Orioles unveil City Connect uniforms, with colorful interior reflecting Baltimore’s neighborhoods

The Orioles on Monday unveiled their City Connect uniforms, paying tribute to Baltimore with a uniform that, like the city, has more to it than what’s visible from outside.

With a black uniform featuring much of its color on the interior — which the club noted with pride is a first — the Orioles became the 19th team to participate in the City Connect series, part of a partnership between Major League Baseball and Nike. Orioles players and coaches will first wear the uniforms in a game Friday night against the Texas Rangers.

A colorful pastel pattern reflecting the city’s neighborhoods is within the sleeves and collar of the jersey, with a grayscale pattern on the exterior of the sleeves; players can roll up their sleeves to showcase the color. The pastel pattern is also within the caps, which include a white “B” logo taken from the Baltimore script featured on the Orioles’ road jersey, and the tongues of the cleats. The script “B” is on a sleeve patch of the jersey that includes a gray version of the neighborhoods pattern, as well.

While some other teams’ City Connect uniforms have included nicknames for their respective cities — such as “Southside” for the Chicago White Sox and “Space City” for the Houston Astros — the Orioles’ jerseys feature “Baltimore” fully capitalized in a white typeface the team said was inspired by the Globe Collection and Press at Maryland Institute College of Art, as well as the city’s arts scene. Within the lettering are specks of black, which the team said are “imperfections [that] represent the shared grit the Orioles and the Baltimore community possess.” Player names across the back are in orange, the team’s traditional primary color.

The cap, jersey and socks — largely black with the color pattern on the foot and upper calf — all feature the slogan “You Can’t Clip These Wings,” a phrase included in the work of Baltimore-based poet and author Kondwani Fidel, whose spoken-word poems were played on the Camden Yards scoreboard before games in 2021 and 2022. A pair of black pants complete the uniform.

The end result is a City Connect ensemble notably simpler than those of other teams, which have typically honed in on specific aspects of the clubs’ cities and their histories. The Washington Nationals’ City Connect uniforms were themed after cherry blossoms. The Colorado Rockies paid tribute to the mountains the team is named after, with the coloring of the uniform and cap logo symbolizing pine trees, soil and sunshine. With their proximity to Mexico, the San Diego Padres went with a Latin theme, donning flashy uniforms with pink, yellow and mint.

The Orioles’ uniforms lack that level of exterior pop. That’s by design.

“From the outside, it looks all black and white,” the team said. “But there’s always more to our story.”

This story might be updated.

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