The Bulldogs broke out a new combo in their midweek win over Mississippi Valley State, wearing a solid black hat for the first time in a few years (last year's black cap had a white front panel.) While we could do better, the Black 85 jerseys and white pants are certainly better than the camo that doomed us last week.
The Bulldogs stuck with the Maroon MS jerseys and white pants again all series for the third weekend in row and, like last week, came away with a series win. While I would like to see a bit more variety (Maroon 85, Gray, etc...), it's hard to complain when you have a classic recognizable look and are winning games at the same time.
Camo is bad, guys.
Last week, Mossy Oak announced that they had given their official camo pattern to Adidas and Mississippi State to create a second camo jersey for the Bulldogs. I'm not going to lie, I actually liked these at first. Crazy, I know, but it made a ton of sense from a marketing perspective and it was incredibly appropriate for a team from Mississippi. Being born and raised here, camo MSU gear is a common sight. Seeing a version with the maroon and white 85 script actually looked good. But the idea works better as a t-shirt, or even a fashion jersey. It did not look good on the field, and the accompanying play did not help its case. Wearing the camo jerseys, the Bulldogs blew leads of 7-1 and 12-6 (in the eight inning, no less) after pulling starters. You would think, after losing one in camo, they would learn the lesson that you should never wear camo baseball jerseys. I even tweeted that exact statement last night. However, on Wednesday, the Bulldogs took the field wearing their other- digital- camo jerseys. Again, they suffered another embarrassing midweek loss. Camo is bad. Especially when we have other jerseys, such as the Maroon 85 jerseys, that haven't even been worn yet this season. Even further, the White 85 jerseys have not been worn since 2014- bringing those back would be a step in the right direction. Similarly to last weekend, the Bulldogs wore the Maroon MS jersey with white pants in all three games in their weekend sweep of Oregon, this time citing the fact that they "worked" for a win the previous day. In the midweek game vs South Alabama, the Bulldogs wore the Black 85 jersey with white pants and maroon hat.
If you were expecting or hoping for some different uniforms for the Bulldogs, you were left disappointed. In their first midweek game on Tuesday, they wore the same camo jerseys as they did this past Sunday. All weekend out in California, they stuck with the Maroon MS jersey and white pants in all three games.
The second weekend of 2016 Mississippi State baseball was, for the most part, the same as the first weekend uniform-wise. The Bulldogs wore the Maroon MS jersey on Friday and the White MS jersey in a double-header on Saturday. On Sunday, they did change it up, but not in a good way. Instead, the Bulldogs wore the digital camo that were introduced last year, and that I had hoped would not be worn again this year.
The Bulldogs kicked off the 2016 with some impressive offensive numbers but less-than stellar pitching performances. The Bulldogs came out of the weekend with two wins and some good and bad signs for the season ahead.
More importantly, of course, the Bulldogs wore their first three uniform combinations of the 2016 season. On Friday, they started off the season with the same uniform as they did last season- the "Maroon MS" jersey with white pants. In Saturday's doubleheader, they wore the "White MS" jersey, with white pants of course. On Sunday, they debuted a never-before worn combo: maroon hat, "Black 85" pullover, and white pants (with maroon piping and belt.) With the MLB Draft being this week and the College World Series upon us, I've switched my recently football-driven mindset back to Mississippi State baseball this afternoon. As this past season slowly rolled to its final demise, many people, including myself, lost interest in the current season itself, not to mention the uniforms. Adidas slowly backed off also, with controversy and harsh reactions on twitter anytime uniforms were discussed, the 17 combos idea fell apart. Combo #2 was never worn, and I still have no idea was Combo #5 was even supposed to be. Adidas did continue their postseason trend of templated uniforms, giving them to teams like Louisville and Texas A&M. I have no doubt that there is a Mississippi State version of those that was left on a drawing board. Hopefully, had we been decent this year, they would have been relegated to the SEC Tournament or pregame. Anyway, I did some digging today and after a little Photoshop worn and Vector Magic, I now have an accurate version of the 85 "Mississippi State" wordmark. As you can see in the header and in the uniform representations used last year, I was forced to use a "close enough" version in the past. So, with that, and with my recently acquired Starkville font, I made the below concept to show what uniforms I would like to see Mississippi State baseball use in the future: First, go back to the pullovers with the 85 wordmark. In 2015, the Bulldogs didn't even have a white jersey with the maroon wordmark. They had a St.Patrick's Day pullover with the wordmark in green, a black pullover with the wordmark in black with a white outline, and a maroon button up with the wordmark in white. Returning to the basics would be a huge step in the right direction, and I wouldn't be shocked to see it. The Cream and Gray unis are great as they are; no changes there. The pinstripe unis, however, need to lose the Phillies stripes and go back to their 2013 glory. Finally, one more less traditional, more concept-ish idea. Out of all the jerseys above, one thing is missing: a jersey with "Bulldogs" on it. Using the Starkville font, I created a Bulldogs wordmark and put it on two jerseys, a white one and a lead one. The white one looks better, but is there really a need for a 4th white-based jersey? That's where the lead comes in. It looks better than all black, the players would love it, and it would only have to be worn 3-4 times max. The Bulldogs have worn lead before, though the watermark MS ruined any chance it had at being decent. These 9 unis would stay traditional while supporting up to 14 combos (gray and pinstripe pants with both maroon jerseys, plus cream hat with cream unis); we'd wear whatever templated garbage Adidas gives us in the SEC Tournament to get it out of our system, and the rest of the time, we'd have clean, traditional uniforms.
We can only hope. |
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