The Boston Red Sox Ditch Red for Yellow and Blue Uniforms to Honor Their Home

They’re called the Boston Red Sox, but you won’t find any red on the Major League Baseball team’s new alternate uniforms. So, why are the Red Sox wearing yellow and blue?

Turns out, the temporary yellow-and-blue garb is the team’s way of honoring their home city, Boston, Mass., as part of the inaugural Nike City Connect uniform series.

The Red Sox unveiled the new uniform in April of 2021, ahead of two games against the Chicago White Sox. They have continued to wear the new uniforms at several games in the years since.

The new uniform swaps out the team’s usual red, navy blue, and white color scheme for yellow jerseys with a cyan logo, white pants, cyan caps, and yellow shoes.

In a press release, the Red Sox said the switch-up was a tribute to Patriots’ Day — a Massachusetts state holiday commemorating the first battles of the Revolutionary War — as well as the Boston Marathon — an annual tradition that takes place on the same day — as MassLive.com reported at the time.

You might notice that the Sox’s new color scheme matches the Boston Marathon’s official hues. And in its release, the Sox said the new uniform “adopts colors that honor the spirit of Patriots’ Day weekend, and features ‘Boston’ in a stencil font across the chest, paying tribute to the Boylston Street finish line.”

Those aren’t the only Boston-centric design features, though: “The numbers ‘617' are highlighted on the left sleeve as a nod to the area code for Boston and Fenway Park. The numbers appear within a racing bib, honoring one of the city’s most iconic annual sports traditions.”

By debuting the new uniforms in April 2021, the Red Sox became the first of seven MLB teams to introduce their Nike City Connect designs. “We viewed the City Connect collaboration with Nike as an opportunity to celebrate the spirit of a weekend that is uniquely Boston,” said Adam Grossman, the team’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer. “The departure from our traditional style pays homage to that iconic weekend, and recognizes Boston’s boldness, culture, and creativity.”

In April of 2021, Nike showed off all seven designs of the 2021 Nike MLB City Connect Series, saying that the series “will appear league-wide” in future baseball seasons.

For this inaugural series, the Los Angeles Dodgers are wearing a blue jersey to celebrate “the link between Los Angeles’ distinct culture and sport” — with the logo reading “Los Dodgers” in a reference to fans’ “Viva Los Dodgers” chant.

The San Francisco Giants opted for a white jersey with the Golden Gate Bridge depicted on the sleeves — honoring “a beacon of inspiration in the region” — with the city’s famous fog clouding up the logo.

The Arizona Diamondbacks adopted a tan jersey, “inspired by the Sonoran Desert’s climate and terrain,” with a new logo reading “Serpientes.”

The Chicago Cubs chose a navy jersey, with a patch on the sleeve that draws design inspirations from the city’s flag, municipal device, and transit tokens.

The Chicago White Sox’s new look “pays tribute to the attitude of Chicago’s South Side,” with “Southside” as the logo and a dark gray jersey color scheme honoring the city’s greystone architectural style.

And the Miami Marlins’ red jersey is “an ode to Latin America’s contribution to baseball’s rich history,” with a logo inspired by the hand-painted signs of Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood.