DENVER -- The Denver skyline against the snowcapped Rocky Mountains is breathtaking from a Coors Field view. Now fans can see those vivid colors when they look down to the field at their Rockies.
The Rockies’ new Nike City Connect uniforms, officially revealed and made available to fans on Saturday morning, are a nod to the team’s identity with psychic purple, and flash the vivid colors of cobalt blue, razor pink and laser orange. The Rockies will take the field in the uniforms for the first time on Friday, April 18, against the Nationals, and wear them for every Friday home game for the rest of the season.
They replace the dark green Colorado license plate-based design -- one that some judges rated as the best or among the handful of best City Connect uniforms in the sport.
How about this one?
“I like it, man,” Rockies third baseman Ryan McMahon said. “It’s a little louder than our last ones. So it should be cool.”
The old City Connect pulled off the delicate feat of making green pop, even though players were on a green field with a green wall. There’s no blending in with this one.
“The license plate program was a little conservative,” said Jim Kellogg, the Rockies’ vice president of community and retail operations. “It was awesome, and the story was great. And so this is a complete 180 change from that, which is what it should be.
“We have a young team, so we want to make sure that we're tying into a new day, a new sunrise and sunset. Nike came up with these colors looking at the sunsets that we had. It’s bold and it’s fun.”
All of the City Connect uniforms throughout MLB come with a story that explains the various elements. In many cases, there are many equal yarns for many elements. There is little need to squint at subtleties to get the message. Anyone who has enjoyed a game at Coors, or spent an evening looking to the west just after sundown, knows.
There is a subtlety: The ripstop pattern in the fabric, according to the press release, “is inspired by the classic clothing materials worn by skiers and snowboarders. Ripstop fabric boasts the reputation of not only being unfazed by the harsh conditions of the slopes, but also malleable for the changing landscape experiences on the mountains.”
The Rockies needed a vivid story to follow the design based on Colorado’s unique license plate. The sky provided the answer.
“It's creating conversation around our brand, our team,” Kellogg said. “Not everyone is going to like this. Everyone is different. We all have different palettes and different things that we want to do that's fine with us. We're just trying to put something out there that's fun.
“And if you're taking it too seriously, you're taking it too seriously.”
Two features of the uniform are expected to be pleasing to the players: the pullover jersey (the first of Nike’s City Connect series with such a feature) with the unique collar is reminiscent of what players wear before turning pro. Many players who grew up with pullovers either keep their shirts buttoned to put on or take off, anyhow. Some around the game wear jerseys with the placket sewn, so buttons on top are for show.
Also, the previous City Connect was designed with dark green pants, but players complained of them being hot during day games. This one was designed with white pants.
Kellogg noted that the primary Purple Pinstripes look remains the Rockies’ top-selling authentic jersey, and that isn’t expected to change. But the previous City Connect program, from the jersey to the various other apparel items, was a hit with fans who wanted Rockies items that went with other colors in their own wardrobes.
There is no shortage of colors, and no shortage of items for fans. Elements such as the reimagined Rockies logo of the baseball soaring beyond the mountain tops, unique sleeve patches and the self-explanatory DEN on the “jock tag” of the jersey offer plenty of opportunities for color combinations and logos for fan gear.
(The “jock tag” is not visible during games; however, fans tend not to tuck an authentic jersey when wearing it -- so it’s a fashion statement.)
“We're going to have a whole lifestyle assortment of merchandise around this,” Kellogg said. “Eventually, not right away, we'll have 35 different hats for people to wear. We're going to have way more clothing and apparel, casual clothing and lifestyle clothing than we did with the first one.”