The Milwaukee Brewers played the nostalgia card on Thursday.
In an announcement published on all their social media channels , the Brewers unveiled brand-new road jerseys for the upcoming season. They’re channeling the heydays of Paul Molitor and Robin Yount and wearing powder blue jerseys, and they made a vintage-themed hype video to commemorate the change, featuring a guest appearance from All-Star pitcher Jacob Misiorowski.
According to Chris Creamer of Sportslogos.net, the Brewers will be replacing their road gray tops with the powder blues, though it remains to be seen whether the new jerseys or the existing navy blue tops will be the club’s primary road look.
Where Brewers are missing the mark with uniform reveal
There was one major oversight, though. The powder blue alternate/road jerseys worn by every other club in the majors these days has powder blue pants to match — and it’s a large sample size. The Texas Rangers, Kansas City Royals, Toronto Blue Jays, and St. Louis Cardinals all regularly wore powder blue tops and bottoms this year.
Though Creamer’s report said the jerseys were “paired” with gray pants, we’ll await further confirmation that the Brewers don’t intend to unveil powder blue pants to go with the look. Maybe only the jerseys were ready for production, as we know Nike has had all sorts of issues with their baseball manufacturing in the past couple of years.
However, at one point in the hype montage, Misiorowski was depicted wearing a digitally-altered blue jersey in game action, and not blue pants. That would seem to suggest that the team does plan to go with the gray pants moving forward.
If so, that’s an unforced error. The only other team with a light blue jersey that gets worn over gray pants in the majors is the Tampa Bay Rays, and to be frank, it’s not a pretty sight.
Public opinion also matters, and right now, the Brewers’ comment sections are being flooded by fans upset over the lack of matching blue pants. So perhaps there’s still hope that a change could be made, whether it’s done before the season or in the future to match up with some arbitrary manufacturing timeline.
Milwaukee will make much more important decisions this winter, like whether to trade ace Freddy Peralta and who to start at shortstop for most of their games. But for those of us that love baseball aesthetics, these new uniforms feel like a missed opportunity.