The other night on Twitter dot com, Mariners Senior VP of Marketing & Communications Kevin Martinez threw a poll up to start some uniform discourse and I, for one, was a bit surprised by the results.
Lots of good uniform talk today thanks to @BrentStecker. Of the four @Mariners alternate jerseys/uniforms, which is your favorite?
— Kevin Martinez (@Kevin_Martinez) March 4, 2021
Out of the options presented, which all fall under the “alternates” category since they are not the standard home whites and road greys, I went ahead and chose my favorite, which is narrowly the Northwest Green jerseys (I will always call it teal in conversation and you cannot stop me, Kevin) with the Navy road alts at a close second. Seeing the Sunday home alts way ahead in the lead was a bit surprising to me, as was the amount of love for the powder blue ST uniforms. Maybe it’s the relative new-ness of both of those uniform sets that is driving the popularity? Maybe there is a no-name-on-back uniform Twitter bot busy at work driving up the Sunday alts numbers? Who knows?
The poll and the avalanche of replies that Kevin received about which uniform is best showed a few things:
- People are ready for a re-brand/re-imagining of the standard uniform set, something that has been whispered about for the last several years
- Mariners Twitter is passionate about uniforms
- A visual connection to the Northwest within the design of the uniform is important to many fans
No one asked, but if I were Senior VP of Mariners Uniforms, here are the changes I would make:
- Retire the all navy hat and replace it with the Northwest Green brim hat (batting helmets, too!), restoring order to the universe and to the 1993 original launch. The NWG brim looks extra dashing with the Navy alts and the road greys. The all navy hat, which was originally the road-only hat, has had an incredible run. It’s been a mainstay of every Mariner fan’s wardrobe for over 2 decades and became the team’s primary hat some time in the early to mid 00’s. It’s a great hat, but it’s also boring, and it’s also been ruining the outfit of every person who can’t tell the difference between dark navy blue and black because of color blindness or sheer ignorance. Please, I am begging everyone, please stop wearing the navy hat with your black shirts/jackets/sweatshirts.
- Bring back the NWG crown/navy brim hat to be worn on Fridays with the Northwest Green jerseys, the way god (probably) intended. The NWG crown also looks phenomenal with a navy top, as demonstrated here by Junior.
- Every first Saturday home game of the month is a Turn Back the Clock Night and the fans get to vote on their favorites at the beginning of the season. We’re bringing them all back, baby. I’m talking the trident (star and no star, powder blue road jerseys at home if you wanna get real weird with it, etc), the yellow S, the SLEEVELESS VEST JERSEYS with the silver brim compass logo hats, Rainiers throwbacks, Steelheads throwbacks, the Pilots, the Turn Ahead the Clock Night future unis, the so insanely-dark-navy-blue-they’re-basically-black-and-maddening-to-look-at tops with silver piping from the late 90’s/early 00’s. Did I forget any throwbacks? Please let me know. Anyways, the fans vote and the top six get worn on the first Saturday home game of each month. It’ll be glorious.
- Tye-dye the home whites (just kidding, but think about it).
PROMPT!
All right, so I’ve got uniform questions for you, LL community. Please copy and paste the following questions into your answer in the comments and then hit the poll questions below.
- What is your all-time favorite Mariners uniform and why?
- What is one thing you’d fix about the current options? (home white, road grey, Northwest Green alt, navy road alt, and Sunday home game cream/blue/yellow)
Good, now hit these polls, slugger:
Poll
If the Mariners change the uniforms, do you want:
This poll is closed
-
43%
A full re-brand, total re-imagining
-
56%
Refining and tweaking what they have, keeping the current color schemes
Poll
Of the two main color ways the Mariners have used, which is your favorite?
This poll is closed
-
40%
Blue and yellow
-
60%
Navy, silver, and Northwest Green
See ya in the comments.