Two separate MLB City Connect uniform stories in two days in January?! You gotta love it.
Just one day after that news from the Cardinals, today, thanks to a reliable source over at Uni Watch, the Internet has its first look at some of the leaked elements relating to the future City Connect uniforms of the Atlanta Braves and Seattle Mariners. Both leaks are simple logos on t-shirts; they give us a hint of the overall theme while not revealing the total uniform package or additional design elements.
Starting with Atlanta, the Braves City Connect leak shows the scripted uppercase “A” from the club’s regular home and road caps, re-coloured in a lighter blue with white and red trim, the word “The” to the left in red lettering matching the style of the “A.” Below that is an homage to the late Hank Aaron’s record-breaking 715th career home run, which he hit back in April 1974, passing Babe Ruth as the all-time home run king. The number “715” is shown in white, similar to how the outfield scoreboard at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium celebrated the milestone home run as Aaron rounded the bases.
My guess is that this uniform will be like a Reverse Retro set; in this brief peek, we see the current Braves logos with the 1970s Braves colours. Perhaps a combination of the modern Braves cap with the white-panelled, lighter blue, feathered uniform that Aaron wore the day he set the record.
Heading northwest to Seattle, this one’s much more simpler to figure out — the Mariners City Connect t-shirt shows a modified version of the road jersey “Seattle” script worn by the one-and-done Seattle Pilots (note the lowercase ‘a’ is different). The Pilots played just one season in the American League in 1969 before relocating to Milwaukee (in just their second season!), where they still play today in the National League as the Brewers. The original Pilots road uniforms were powder blue, which shows the yellow wordmark on royal blue, so here I go Reverse Retroing again… let’s call it a combination of the 1977-92 Mariners colour scheme with the 1969 Pilots design. That could work quite well!
Both these uniforms will be released either during the upcoming 2023 season or in 2024. In his post, Mr. Lukas theorizes that it’ll be 2024, as it perfectly aligns with the 50th anniversary of Hank Aaron’s home run. While that absolutely makes the most sense, personally, I think they’ll be coming in 2023 simply because the merchandise is already getting set to be ordered, and I’m not sure they’d be doing that for 2024 this early. Time will tell! Either way, it’s nice to be talking new baseball uniforms again after a relatively uneventful off-season.
Related stories:
Pittsburgh Pirates Unveil New City Connect Uniform: Bleeding Black and Gold 
Baltimore Orioles Reveal Black & White City Connect Uniform with Surprise Inside 
Power of Red: Cincinnati Reds Unveil New City Connect Uniform from Nike 
Mariners New City Connect Uniform Taps Into City’s Long Baseball History 
Dreaming the Big Dream: Texas Rangers Unveil New City Connect Uniforms 
Texas Rangers To Unveil City Connect Uniforms On April 17 
For the A and the Hammer: Atlanta Braves Unveil New City Connect Uniforms 
2023 MLB All-Star Game Logo Unveiled, Pays Tribute to Seattle and Pacific Northwest