Baseball Uniform News
I was planning to write up a Dissecting feature for the baseball team, and as I was typing it I got some very interesting news. I spent a day or two going back and forth whether I should include all this news in the featured post, but I finally decided to give it a post all to itself because it deserves all the attention (and it’s pretty long). All of this information is from a very credible source that I trust and requested to remain anonymous.
First off, I’d like to go over something that was brought to my attention. I had a follower personally ask me why the Auburn athletic teams don’t wear “Tigers” on the uniforms nowadays. I didn’t have an answer, but my best guess was that the school didn’t want to confuse people with the other Tigers in the SEC and all the other Tiger teams around the country. My source then tells me that the athletic department wants to push the brand of “Auburn” and the “AU” logo rather than be confused with conference foes Missouri and LSU, like has been possible in the past. Baseball players wanted to have “Tigers” on the orange jerseys last year but were turned down because of this. Auburn has gone through many secondary logos, including the crawling tiger and the eagle flying through the AU, and has recently been fazed out the eyes of the tiger logo and the tiger stripes one, although they haven’t been officially retired. Again, this is all just to have a more consistent brand for the school (which uses a Samford Hall logo more than the AU) and the athletic department.
As many of you know, the Auburn baseball team has a new coach. Coach Sunny Golloway comes from Oklahoma, where he won the 2013 Big 12 conference tournament, and took his team into the post season eight of his nine years, including making the College World Series in 2010. With the new coach comes some new uniforms and uniform combos.
I think the easiest way to go through this information is to just go through it all in a list. Here is the news that has been sent to me. Remember all of this is not confirmed, and still up in the air:
- Camo hats will not be in the rotation for this season. My source says he feels like they may be back come next year. Golloway is a big hunter and likes the camo, and even had a camo jersey and hat combination at Oklahoma. Feeling is that he may try and do that at Auburn
- The team wears a lot of hats (detailed info on these in a later post). This coming year they will only have a blue hat with orange bill and orange AU logo, and the all blue hat with white AU logo for certain.
- Rumored hats that were spotted (not sure if for retail, camps or games):
- a new orange hat with blue bill
- white hat with blue bill
- camo hat
- a new blue hat with an American flag AU logo
- A quick search for “Auburn USA hat” showed this picture. I would not think this is the official hat, but I think it is a good resemblance of what they will ultimately look like.
- Golloway is making the team wear stirrups for every home game this year. In the past when Auburn has worn stirrups, they have been solid blue or the striped ones that are paired up with the throwbacks. No word just yet which ones will be worn for the year.
- A new grey uniform will be available for the rotation. It will resemble the white uniforms.
- Golloway has done away with white cleats. Only black cleats will be worn on the diamond this year. Navy cleats may also be worn, mainly because all equipment was ordered before Galloway was hired, jerseys included.
Now for some confirmed news:
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Players will now wear their names on the back of the jerseys. Pawlowski never had them when he was coach. Nameplates will only be worn on the pinstripes, blue jersey, and white jerseys. I would assume that means the orange tops will remain blank on the back.
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The throwback uniforms wont be worn as much this coming year. Sad
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There will be three captains for the team, and they will each wear captaincy “C” patches.
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The rumored grey jerseys are confirmed, and will read “AUBURN” across the front.
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Only two hats will be in rotation:
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blue hat with orange bill and orange AU logo
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all blue hat with white AU logo
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This is all the news I have at the moment. Players move into the newly renovated locker rooms on January 25th, so hopefully we will have some more information come then. This year and the following will more than likely bring even more uniform news. Apparently former coach John Pawlowski was not a fan of the vest style jerseys, but Golloway wore one at Oklahoma. So that may be a possibility in the future.
Check back next week for the Dissecting Auburn Uniforms: Baseball edition as I take a detailed look at the uniforms and the different combos worn. Even more information about the uniforms and the news I’ve received will be in that post.
War Eagle!
Excellent work here, Clint. Look forward to more news.
Great news on the stirrups!
No more button-front jerseys please. Evolve already.
The button down jerseys are classic and will never change. The MLB has very few pull over jerseys, and then their usually just throwbacks to the 70s and 80s. People and players just never were a fan of them. So buttons stay.
I absolutely agree. Whenever they wore them last year they were wonderful. The softball team wore them every game with the old coach. New coach is apparently getting rid of them, which is really sad.
Thank you sir! Much appreciated!
The "USA" AU hat linked was the one they wore for the Friday game of the LSU series in 2010. I bought it the next day.
Found a picture of it. Thank you for that info.
http://www.auburntigers.com/view.gal?id=67319