The Philadelphia Phillies red jerseys will not return in 2024, Phillies Nation has learned.
Earlier this month, we wrote about the possibility that the red jerseys had been worn for the final time with a City Connect jersey set to be introduced by the Phillies at some point in 2024. Nike has a “4+1” rule, meaning they will produce four jerseys per team, and five if the fifth is a City Connect uniform. The Phillies already had five — pinstripes, cream, powder blue, gray and red — meaning one needed to be ditched with the impending arrival of the “+1” in the form of the City Connects. MLB.com‘s Todd Zolecki hinted earlier this week that the red tops will be dropped from the rotation, and Phillies Nation has confirmed that is indeed the case.
The red tops were initially introduced in 2016, serving both as the team’s Spring Training jerseys and an alternate for weekday games at Citizens Bank Park. They lasted just two years in their initial regular season role, before being shelved outside of Spring Training. However, the uniforms returned in a different role in June of 2021, with the Phillies wearing them for the final game of most road series, or “getaway” days. Occasionally, they would be worn for other road games, such as the second half of doubleheaders.
This time, though, it sounds like the red jerseys are being hung up altogether. Not only will they not be back as a regular season alternate in 2024, but apparently when Nike says they are only making five uniforms for you, that includes Spring Training too. Nike didn’t make the popular green St. Patrick’s Day uniforms for the Phillies last March, and they will not make the red tops just for Spring Training either. So the Phillies will look different in Grapefruit League play next year. It’s not yet clear exactly how the uniform rotation will work for the Phillies in Spring Training, but presumably it will be one (or two) of the four remaining in the regular season mix. Perhaps it will be pinstripes at BayCare Ballpark and gray for road games. But it won’t be red, we’re told.
Another interesting thing to consider is that the Phillies brought the red jerseys back in 2021 because they didn’t have a road alternate to mix in with gray. With the reds being ditched, the Phillies are once again back in that same position.
On top of that, the home rotation will be pretty crowded. It hasn’t yet been revealed what day(s) of the week the Phillies will wear their City Connect uniforms, but they will come in games at Citizens Bank Park. The cream alternates — reintroduced in 2008, based on the primary home uniforms worn from 1946-1949 — are worn for weekday home games, except on Thursdays. Since 2018, the powder blue throwbacks have been worn for all Thursday home games. And, of course, the red pinstripes have been the primary home uniforms since 1992, and are considered modern classics.
The powder blue throwbacks have been made into a home uniform in this era, but were the primary road uniforms for the Phillies from 1972-1988. In theory, they could be mixed in on the road again, but that’s perhaps not as easy logistically as it sounds. When the Phillies wore the red alternate tops on the road, they just had to bring an extra set of jerseys, not pants, hats and cleats. The powder blue uniforms have a different hat, pants and colorway from the grays, so the Phillies would need to bring multiple uniform sets on every trip for powder blue to be part of the road rotation. Meanwhile, pinstripes and cream aren’t really road colors, since most teams wear one of the two at home.
