NEW YORK (AP) — Aaron Judge is proud to be an old-school New York Yankee and now he has a road uniform to match.
His suggestion three years ago led the team to ditch the away jerseys used for the past half-century in favor of a return to retro, without the white trim instituted during a bleak period in the early 1970s. Traditionally, New York started with a 26-11 road record this year, the best in the Major Leagues.
When the Yankees played the Chicago White Sox in the opening game. Field of Dreams game In August 2021 in Dyersville, Iowa, Major League Baseball dressed teams in retro attire based on 1919 styles. Judge loved the look and mentioned it to Rob Cucuzza, the Yankees’ home clubhouse manager since 1998. .
“I really just asked, ‘Could we use it as an alternative? I like the way it looks, the way it feels,’” Judge recalled. “I didn’t expect them to be our away jerseys.”
After three years of discussions internally and with MLB, the Yankees discarded the away threads in use since 1973 in favor of the style used from 1931 to 1972, a period of 17 World Series titles.
“I thought it was really cool,” said Giancarlo Stanton, who supported the change. “They looked great coming out of the cornfields.”
Beginning play as the New York Highlanders in 1903, the team was renamed the Yankees in 1913. “New York” first appeared on the chest of the away jerseys in 1911, and pinstripes were added to the away jerseys for 1916 and 2017, later removed. by 1918 when the sleeves were adorned with red, white and blue stripes. The familiar version has been around since 1919, except when “Yankees” replaced “New York” on the chest between 1927 and 1930.
The homey pinstripe design with the words “NY” intertwined on the left chest, created by Tiffany & Co. for the New York Police Department’s Medal of Valor in 1877, was not permanently maintained until 1936, two years after Babe Ruth’s last season in the Bronx.
Embracing tradition and rejecting innovation, the Yankees along with the Oakland Athletics are the only teams not releasing the extravagant Nike City Connect jerseys that other clubs have released since 2021.
New York’s road jerseys had only minor modifications, such as spacing, until 1973, when white piping was added around the letters and numbers, and also on the sleeve cuffs. According to Marty Appel, then the team’s public relations director, the change came in conjunction with the change from flannel uniforms to double-knit uniforms.
In Iowa, Cucuzza asked Judge what he thought of the setbacks.
“He says, ‘This is what we should wear,’” Cucuzza recalled. “I said, ‘Well, if you’re serious, I’ll have them prepare a sample for you.’ He needs the approval of the owners and we will see where he goes.’”
Cucuzza called the representative he deals with at Fanatics, which produces uniforms with Nike, and gave the sample to owner Hal Steinbrenner when they spoke in the Yankees clubhouse.
“He said we can go back more to how things were in the ’60s, the days of Mickey Mantle,” Steinbrenner explained. “And at the same time, they never liked wives. They never liked wives. Some of these guys, like Stanton, for example, don’t wear anything underneath and it’s a little abrasive.”
Steinbrenner discussed the change with team president Randy Levine, chief operating officer Lonn Trost and general manager Brian Cashman, then gave the go-ahead.
“It wasn’t a major change, which you can see by the City Connect t-shirts which we’re not fans of,” Trost said. “This seemed to be something to do with the maintenance of the Yankee jersey, the look of the Yankees.”
New York worked from fall 2022 to spring 2023 with Major League Baseball’s global design department and the Authentic Collection group, which coordinates with Nike and Fanatics. The older-style jerseys, in Vapor Premier fabric instead of flannel, debuted for this season’s opener on March 28 in Houston.
For the first half of the season, New York has been playing like the Yankees of old.
“I liked their old t-shirts with white trim,” Judge said, “but this one gives them a good old-school look.”
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