new uniform set. As more teams have debuted their road grays recently, it’s clearly not an isolated issue.

“You’ll notice when we play today, the gray in our tops is not really the same as the gray on the pants,” the Tigers’ Mark Canha said on Monday. “It doesn’t match — this (jersey) is kind of a shiny gray, and the gray on the pants is kind of dull. They just look like different colors, slightly.”

A person with knowledge of Fanatics’ production process explained that Nike’s fabric is already dyed when it arrives at the Fanatics factory in Pennsylvania. The pants fabric comes from the same Nike-approved vendor as in prior years, while the new jersey tops are from a separate vendor, as Uni Watch’s Paul Lukas reported. Different fabrics accept dye differently, and different vendors have slightly different dying processes. Previously, the pants and shirts were cut fromsimilarfabricthat was manufactured and dyed at the same factory, makingdye differencesminimal.

The person said Fanatics raised concerns to Nike this winter about the varying gray tones. In most cases, the person said, Nike said it fell within their window of variance and instructed Fanatics to use the fabric.

One problem, at least, does not seem to be as severe as initially feared: the supposedly see-through pants that surfaced on Photo Day in spring training. That outcry may have simply been a case of fans noticing something they’d long ignored; three sources confirmed that, for all the hoopla of the re-engineered jersey top, the pant fabric has not changed this year. The only pant changes are the belt loops, a button on the back pocket, and Nike’s fitting process (putting players into four body-type buckets, instead of tailing each individually). Photos from previous Photo Days show similar transparency issues in studio lighting.

Some teams, meanwhile, have not yet received their full suite of 2024 uniforms. The Twins are missing the pants for their cream “Twin Cities” uniforms. The Mariners wore home whites Sunday because their cream-colored uniforms aren’t in yet. The Cardinals were in road grays Sunday because neither of their Saturday alternates — ivory at home, victory blue on the road — had arrived. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported the club did not expect to have either Saturday uniform “until June, at the latest,” due to production delays.

However, Fanatics disputes that production is behind schedule.

A Fanatics spokesperson said that in December clubs were given multiple shipping windows and asked to prioritize their uniform needs on specific dates, ranging from mid-March to mid-May.

“The different delivery dates are intentional given that each player has parts of their uniform customized during spring training,” the spokesperson said. “Once those measurements are taken and sent back to the facility, there are different lead times to make the jerseys and pants, which inform how teams prioritize their uniform deliveries. This is the normal process each season.

“Uniforms prioritized in the first two ship windows this season — March 18 and April 1 — have already been delivered on time or early. The remaining jerseys that are due to teams in the final prioritized shipping windows, between now and mid-May, are on track to be delivered early and ahead of schedule, by April 23.”

An MLB spokesman confirmed that because manufacturing doesn’t begin until players are fitted each spring, distribution of some uniform varieties has in recent years extended a few weeks into the regular season.

Production schedules and costs aside, the league and Nike have mostly been stubborn in defending the new uniforms, with no firm commitment to make substantive changes. As Commissioner Rob Manfred said in spring training: “I think after people wear them a little bit, they are going to be very popular.”

So far, that hasn’t happened. But it still seems to be the shared strategy of MLB and Nike: wait for people to get used to the new look, while pledging only to explore limited changes.

“MLB has to realize that team uniforms are sacred to fans and players,” Buck said. “So if you mess with them across the game, to this degree, you better get it right. In my opinion, they didn’t.”

— The Athletic‘s Dan Hayes and Chris Kirschner contributed to this report.

(Top photo of Carlos Rodon: Tim Warner/Getty Images)