Baltimore Is Back
There's a new old, much-requested look on Orioles' uniforms
By Pete Kerzel
Among hot-button topics on sports talk radio and around water coolers, it has sizzled for more than a generation, eliciting passionate pleas and confounded disbelief. It has been a source of embarrassment for civic-minded baseball fans whose love of the game predates an era of franchise regionalization. Since 1972, only half of the Baltimore Orioles' name has been proudly displayed on the team's uniforms, and the missing geographic designation has ruffled more than a few feathers.
Until now.
Welcome back, Baltimore. Where have you been? What have you been doing? Why did it take so long for you to return?
TRACKING THE CHANGES
Baltimore is back on the road jerseys, but that's far from the only change undertaken by the Orioles, who have re-tooled their corporate identity, including their primary logo and uniforms. Changes were announced during a Nov. 12 event at The Gallery at Harborplace.
Exactly what's different? Here's a recap of the most significant changes.
The team's primary logo -- which has featured an ornithologically correct oriole overlaid on a green and yellow diamond -- has undergone a major revision. The green and gold diamond, whose design resembled a baseball field and Camden colors were a reminder of the club's home, are gone. The yellow accents on the oriole's beak and wings are now silver, and the three-dimensional script with the team name now mirrors the same design on the team's uniform. One additional change on the bird perched on the "I" in Orioles -- its legs are slightly different, giving it the appearance of taking off.
Changes to the home white uniforms were minor. The team's moniker appears in orange, across the chest, but orange striping has been added to the black striping on the jersey and pants. The most significant addition to the home whites is the introduction of a new patch on the right sleeve. It's a Baltimore Orioles patch -- similar to the one that used to feature a swinging cartoon bird -- but it now encircles a replica of a portion of Maryland's state flag. This tweak introduces the name of the team's home city to the home jersey. The retooled bird logo appears on the team's hat.
The change the masses have been clamoring for appears on the road grey jerseys, where Baltimore appears across the chest in a stylized script that matches the team's name in the primary logo. It's the first time since the 1972 season that Baltimore has adorned the road uniforms. The orange and black striping from the home whites is repeated on the road grays. New tweaks include the appearance of the Orioles script logo on the right sleeve and an Orioles Baseball patch featuring the Maryland flag design on the left sleeve. The Orioles will wear the same hat with their home and road uniforms.
The biggest different in the Orioles' black alternate jersey is that it can now be worn at home or on the road. The Baltimore script appears on the right sleeve -- meaning the city's name is featured on the home, road and alternate jerseys in some form -- and the Orioles Baseball/ Maryland flag patch adorns the left sleeve. The O's alternate cap remains unchanged.
Both batting practice jerseys have been reworked. On the orange home batting practice jersey, white outlines have been added to the black Orioles script and the uniform numbers. The accompanying home hats have also undergone changes -- the layering of the script "O" on the front panel has been removed, creating a cleaner look, and the ear panel has been changed from an orange half-moon to a black panel with orange half-circle striping.
The road batting practice jersey is black with Baltimore in orange script across the chest and players' names now appear in orange on the back.
Minor tweaks were made to the team's batting helmet, which is black with an orange bill, the orange bird logo and an orange button, and the dugout jacket, which remains black with orange Orioles script but now features the nostalgic cartoon bird patch on the left sleeve. |
Long before the Orioles officially restored their hometown's name to their threads this week -- tweaking home, away and alternate jerseys so that Baltimore made an appearance on each and re-tooling the team's logo in a new identity-branding effort -- the mere hint that a long-ago wrong would finally be corrected drew profoundly zealous responses.
"I'd love to see Baltimore back on the road jerseys again. It shows not just pride in being an Oriole, but pride in being a Baltimore Oriole," said Bill Nellies, a systems analyst who lives in Reisterstown and used to be a season ticket mini-plan holder. "I find it awfully interesting that after years of asking and pleading for this that the team has finally conceded. Maybe empty seats in a stadium are louder than filled seats."
Current Orioles managing partner Peter G. Angelos is often the target for criticism over the citified snub, but the decision wasn't his. And it wasn't made by Edward Bennett Williams, who also is incorrectly assigned culpability for igniting the firestorm. The pronouncement came after the 1972 season, when owner Jerold Hoffberger, hoping to capitalize on the departure of the Washington Senators for Texas and bent on luring the D.C. crowd north, decreed that Baltimore be dropped from the road jerseys so he could create a stranglehold on the mid-Atlantic's baseball brethren.
"Baltimoreans are a little insecure and even more insecure in the national image that everyone has of us, those people that say we're not a major league town," said Mike Gibbons, executive director of Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards. "We have an inferiority complex. Back in 1972, when Jerry tried to reach out to more fans from the D.C. area and tried to regionalize us, he didn't have the average Baltimore fan or Baltimore citizen in mind. It hurt and it led to the demise of pro sports around town. If the Orioles were to reintroduce Baltimore to the uniforms, it would repair some of the damage done a long time ago and close up a festering wound."
Baltimore making its long-awaited homecoming to the team's uniforms (see the accompanying sidebar for a full rundown of the tweaks and changes) isn't just a Band-Aid on a long unattended boo-boo. Think of it as the Orioles' way of putting that fast-acting liquid on a cut that makes it disappear, pain and all. The attire might as well be a new skin, devoid of blemishes or imperfections.
"Every club always looks at its brand identity and evaluates where it is within the marketplace and where it is within the industry," said Greg Bader, the Orioles' director of communications. "After not having made a major change to the uniform in several years, not having made a major change to the primary logo in 10 years, we felt it was time to put forth a new identity for the club.
