BOSTON — The Red Sox will wear their new green City Connect uniform Friday when they host the Braves for the first game of a three-game series at Fenway Park.
The idea of the “Fenway Greens” dates back to when the organization and Nike created the yellow and blue Boston Marathon City Connect uniforms that were unveiled in 2021.
“Even when we went through the first City Connects in ’19 and ’20 before they launched ’21, we’d always wanted to do some sort of Fenway-centric uniform,” said Troup Parkinson, Red Sox executive Vice President of Chief Marketing and Partnerships Officer.
One obstacle stood in the way though.
“If we were gonna do a jersey that was really centered around Fenway Park and the Green Monster and really Fenway green, it was about the color, which is such a hard color to match,” Parkinson said. “It’s not readily available.”
Parkinson said a match on the Pantone Matching System color chart “doesn’t truly exist.”
“We had to get the color right or we couldn’t do it,” Parkinson said. “So we were kind of finally able to pull it off.”
The Red Sox wanted to make sure this green didn’t resemble the uniforms worn on St. Patrick’s Day during spring training.
“That’s electric green almost. And the Celtics are green. So if you don’t get this green right, it’s just a green jersey,” Parkinson said.
The players won’t wear the uniforms when they take batting practice Friday. They will switch to them when they get dressed for the game. First pitch is at 7:10 p.m.
“When the starting pitcher and the bullpen guys come out, you’ll see the greens,” Parkinson said.
The Red Sox will wear the “Fenway Greens” again next Friday when they have a Rafael Devers bobblehead giveaway at the gates. Devers’ bobblehead is wearing the green uniform.
“ Then it’s gonna be up to AC (manager Alex Cora) and the players when they wear them again,” Parkinson said. “Our guess would be, it may become kind of like a Friday thing for those guys.”
A few players tried on the uniforms for a photo shoot last week. Parkinson said they were well-received and some players even suggested it would be cool for pants to be green instead of white.
“They were not all into the yellows when we broke them out (in 2021) because it’s so jarring,” Parkinson said. “These, guys were like running to put them on. They wanted to wear them when we showed them.”
“We feel like Fenway Park also is that,” Parkinson said. “We’re lucky in that I don’t know that a lot of teams can create a uniform based on a venue.”
The Red Sox, of course, play in a 113-year-old venue with a 37-foot-2-inch Green Monster unique to only their ballpark. Fenway Park is the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball just ahead of Chicago’s 111-year-old Wrigley Field.
Parkinson said the uniform jersey color “is actually shockingly close” in person.
“The tricky thing with colors is — and I didn’t know this — but on different fabrics, the same color looks completely different,” he said. “So it’s really hard to pull off perfectly.”
The Red Sox name across the front of the jersey features the Green Monster’s font in white. The jersey includes an encircled “B” logo on the sleeve.
A replica of the Monster’s vintage ball, strike and out indicator appears in a graphic on the lower left of the jersey. The players’ front numbers are yellow to match Pesky’s Pole in right field and Fisk Pole in left.
Parkinson said the neck also is a concrete color that “lines up with the inside of the Green Monster scoreboard” and includes the year when Fenway Park opened (1912).
The pants are white with green double stripes on the side. Parkinson also pointed out there is some detail around the belt loops.
“Stuff that we haven’t seen before but we thought added to a classic look for these,” Parkinson said. “I think the first City Connects do this …. the idea of having a uniform that’s not a gimmicky, one-off show.”
The Red Sox have worn their yellow Marathon City Connect jerseys 53 times (with a 37-16 record) since their introduction in 2021.
“If we wore these (Fenway Greens) for the next 30 years, I don’t think it would stand out to you as strange,” Parkinson said. “And I think that’s pretty cool.”
For years, the Red Sox have wanted an alternate jersey with the players’ numbers featured on the front.
“Because it’s such a cool look when you get the chest number, too,” Parkinson said. “And we’ve never had that.”
Parkinson said a case can be made that the Fenway Park brand is bigger than the Red Sox brand.
“I think people will definitely get behind these,” he said.
Will the Red Sox continue to wear their yellow City Connects?
The Red Sox will continue to wear their yellow City Connect jerseys as well.
“The baseball rules are basically a four-plus-one,” Parkinson explained. “So they let you do a home, a road, generally a road alternate, a home alternate, and then the plus one is like a City Connect.”
The Red Sox will have five jerseys in the rotation as MLB also allows them to wear their Patriots’ Day white jerseys with “Boston” on the front. They eliminated the blue alternate jerseys this year and have been wearing red tops, for the first time, on the road (for Friday road games).
“We are a little unique in that baseball has allowed us to be really a five-plus-one because recently we kind of swapped the yellows in and took out our blues,” Parkinson said. “So now the yellows are part of our regular piece. So we have basically a yellow alternate, a red alternate, a gray jersey, a white jersey, now a green City Connect and we also have the special Patriots’ Day Boston home white that we wear once a year. So we really are a five-plus-one, which is pretty cool.”