A jersey has appeared on eBay, and it’s been decided that it’s the Phillies’ City Connect jersey. Is it actually that? Who knows. I remember when images of the Orioles’ version were leaked and I laughed and said, “Well that can’t possibly be it.”
Regardless, for today, this is what’s real. And, even more predictably than an image of the jersey potentially leaking, everyone is mad.
There’s a lot being critiqued: The gradience, the font, the fact that it says “Philly” and not “Phillies” (though it is, possibly, a City Connect jersey, so using the city’s name does make sense). We are not a city of half-measures, at least not emotionally. So in that way, this jersey is a success, in that it is a full-blown recreation of a Philadelphia Union kit (and that it’s sent fans into hysterics).
Initially, I felt a Phillies uniform featuring blue and yellow like the city flag would do the job of a City Connect jersey: It’s a departure from what they normally wear, and its color scheme reflects the city in a way that’s recognizable to locals. It would capture an aesthetic of Philadelphia, if not the spirit. But frankly, trying to jam the spirit of Philadelphia onto a jersey would be like trying to catch a squirrel in a T-shirt.
Anyway, then the worst thing possible happened: Time. The “city flag” idea began to get stale, though a concept based on the Phillies’ 1934 uniforms wasn’t the worst thing in the world. For years, we watched other teams get their City Connect jerseys, and we saw what worked and didn’t work, and—get this—not everyone agreed about what worked and didn’t work. By that point, there was no hopeful anticipation of what the Phillies’ jerseys would look like. There was just dread as to how they were going to screw it up.
How do you think the people who designed those alternate Sixers jerseys with Boathouse Row on them felt when the most prominent responses to their hard work was head-shaking and accusations of cultural ignorance? Well, they probably felt nothing, as their artistic choices made it clear they were dead inside. But still, it was a warning to anyone designing Philly-based Philadelphia jerseys: Everyone is watching, and they are so, so angry at you.
Those are tough conditions to work in as an artist. Look at me, still calling them “dead inside” three years after the fact. What kind of very stable person holds onto anger about a piece of clothing for that long?
I’ll tell you who: A person who is unafraid to be correct.
Listen, I feel bad for whoever’s coming up with this. They have to know they’ve inherited a job as thankless as taking the mic from Harry Kalas. Whatever it winds up being, a large amount of people won’t like it. Some people won’t like it because they’ve planned this whole time to not like it. Some people will just objectively not like it. Maybe the Yankees have taken the right approach by scoffing at the whole City Connect jersey thing entirely while pompously eating an hors d’oeuvres.
I do believe, given our distaste for half-measures like “maybe a new coaching staff will work instead of a new head coach,” that whatever the Phillies’ City Connect jersey is, it could find a way to succeed: By being so over-the-top no one could love it but us.
I will point you toward a late September afternoon in 2018. The Philadelphia Flyers were on the verge of a major franchise breakthrough: Figuring out how to score on a power play Unveiling their new mascot.
“What the hell is this?” the city asked, collectively. The googly eyes. The hideous face. The… newness of it all. It was jarring and unpleasant. It looked like it had just fought its way out of a shower drain. And they named him “Gritty” for god’s sake. Wasn’t that a little on the nose? Also, he didn’t have a nose.
Maybe a single day later, Only Gritty Was Above the Law.
What changed? Well, someone who wasn’t from Philadelphia weighed in about how bad the new mascot looked. And suddenly, he went from something we didn’t like to something other people didn’t like about us. The city took ownership of Gritty (and vice versa) and in an instant, a furry orange god-king was born. And he now walks the streets of our city with lumbering steps and, I assume, legal impunity.
So whatever the Phillies City Connect jersey winds up being, whether it’s this Union thing somebody saw on eBay or not, you’re probably going to hate it. And then someone will wear it to a tailgate ironically. And somebody will wear one with the sleeves ripped off. And somebody will wear one tied into a knot. And the innovative, inebriated core of this city will run with it and make it ours, culminating in some New York sports radio guy saying it’s the dumbest thing they’ve ever seen, or FOX Sports ranking it in the bottom third of the City Connect jerseys, and suddenly we’ll all be wearing them to Thanksgiving.
Personally, though, I think there is a jersey that fits the city better than just about any other concept. With most of the other MLB teams having theirs already, we have the benefit of going last and can use their models as the basis from which to differentiate ourselves.
I said this morning that the fact that a leaked jersey that has sleeves is a non-starter for me, because in time, I’ve come to realize that a look like that fits the current Phillies very well. It would be a cool twist on the idea of jerseys in general. And it would embody the spirit of the city so, so well, as long as you put the right image on the front.
