With a focus on “the resilient mentality of Chicago’s Southside community”, the Chicago White Sox this morning unveiled the club’s new Nike MLB City Connect uniform – the third of seven teams scheduled to do so during this collection’s inaugural campaign.
The White Sox will début their new City Connect uniforms on ♫ the Southside of Chicago ♫ next weekend – Saturday, June 5th against the Detroit Tigers.
It’s a dark grey uniform base with white pinstripes, a reverse of the club’s typical home set, with “Southside” scripted across the front in their familiar Gothic-style typeface.
“The Chicago White Sox have a history of putting their fans at the centre of the design process — the team’s current identity was heavily influenced by their fans’ feedback,” said Wil Green, Nike Sr. Creative Director, MLB. “For the White Sox jersey in this [City Connect] series, fans were again an important part of the process. Nike and the White Sox identified fan-inspired insights to design a new uniform that honours the Southside.”
The White Sox new City Connect uniform features a textured pattern with inspiration from the Windy City’s “Greystone” architectural style. The team’s usual alternate logo of a single white sock on a black diamond is on the left sleeve, each sleeve is capped off with a white and grey stripe. Down at the “jock tag”, embroidered in white, is their road “Chicago” script — this will not be seen on-field as it will be tucked into their equally dark grey pants, which carry on the same pinstripe and Greystone textured pattern from the jersey.
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Player numbers on the front and back of the jerseys are white with grey trim and styled as if they were a natural extension of the font used for the usual “SOX” logo used by the team.
“The White Sox’ identity – black and white, gothic script, and pinstripes – are so strong that it has resonated beyond the game of baseball,” Green added. “Their uniforms speak to the strength and hardworking nature of the Southside of Chicago without saying a word. We wanted to harness the Southside’s personality for the Nike MLB City Connect Series and introduce its attitude to newer, younger fans.”
The ballcap is a black crown with “Chi” in white and grey using the same typeface and presented diagonally in the same manner as their primary “Sox” logo.
“Every aspect of this collaboration is meant to connect with people who understand what the ‘Southside’ represents. It’s not just about where our ballpark is located. It’s a mentality shared by many who love the White Sox,” White Sox chief revenue and marketing officer Brooks Boyer said in the press release. “The Nike MLB City Connect Series created a rare opportunity to transform a concept for all people who know what it means to represent the ‘Southside’ into an on-field look and style.”
The idea of the City Connect uniform series was to recognize the relationship between each city and its Major League ballclub. Uniforms are designed by Nike in close collaboration with each team with a goal of recognizing each community’s unique essence while also pushing “the boundaries of baseball uniform design by bringing in details, colours, mottos, and more that are important to the city”
“We developed all the Nike MLB City Connect Series uniforms with the clubs. We worked together on every part of the designs and felt confident about the finished uniforms because it was based on each club’s knowledge of their city,” finished Green. “We expect baseball fans and each city’s citizens will gravitate to the jerseys because each club is honouring and celebrating what makes their home special.”
Back in early April, the Boston Red Sox unveiled their yellow and baby blue City Connect uniforms paying tribute to the city’s annual Boston Marathon and their Patriots’ Day celebrations, the very traditional Red Sox wore the very non-traditional design for two games.
Just last Monday, the Miami Marlins released their design which recognized the legacy of the Havana Sugar Kings ballclub of the 1950s. An all-red uniform with white pinstripes, the uniform was met with a mostly positive response from both Marlin and baseball fans in general when they were worn for three.
The White Sox haven’t revealed how often they’ll wear their City Connect uniform beyond the game on June 5th against Detroit, but we do know that teams will be keeping their designs for three seasons, so expect to see this new “Southside” uniform for at least one more game in each of the 2022 and 2023 seasons.
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Chicago is just the third of seven City Connect uniforms to be revealed in 2021, up next are their cross-town rivals – the Chicago Cubs, who we would expect to see revealed next week. Following the Cubs, we’ll get the Arizona Diamondbacks, San Francisco Giants, and Los Angeles Dodgers.
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