Ready or not, here come the Philadelphia Phillies red jerseys.
The Phillies alternate jerseys will be worn for the first time ever on the road in Wednesday’s matchup against the Los Angeles Dodgers, and then again on Sunday against the San Francisco Giants, per Matt Breen of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Breen says that for the remainder of this season, the uniforms will be mixed in on the road, in addition to the primary gray uniforms that the Phillies have worn for away games since 1992.
“I think wearing gray all the time is just boring,” Bryce Harper told the collective media Monday, including Todd Zolecki of MLB.com. “I mean, really. Being able to kind of put something else out there that’s a little bit different. … We’ve been talking about it as a team. We kind of took it up the ladder and talked to people about it and they said, ‘Hey, let’s give it a try.'”
The Phillies first introduced their red alternate jerseys in 2016, wearing them for home games played during the week. The uniforms, at best, drew mixed reviews. Though the Phillies never officially took the uniforms out or circulation – trust us, we asked – they haven’t been worn in a regular season game since 2017. Instead, the Phillies have used their cream alternates for any home day games not played on Thursday. Beginning in 2018, the Phillies started wearing their powder blue throwback uniforms on Thursday games played at Citizens Bank Park, part of the #ThrowbackThursday promotion.
Since 2017, the red jerseys have only been used in spring training games. Wednesday will mark the first time that they’ve appeared in a regular season game in four seasons, and the first time they’ve ever been worn away from Citizens Bank Park. This means that the red jersey will now be worn with the road gray pants, as opposed to the red pinstriped ones worn for home games.