BOSTON -- When the Red Sox unveil their new Nike City Connect jerseys for Friday’s opener of a three-game Rivalry Weekend series against the Braves, it will become obvious to all what the connecting factor is.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a venue that connects Bostonians more than Fenway Park, and the most distinguishing part of the ballpark is the centerpiece of these Green Monster-colored jerseys, which stand out for both their quaint simplicity and clever nuances.
In a press release, the Red Sox referred to the new unis as “Fenway Greens."
Fenway Park was built in 1912, making it the oldest of MLB’s 30 ballparks.
The popular Boston Marathon-themed yellow jerseys, which were unveiled in 2021 as the team’s first City Connect uniforms, will remain in the rotation as an alternate uniform.
As the marketing team started brainstorming for ideas years ago on a new City Connect, the inclination all along was to go green.
“This iteration of City Connects has been two plus years in the making, for sure, maybe for even longer than that,” said Red Sox chief marketing and partnership officer Troup Parkinson. “I think we've been intrigued by the idea of somehow making Fenway the star of a jersey.”
The biggest challenge was to make sure the color was just right.
“If we were going to do a Fenway Park sort of Green Monster-ish uniform, we wanted to make sure the green was right, or we wouldn't do it,” said Parkinson. “So after a few years of work on this, with our awesome brand design team and the folks at Nike, we came up with this iteration, which we're so excited about. “
Making the new jerseys more gratifying to the group in charge of designing them was the instant buy-in from those who will be the first to wear them on Friday night.
“We’ve received really positive feedback from the players over the last week, when they finally got to put it on and really sort of touch and feel everything,” said Parkinson. “[Manager Alex Cora] has been a fan from the start when we started to play with this [idea], and [he's] really, really happy with how it came out.”
So what stands out other than the color? Quite a bit.
“You obviously have the Green Monster scoreboard font across the front as Red Sox. We toyed with Boston, which would truly match the scoreboard, but honestly, the look wasn’t as good,” Parkinson said. “And we kind of liked the idea that the only Boston front jerseys we wear are on Patriots' Day. And we did that with the last City Connect, so we kind of like the idea of Red Sox across the chest on this.”
Another distinguishing characteristic is that the jersey numbers are on both the front and back. The front numbers are the same yellow as the color of the number on the Fenway scoreboard during an inning the team scores a run. The back numbers match perfectly the white font of the numbers that reside on the plates of the manual scoreboard.
As for other subtleties, the coloring of the neck is the same as the concrete inside the Monster, and 1912 is stitched into the neck of the jersey, in honor of the year Fenway opened. There are green and red dots that match the balls, strikes and outs on the Monster near the bottom part of the jersey that will be tucked in.
The balls, strikes and outs dots will become visible for all to see when the Red Sox break out their City Connect batting practice hats in a week.
The City Connects will have an encore performance for the May 23 home game against the Orioles, as it will be in conjunction with City Connect-themed ballpark giveaway available to the first 7,500 fans who enter the gates that night.
After that? Stay tuned on the jersey schedule.
“The schedule will be up to AC and the players,” said Parkinson. “That's kind of how it ended up with the yellows, other than when we wore them on Marathon weekend. So we'll see what he does. I wouldn't be shocked if AC makes this kind of the Friday uniform and then we wear yellow Saturday and white Sunday. But we’ll see. It’s his call.”
The call everyone involved made in unison was that Fenway needed to be the star of this endeavor.
“Fenway is its own animal, and it's a living, breathing thing,” said Parkinson. “I think the ballpark is the connector. That is what is so unique about this organization and this marketplace. Our brand is great, but the ballpark is a brand on its own. And it's a draw, and it has a life of its own and I think it deserves this."