"Mr. Angelos set forth a very clear objective for such a brand identity change. It was to make sure we honored the past, it was to make sure we connected to the community and it was to make sure we looked toward the future."
The cleaner, contemporary look of both the uniforms and the team's primary logo, along with the wholesale way they are applied to the franchise and its fan base, will likely draw raves. The Orioles would have had a panacea in the reintroduction of Baltimore to the road jerseys, but why stop there? Everything from business cards to the logo of the Dugout Club -- which is reprising the nostalgic Junior Orioles designation to its name and logo -- is changing.
A couple of themes are repeated throughout the new uniform designs: the re-appearance of the namesake city on patches that will adorn the home, away and alternate jerseys, and the Maryland flag, featuring the coats of arms of the Calvert and Crossland families. A Baltimore Orioles patch circles the Maryland flag elements on the home jersey, while an Orioles Baseball patch does the same on the road version. If there's a nod toward regionalization in the redesign, Bader said, it's evident in the way the team has latched onto Orioles Baseball as a rallying cry.
"It's a very simple phrase that clearly defines who and what," he said. "It's often the case that some of the simplest brand elements are the most effective. The Orioles, of course, is the who and baseball is the what.
"We're the only professional sports team named Orioles and the [word] 'baseball' just reinforces that. I think people are nostalgic for things they heard growing up or when they first fell in love with the game and 'Orioles Baseball' is a phrase that a lot of people who are fans today heard growing up, heard broadcast on games on radio and on television. I think it resonates with them for that reason."
Maybe so, but fans have been clamoring for the new uniforms since word of the redesign leaked last spring, before a May deadline for the Orioles to inform Major League Baseball of proposed changes.
Bader pointed out that it's not as simple as deciding on a new look and alerting manufacturers. Major League Baseball Properties partners like uniform supplier Majestic and cap designers New Era had to be consulted. The Orioles tested their favorite patterns on local focus groups to get the fan perspective.
Merchants placed their orders long ago without knowing exactly what the new look, well, looked like. At Stadium Sports in Harborplace's Light Street Pavilion, owner Mike Durham is awaiting new stock, perfectly timed for holiday shopping.
"Everybody thinks that it's long overdue. I don't know why they didn't do it before, like when Washington got a baseball team a few years ago," Durham said "But it does take a while to make changes."
Customers have been asking when they could buy the new arrivals for months, but Durham isn't sure it'll be the financial windfall some are predicting.
"I don't expect a wave of people, but I expect we'll do some business because of it," he said. "People are excited to see Baltimore on the road jerseys. Since summer, when it was announced that they'd be changing the uniforms, every week I've had someone come in and ask if they could buy them yet. I'm happy about the change if it'll do me some business."
Dennis Coates, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, said the return of Baltimore to the jerseys may produce value, even if it's difficult to assess whether it translates into dollars-and-cents economic impact.
"People derive happiness from it and there's no monetary exchange, so you don't really have a way of putting a dollar figure to it," Costa said. "It's very much like going to see the Grand Canyon -- you can't put a dollar figure on that vista, but it's a beautiful sight and most people agree that it does have value."
Still, it's a welcome development for those whose primary job is promoting Baltimore and all it has to offer. Nancy Hinds, vice president of public affairs for the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association, believes a tangible benefit exists whenever the city's name is showcased.
"We travel to different cities around the country and we're always talking about Baltimore, so anytime you can talk about Baltimore, it's good for the city," she said. "The team is called the Baltimore Orioles. They have a regional following and they broadcast the games regionally, but they are still the Baltimore Orioles. This [change] showcases the name of the team and, as a city, we love that."
Bader believes there will be significant numbers of jerseys given as holiday gifts, and predicts the new items -- including redesigned batting practice jerseys, caps and jackets – will make cash registers ring.
But lest anyone think the Orioles' motivation is financial, consider that they don't keep all revenue from sales of jerseys and similar items. Income is collected by Major League Baseball Properties, which divvies monies up and redistributes them to all 30 teams in a profit-sharing arrangement.
"We certainly would like to see a positive reaction, both in sales and in general conversation and water cooler talk," Bader said. "We've got such a huge fan base and the success of the club is tied to the success of the regional franchise, that any changes we made, we wanted to make sure we connected with our city and our state. But all of the changes, in their totality, we believe are appealing to our entire fan base, whether they're in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Delaware or elsewhere around the country. We think this will be something they'll connect with."
Gibbons hopes the redesign will spark a new exhibit at Sports Legends.
"The display of baseball uniforms is as alluring as any memorabilia -- the colors, the feel of the fabrics, the logos over time," Gibbons said. "It's one of my favorite things to look at, both as a fan and as an exhibitor. We may go ahead and do a historical display of Orioles uniforms, from back in the 1880s and 1890s, right to the present day. For Baltimore to be back on the uniforms, we all feel a sense of pride for Baltimore. It gives the city something to celebrate."
Others see the new uniforms as a jumping-off point, not a conclusion. Durham, the Harborplace shop owner, says fans have been telling him they would be thrilled with one other addition to the jersey -- only this one is going to come with a price tag near $20 million a year and the surname in question belongs to a native son who patrolled first base for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the October playoffs.
"They're hoping to buy a new jersey for next year with Baltimore on the front. But they want [Mark] Teixeira's name to be on the back," Durham said. "I don't know if the Orioles can make both happen. But we know one is going to happen."
Issue 131: November 2008
