Rockies to retire popular alternate jerseys, announce new ones

Two of the better alternate jerseys in Colorado Rockies history have looked like the state’s two most popular license plates—the new black one you see everywhere around Denver and the standard plates which inspired the team’s city connect uniform.

The Rockies announced on Friday that they’ll be retiring their green and white plates uniforms at the end of the season. The set went over mostly as a hit both locally and across baseball. The hat for the uniform is now more or less the most common hat anyone will see while hiking somewhere in the Centennial State, while the socks have been gifted to just about every pre-treen across the Front Range.

Though the City Connects focused on the state, the Rockies have always branded themselves a regional team which is part of the reason they’re named after the state rather than their city. The jerseys were not only a great representation of something unique and omnipresent in Colorado but a much-needed splash of life to the stuck-in-the-1990s Rockies style. Funny enough, it’s the 1998 All-Star Game which first brought a lot of green to contrast the Rockies purple and since many hardcore fans have wanted the club to add some green to the team. The first time around was successful.

The Rockies and Nike are likely close or are already done with next year’s set. Interestingly, we now know that Nike has a three-year cycle for City Connect uniforms—which lines up with other teams in MLB like Washington and Miami who have said they’re moving on from their alternates in the coming month. So that gives the Rockies and Nike quite the challenge as they look to hit another home run with a very unique uniform. And while the Rockies normal uniforms are rather bland, anytime they’ve taken a step outside the box it has been a hit.

The Rockies were lauded for their Turn Ahead the Clock uniforms in 1998 that feature a giant oversized Rockies logo on the chest of a sleeveless uniform. Less extreme was their very popular all black vest look, similar to the Colorado plate funny enough, that was worn for most of the 2007 team’s unthinkable postseason run. Also pretty popular is the team’s all-purple look.

Colorado has yet to do a throwback uniform which make sense given the team has been around only three decades and their main uniforms have been almost unchanged. However other expansion franchises have throwback to clubs in their city who left before the big leagues came. For instance, the Rockies could pay homage to the Denver Bears or Denver White Elephants—but that is unlikely to happen in the more futuristic-looking City Connect jerseys. We’ll like see something else unique to Colorado and/or Denver and perhaps more mountain-based design like topographic maps or ski-inspired lingo.

Coming in 2025 👀 New City Connect

This is the final month of the inaugural green and white uniforms. As part of MLB and Nike's three year City Connect cycle, we will be debuting a new City Connect design next season. pic.twitter.com/dYOwbwKLsC

— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) September 13, 2024