I had a pretty detailed assessment of the Twins’ new uniform set on Friday. But I was so focused on those granular details that I overlooked a larger story emerging from that unveiling — or at least implied by it.
Here’s the deal: As you may recall, Nike was test-driving a new baseball uni template in 2021. The Royals wore it in spring training that year, and the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders wore it during their regular season. The new template had several small details that deviated from the longstanding Majestic template, the most visible of which was the use of mesh rear-numeral fabric:
At the time, Nike was still using the Majestic template, so we were all wondering if this new template would be used in 2022. But as I wrote in my 2022 MLB Season Preview, “A source tells Uni Watch that those plans [for the new template] have been pushed back at least to 2023, and possibly even 2024.”
And then, frankly, I kind of forgot all about the new template, so it wasn’t on my mind when the Twins unveiled their new set last Friday. But as you can see in the photo at the top of this page (and in several other rear-view photos from the unveiling), the Twins’ new rear-jersey numbers are standard tackle twill, not mesh. None of the other tailoring details from the 2021 test-drive template are included in the new Twins set either — it’s still the Majestic tailoring.
Obviously, they wouldn’t have unveiled this set in the existing template if they were planning to introduce the new tailoring next spring for the 2023 season. So it appears that the new Nike cut is indeed being pushed back until at least 2024.
None of this happened to me until yesterday. I’ve now confirmed via another source that nothing template-wise is planned for 2023. Personally, I count this as good news.