Early developments The
New York Knickerbockers were the first baseball team to wear uniforms, taking the field on April 4, 1849, in pants made of blue wool, white
flannel shirts and
straw hats. The practice of wearing a uniform soon spread, and by 1900, all
Major League Baseball teams had adopted them. By 1882 most uniforms included stockings, which covered the leg from foot to knee, and were used to differentiate one club from another. The uniforms themselves had different colors and patterns that reflected the different
baseball positions. In the late 1880s, the
Detroit Wolverines and
Washington Nationals of the
National League and the
Brooklyn Bridegrooms of the
American Association were the first to wear striped uniforms.
Home and road uniforms , wearing a
New York Giants pinstriped baseball uniform, c.1912–18 By the end of the 19th century, teams began the practice of wearing one of two different uniforms, one when they played in their own
baseball stadium and a different one when they played
on the road. It became common to wear white at home and one of gray, solid dark blue, or black on the road. Some teams used light blue for their road uniforms from the 1970s to the early 1990s.
Satin uniforms were developed by several teams including the Brooklyn Dodgers for night games, as the sheen of the fabric was more reflective and thus easier to see. but since the Yankees had already been wearing pinstripes a few years before Ruth played for them in 1920, the legend is most likely a myth. The Yankees' pinstripes on their home uniforms soon became a team symbol. In 1916, the
Cleveland Indians became the first team to add numbers on their uniforms, positioned on the left sleeve of the home uniforms only. (Okkonen, p. 36, p. 120) In most parts of the world,
numbers are no more than two digits long; however, Japanese players who are on their team's developmental roster have three-digit numbers. Major league teams typically assign the highest numbers (#50 and above) in spring training to the players who are not expected to make the regular-season roster; hence the lower numbers are considered more prestigious, although there are many veterans who wear high numbers anyway. Two Hall of Famers who wore high numbers are
Don Drysdale, who wore #53 for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers, and
Carlton Fisk, who wore #72 for the
Chicago White Sox (reverse of the #27 he wore with the
Boston Red Sox; Fisk also was the
American League Rookie of the Year in 1972).
Controversy over major league baseball teams' newly redesigned uniforms erupted during spring training in 2024. Major League Baseball debuted a slate of new uniforms that were designed by
Nike and manufactured by
Fanatics. Many players were upset with the way the jerseys looked, saying that the smaller numbers and letters made them feel as if they were wearing replicas. One player complained that the team name on jerseys for the
Philadelphia Phillies was off-center. Concerns about the new uniform pants included the observation that tucked in jerseys were visible through home white pants. In response, Nike issued a statement saying that "We will continue to work with MLB, the players, and our manufacturing partner to address player uniforms."
Cap styles Caps, or other types of headgear with eye-shades, have been a part of baseball uniforms from the beginning. From the 1840s to the 1870s, baseball players wore various types of hats, or even no cap at all, since there was no official rule regarding headgear. Examples included full-brimmed
straw hats such as
boating caps,
jockey caps,
cycling caps, and flat-topped caps. By the early years of the twentieth century, this style of cap had become common, but some teams occasionally revived the flat-topped cap, such as the
New York Giants in 1916 and the
Pittsburgh Pirates as recently as during the
1979 World Series. More recently, players have worn hats with fold-down ear flaps in cold weather.
Shoes In the late 19th century, soft but durable leather shoes were the preferred choice of baseball players. In the 1970s, as
artificial turf became prominent on
developed countries' baseball fields, modifications to footwear became necessary.
Detachable spikes became popular in the 20th century, as they helped players to avoid slipping, especially on turf, but they were banned in 1976. In the 19th century and the first part of the 20th, baseball shoes were commonly black in color. In the 1960s, the Kansas City Athletics began wearing revolutionary white shoes, a tradition carried over when they moved to Oakland. Since then, some teams are wearing colored cleats corresponding to their team colors. For example, the
Philadelphia Phillies and
St. Louis Cardinals now wear red cleats, the
Chicago Cubs and the
Los Angeles Dodgers wear blue cleats, and some of the
San Francisco Giants players wear orange cleats. In recent years, however, players are now allowed to wear cleats regardless of team color, and often customize them as a form of self-expression.
Stockings and pants :
See footnote and Baseball stirrups Inspired by the
Cincinnati Red Stockings, the stocking colors of teams in the 1860s onward were a principal device in distinguishing one team from another (hence team names such as the
Chicago White Stockings,
St. Louis Brown Stockings (or Browns), etc.). Except for a few "candy-cane" varieties (particularly by the
New York Giants,
St. Louis Cardinals and
Washington Senators), striping was quite minimal during the 1920s and, in contrast, a revival of other sorts in the early 1930s. wearing traditional knee-breeches By the 1990s, new styles of close-trimmed pants legs made it possible for players to wear pants that ran clear to the shoetops, in lieu of the traditional
knee-breeches style that had prevailed for generations. This led to a violation of the literal concept of a "uniform", in that different players on a given team might wear knee-length and full-length pants on the field at the same time. Players such as
Manny Ramirez took this fashion trend to an extreme, wearing loose-fitting pants whose legs nearly lapped under the heels of the shoes. Some, such as
Gary Sheffield, even developed straps that hooked under the cleats. Meanwhile, players such as
Alfonso Soriano continued to wear the traditional
knee-breeches, though most of these players still lacked the traditional
stirrups. By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, nearly all players wore either traditional knee-high socks or pants that covered the shoetops and contained no elastic in the bottom. Such loose-fitting pants were called "pro-flare", as they are worn by most major league players. However, a few older players, like
Derek Jeter, wore pants that stopped right at the shoes, like the style of the late 1990s/early 2000s. In recent years teams that wear throwback uniforms usually outfit themselves with stirrups or knee-breeches, to simulate the look of a particular era. In addition, some teams began to wear stockings with stripes. Examples include the
Tampa Bay Rays sporting Columbia blue and white striping on their navy stockings, the
St. Louis Cardinals with navy and white stripes on their red stockings, and the
San Francisco Giants in black stockings with orange stripes.
Graphics and logos sporting an Old English "E" for his team,
Excelsior, ca.1860–1862 From the beginning,
graphic designs were used to identify teams. Often an Old English letter was worn on the chest. This style survives with the
Detroit Tigers and their gothic style "D" on their home jerseys and caps and the
Athletics, who currently have an Old English "A" on their caps and their alternative jerseys. As official nicknames gained prominence in the early 1900s (in contrast to media-generated and unofficial nicknames of prior generations), pictorial logos began emerging as part of the team's marketing. Some early examples include a small red tiger on the black cap of the 1901 Detroit Tigers, as they were officially the Tigers from the beginning; and a bear cub logo on the Chicago Cubs shirts by 1907, as that unofficial nickname was then adopted officially by the club. In another famous example, the Boston Americans (an unofficial designation that merely distinguished them from their across-the-tracks rivals) adopted the Nationals' abandoned red stockings in , and have been the
Boston Red Sox officially ever since then. By the 1930s, nearly every team had distinctive logos, letters or the team nickname on their home shirts, as part of the team's marketing. The trend of the city name on the road jerseys continued. In recent years, with team nicknames being so strongly associated with the clubs, logos that were once only used at home also turned up on road jerseys, in place of city names.
Non-player uniforms Baseball is unique among team sports in that a team's non-playing staff (including
managers,
coaches,
bullpen catchers,
batboys, and
ball boys) wear the same uniforms as the team's players, with their own assigned
uniform numbers; this is an vestigial remnant of when players on a team often held a dual role of being a
player-manager. ==Notes==