#brayan bello

[softerbaseball]

[933] we should have taken flying lessons instead of flamenco.

[barbiecarlo]

Champagne problems. 🍾

[peachmango-kombucha]

International Boyz

[ultravioletlightwaves]

Started thinking too much about the City Connect jerseys (thanks @conniesmlb). The following will be fun for me and probably for no one else. Sorry.

For those not familiar: City Connect is an MLB alternate jersey program that is supposed to generate creative uniforms referencing the team's hometown. MLB/Nike has been making them since 2021 (although not for all teams at once), and some teams are already on round two of designs.

AL East:

Red Sox 2025 'Green Monster' City Connects. Love that they have a connection to the ballpark itself. I like pulling in a color that is not a team color but is already closely associated with the team. Love the contrast piping on the belt loops. Words and numbers are legible because they are riffing off the Monster signage, which has to be legible to do its job (consider this ominous foreshadowing). These look like plausible normal big league baseball uniforms in a color that nobody else is using.

I especially enjoy these because color matching with the Green Monster means that they have built-in camo when they wear them, like when Boise State wears all blue at home. In my dreams the Green Monster camo turns out to be so effective that these unis are banned within two years and enter into the realm of legend.

Verdict: REAL GOOD.

Red Sox 2021 'Boston Marathon' City Connects. The marathon has always been identified with the city, and there is always a Red Sox home game on Marathon Monday, so these make sense. They are simple and iconic. They aren't an embarrassment and the concept is sound. The Red Sox just aren't yellow. I get it and all but you won't convince me that the Red Sox are yellow.

Can you even remember Rafael Devers looking so baby-faced btw? He was like 24 here. Girl what happened.

The socks that go with them are too busy. Look in the mirror and take one thing off before you send your socks to print.

Verdict: Pretty good but aggressively the wrong color.

Orioles City Connect. These took me a minute because I kept seeing them like the above. But then also like this:

Why do they sometimes have the rainbow confetti trim and sometimes they don't?

Turns out these things are designed with gray confetti trim on the outside, rainbow confetti trim on the inside. You only see the rainbow confetti if players cuff their sleeves up and/or cuff their pant legs. Because "the grayscale exterior represents the surface level view people have of Baltimore. Look deeper and you'll find the colorful interior that highlights the vibrancy of the city."

Except, as you see, half the time the players don't want to cuff shit, so they just represent the boringass surface level view that people have of the city I guess.

The rainbow confetti pattern is based on the map of Baltimore neighborhoods, colored randomly for The Aesthetic.

The BALTIMORE typeface is inspired by a letterpress at MICA, which is kind of cool. When the players do cuff up, I like that the colors are so rainbow that every Baltimore City Connect night has the potential to be Pride Night for the casual observer. But black on black uniforms with the pants uncuffed look like pajamas.

Verdict: The instant you give players the option to cover up your gay little design, you've lost.

Blue Jays 'Night Mode' City Connect. Here's the thing. They look pretty good up close and in good light, like you see above. The thin lines and glow effect shit are kind of cool. It definitely does say Night Mode.

But a city skyline has to be the least creative pictorial thing you could possibly do to make a uniform 'represent the city,' and the Night Mode thing would mean more if Toronto was the only MLB city with night life. Which, uh. It is not.

The bigger problem is that if you are any distance away from these things, and especially if you are at the stadium watching these guys in motion, they are completely illegible. You can't see the numbers on the front or back, and the names on the back are royal blue on black, which is also unreadable at any kind of remove.

Black over black with long pants looks like pajamas.

Also the hat logos look a little too much like the Tesla logo if Elon was going Canadian.

Verdict: I can't see shit.

Tampa Bay 'Grit and Glow' City Connect. This photo made me feel like I was hallucinating. The font is completely illegible. The numbers on the back are also unreadable. Dark gray over dark gray is no better than black over black. They are supposed to be inspired by skateboarding culture.

They are marginally better when worn with a neon belt and with the socks up:

But Tampa Bay is a City Connect of extremes. On the one hand they are a complete mess and I hate them. On the other hand:

This City Connect design team gave us two of the best logos in baseball. The 'bay in the ray' design is clever and perfect for the team. The skateboarding ray is simply rad. I don't know why they gave it baseball stitching but I don't even care. I'm not a Tampa Bay fan but I might need skateboarding ray apparel.

Verdict: How can your uniforms be so bad but your logos so good?

The New York Yankees do not have a City Connect uniform.

Verdict: Cowards.

[redsoxfenwaypark]

Game one was positive

5.23.25

[mcavoycharlie]

[eovaldi]

rich hill (42) teaching brayan bello (23) how to throw a curveball

[thisgirllovestheredsox]

happy bello day to all who celebrate!