Sports uniforms are a fascinating intersection of branding, history, utility, and fashion. The best ones\u2014like the New York Yankees pinstripes, or the Green Bay Packers green and gold threads\u2014are iconic and have inspired many other uniforms. The worst ones are either forgettable or crimes against aesthetic value.<\/p>\n
With the World Baseball Classic coming up, you would think that it would be an opportunity for Nike and designers to partner together to create some really interesting uniforms. Team Japan\u2019s uniforms, for instance, are the same as the WBC from 2023 and are truly fantastic. The pinstripes, the colors\u2026just so good.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for everyone else, though, the Japanese team is the only team in the whole tournament that has its own design. Every other team may have their own colors, but follow a specific Nike template. This first popped out to me when the Royals posted photos of their WBC players in uniforms that just seemed, well, very same-y.<\/p>\n
And if you look at the whole set of uniforms, the template becomes super obvious. Every team has a white and a color uniform. Except for Japan, every team features the same piping design on the color uniforms, and only Chinese Taipei features a logo that\u2019s not the team name printed across the front. There are no grey uniforms.<\/p>\n
This is incredibly boring, in my opinion, and the fact that the Japanese uniforms exist in such a glorious fashion is sort of infuriating because it represents what things could have been. I mean, come on, the flag of the United States is \u201cStars and Stripes.\u201d You mean to tell me that we can\u2019t have a pinstriped baseball uniform that mirrors the flag? That would be too cool. No powder blues, no grey uniforms, no interesting designs or usage of other country flags?<\/p>\n
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So while I must set aside my disappointment because it is something I cannot change, I can at least marvel at Bobby Witt Jr.\u2019s bat that he\u2019s wielding, because that is so dang cool. I mean, come on. It has a bald eagle on it.<\/p>\n
Witt\u2019s Instagram posts says that this is a \u201cVictus Valiant Bat. Modeled by @bwitter7, the Valiant\u2019s design incorporating the Bald Eagle, is a tribute to the seal of the United States which represents Freedom, Strength and Liberty.\u201d<\/p>\n
I hope to God he uses it in a WBC game. Heck, I hope he gets to use it in an MLB game this year, maybe during player\u2019s weekend. We need more fun in baseball like that. Especially when the rest of the WBC uniforms are so bland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sports uniforms are a fascinating intersection of branding, history, utility, and fashion. The best ones\u2014like the New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[146,5,3398,1351,1081,936,2123,55,2596,2595,792,4,73,62,252,66,33559,68472,105,468,2479,10315,4820],"class_list":["post-610073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kansas-city-royals","tag-arizona","tag-baseball","tag-bobby-witt","tag-bobby-witt-jr","tag-green-bay-packers","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-kansascity","tag-kansascityroyals","tag-masataka-yoshida","tag-mlb","tag-munetaka-murakami","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-royals","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-scottsdale","tag-scottsdale-stadium","tag-seiya-suzuki","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-sports-uniforms","tag-team-japan","tag-world-baseball-classic"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116183237076006389","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}