Four of the Rockies players — Connor Joe, hometown hero Kyle Freeland, German Marquez and Ryan McMahon — posed for photos in the new uniforms on Loveland Pass.
The design shows the Rocky Mountains covered in green, with "Colorado" across the front in white, making the jersey look like a well-placed ad for the state's license plate. A purple Nike swoosh — an homage to the purple mountains — sits above the peaks as the green dips downward, fully covering the pants, which have a purple pinstripe on the side. The white baseball belt highlights the snowcapped mountains.
The hats are a tribute to Colorful Colorado, with an emblem of the purple Rocky Mountains and a perfectly blue sky with "CO" in the middle encircled by red, yellow and blue rings. The rest of the hat alternates green and white. The jerseys, too, have "Welcome to Colorful Colorado" four-color stitching that's only visible when they're untucked.
Perhaps the only corny aspect of the jersey is a bright-yellow patch with a vertical "ROX" next to a double black diamond symbol, "5280" and the exact latitude and longitude coordinates for Coors Field. But according to the Rockies, the yellow patch is supposed to mimic the expiration sticker on a license plate. So there's that.
Still, we're thankful that the new jerseys look better than some of the other City Connect options to come out so far. The San Francisco Giants City Connect jerseys, for example, look like jerseys for a Creamsicle-themed children's traveling baseball team. And the Boston Red Sox City Connect uniforms, which are powder blue and yellow, look like UCLA jerseys.
The MLB launched its City Connect program in 2021 as a way to mix up alternate uniforms for teams. So these won't be the primary outfits for the Rockies; those remain the purple and white uniforms. The Rockies will first wear the jerseys officially on Saturday, June 4, in a game against the Atlanta Braves.
Jim Kellogg, vice president of community and retail operations for the Rockies, says that the team has been working on the uniform design for the past two years with Nike. "We're going to wear them every Sunday at home. City Connect Sundays is what we're going to call it," says Kellogg. "What was unique about that was the numerical font is unique to our license plate. The zero is a little bit different. We've incorporated that into our jerseys."
This City Connect jersey version will last for three years, Kellogg adds, and then a new design will be unveiled.
That's because at its core, the City Connect program is just a merchandising money grab by the MLB and its teams. But if we're going to be suckers, let's at least be suckers for a good product, which is the case here.fixed it pic.twitter.com/jQCU0ef5pK
— Josh Handszer (@joshhandszer) May 27, 2022
However, Twitter user Josh Handzer did suggest one edit that could make the jerseys even better: slapping a big ol' Coors Light logo on the front, blue mountains and all.
Play ball!
