Padres Unveil "new" uniform.....again.....

Padres unveil their latest version of uniform, and incorporate some things from their past, but did they go far enough or is this just another failure by the marketing department ?

On their site they discuss the reasons for why they chose these specific versions, but they might have missed the mark in a couple areas. I guess only time, and sales, will tell.

"SAN DIEGO -- The Padres tapped into their past on Wednesday, when they unveiled their updated uniforms and new logos at PETCO Park.

And from the looks of it, trendy has nothing on tradition.

"I think the most loved uniforms in baseball are the ones that have tradition and history. ... They stand the test of time," said Padres COO and president Tom Garfinkel. "They're not trendy colors or trendy design ... but they're a classic baseball style.

"That's why we've taken our current uniforms and [included] elements of our past that are unique to the Padres ... ones that have a traditional feel to it."

With a nod to the old uniforms the Padres wore during their Pacific Coast League days (1936-68), the updated look was the result of two years' worth of discussions that Garfinkel had with fans about what they wanted.

"We came up with some conclusions," Garfinkel said. "One, there was not a strong affinity for our current uniform design at all. Two, because we've had so many changes throughout our history, the idea of a big change wasn't well received."

Enter a stylistic twist on the uniforms the Padres wore last season.

"We wanted to take our current uniform design and improve on it. We thought the way to improve on it was to bring back classic elements from our history and bring in traditional baseball elements in the design," Garfinkel said. "We wanted to bring some consistency with the uniforms and celebrate civic pride here in San Diego.

"That's what we've tried to accomplish."

A look at the updated uniforms and logos:

• Starting this upcoming season, the team will wear updated home whites and road grays featuring classic block lettering and piping, along with a new blue alternate uniform that will show the Padres' "SD" on the chest.

• The team unveiled three new logos on Wednesday. The "SD" logo has been updated to a circular mark featuring the text "San Diego Padres Baseball Club." That will be used as the team's primary mark.

• The team's new secondary logo features the Padres script under skyline imagery of PETCO Park. The mark also includes the classic "SD" along with "Est. 1969" and will be featured in a patch on the sleeve of the club's blue and gray jerseys.

• The team has also modified the Swinging Friar logo by using the original classic Swinging Friar from the early days of Padres history, with updated colors to match the blue and white worn by the club. That logo will be featured in a patch on the sleeve of the Padres' white jerseys.

In addition, the Padres' military jerseys will still feature the digital camouflage pattern that debuted in 2011, one that was modeled after the U.S. Marines, but will have updated numbers and lettering on the back to remain consistent with the Padres' other uniforms.

As for the uniform colors, Garfinkel said he did speak to some fans who wanted the team to return to its roots and go brown, like the Padres did in the 1970s on several occasions and in 1984, when the team went to the World Series.

"What we discovered was there was a passionate, vocal minority that wants the brown but a much larger segment of the fan base that was adamantly opposed to the brown," Garfinkel said.

"The compromise is we'll still celebrate the brown uniforms on retro days throughout the year."

This is one of the "traditional" uniforms from yesteryear that probably should have made the final cut in place of the boring home white with the universally hated "P" script that was just a bad idea to create, and now wont seem to go away.

They also underestimated the desire to return to Padre unique colors. In the article Garfinkel says "What we discovered was there was a passionate, vocal minority that wants the brown but a much larger segment of the fan base that was adamantly opposed to the brown,". If you know Padre fans, have spoken to them, or visit pretty much any fan board out there, he's exactly backwards in his discovery. The majority out there have been requesting a return to the brown for years, and maintain that desire. The majority are not interested in the mustard yellow however, but the brown is what most would like to see. THAT is Padre colors and THAT is our tradition unless the idea is to take them all the way back to the PCL days, in which case they missed the boat by not using the old pinstripe look for Home games.

Either way they probably should have spent more time on the team, than what it will look like losing 90 games again.

Play Ball !!!