Blue Jays and Royals Both Dress the Part for Canada Day

The Toronto Blue Jays are welcoming the Kansas City Royals to Rogers Centre for their annual Canada Day game this afternoon and as usual the Blue Jays will wear a special red-and-white uniform for the occasion.

And the Kansas City Royals? They’ll join in the fun too, adding a Canadian flag patch to the front of their alternate blue jersey.

Toronto has been sporting special uniforms for their Canada Day game off-and-on since 1996, for the last three seasons the design has been standardized as the club officially adopted a red-and-white uniform as a bonafide alternate jersey. While the backs of the jerseys once read “CANADA” in place of the player’s name, this practice was discontinued in favour of bringing the player’s names back in 2017 – it remains that way today.

Their opponents over these 20-or-so games have typically avoided taking part in the festivities, exceptions include the Philadelphia Phillies who wore a Canadian flag patch on their cap in 2006 and the Cleveland Indians who added one to their jersey sleeve in 2016.

Phillies wearing a Canadian flag in 2006

Indians with a Canadian flag patch in 2016

The Boston Red Sox, the victims of league-wide poor planning and, well, just generally not having their head on straight, wore stars-and-striped themed 4th of July uniforms during their game in Toronto on July 1, 2017 for Canada’s 150th birthday.

Kudos to the Royals, well done, this Canadian appreciates the gesture.