With another baseball season fast approaching, all eyes will be on the game’s stars taking the field. Up-and-coming talents like Julio Rodriguez, Adley Rutschman and Evan Carter join established veterans and stars such as Aaron Judge, José Altuve and Corey Seager. New storylines are being forged in Los Angeles, the Yankees aim to break over a decade of mediocrity and the Rangers will fight tooth and nail to return to the promised land of October baseball. If only the MLB’s uniforms weren’t atrocious to look at.
Introduced in the offseason, the MLB’s new uniforms — produced by the company Fanatics — have been getting ripped to shreds online, and for good reason. The newly introduced uniforms look terrible, with many criticizing them for their cheap appearance and poor fit. However, the criticisms blew up even more once photos were released, focusing on areas in a … let’s say, “vulnerable” part of the uniform.
The pants, meant to be more breathable and lightweight for players, have the unfortunate consequence of being semi-transparent and exposing tucked in shirttails. In addition to shirttails, photos emerged during Spring Training of the pants offering far too much visibility, revealing dark-colored underwear and inappropriate outlines. It was so bad that even Under Armour posted a tweet making fun of the pants controversy, further damaging the brand and reputation of a company with an already rocky public perception.
Besides exposing players’ sensitive areas, Fanatics uniforms have been torn apart literally and figuratively for their quality. For almost a decade, fans from multiple leagues, including the MLB, have publicly complained about poorly produced Fanatics equipment. One lesser-known gaffe from last season came in the NFL, where a Baltimore Ravens baseball cap had the name of their most hated rival, the Pittsburgh Steelers, on the front. Last Christmas, fans across the country were left devastated as products with horrible quality control issues made it into customers’ hands — with many arriving too late to return before Dec. 25.
The jerseys’ quality issues have reached the point of annoying players as well. Numerous players, such as reliever Matt Strahm and outfielder Nick Castellanos, have been critical of the uniforms, calling them cheap and criticizing the quality of the fabric. The callouts highlight issues between the players union and the MLB as a whole, adding a small (but not insignificant) chapter to years of tension between the players’ union and the league.
Fanatics find themselves under fire from multiple fronts — not just the MLB. The NHL and NFL have had quality control issues with the company that date back to much earlier than this season. Upside-down logos, misspelled names, fake stitching and so much more have marred the name of Fanatics to the point of being almost unsalvageable.
The issues don’t just include fan gear; they even extend to official player equipment. Michael Chavis, an infielder for the Seattle Mariners, posted a photo of the back of his jersey for Spring Training. The letters of his jersey were skewed and crooked, and the number itself wasn’t properly centered in the middle of the back. In a hilarious slip-up, Fanatics, who thought it was a fan jersey, reached out and offered to replace it — not realizing that the person they were talking to was a professional player. Things have gotten so bad for the company that an entire social media account has been dedicated to trashing Fanatics, using the title “Fanatics Sucks” on X (formerly Twitter).
Unfortunately for fans and players, this issue isn’t likely to go away. Similar to how sports fans feel about the Electronic Arts monopoly in video games, they have no option but to purchase subpar products due to exclusive rights deals with leagues. As long as Fanatics has money to shell out, they’ll continue to scoop up exclusive deals and force cheap products onto everyone. Rather than focus on the bad, however, we need to look at the MLB optimistically moving into the new season. The cracks of bats and the crowd’s roar will soon return to ballparks across the nation, and there’s nothing more exciting than Opening Day. My only recommendation? Try to avoid looking below the belt.
