For the first time in more than a century, the Yankees could sport different regular-season uniforms, as some players are making a push for the club to wear an alternate jersey on the road.
The proposed uniforms would be the navy blue batting practice jerseys they also wear on the road in spring training, with “NEW YORK” in block letters across the front in gray.
This would break with the franchise’s long-standing tradition of only two regular-season jerseys: the home pinstripes (which they’ve been wearing since 1915) and road grays (which have been largely unchanged since 1918).
“There’s a lot of tradition here, the most iconic jersey there is in sports, pretty much,” slugger Giancarlo Stanton said Wednesday at Fenway Park. “But it doesn’t mean that every once in a while you can’t change something up, especially on the road.”
Steinbrenner factor
It remains to be seen whether Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner will sign off on the idea. But Steinbrenner has softened some of the Yankees’ most rigid policies in recent years, such as changing the facial-hair policy ahead of the 2025 season and adding a Starr Insurance patch on the sleeves of jerseys in 2023.
So while there was some pearl-clutching from Yankees fans over the thought of an alternate jersey, the cat may already be out of the bag.
“I’m all about tradition, but we got a patch on our sleeves,” said Aaron Judge, who was not all that interested in elaborating on the idea with reporters. “I got nothing for you till it happens.”
But the captain was more firm on the Yankees not changing what they wear in The Bronx.
“I think we’ll always wear the pinstripes at home,” Judge said. “I don’t think that’ll change. But we changed our road jersey [removing white piping and trim in 2024], so I guess if we wear the blues, we wear the blues on the road.”
While third (or fourth or fifth) jerseys have become common around the league, especially with the introduction of so-called City Connect uniforms, the Yankees have been the exception in sticking to strictly home and road uniforms.
The A’s are the only other team that does not have a City Connect jersey, in part because they do not have a permanent city, currently playing in Sacramento between their ex-home in Oakland and future in Las Vegas.
“We can’t do one that doesn’t hit, that’s for sure,” Stanton said.
In ‘navy’ now & then
The navy blue jerseys hang in the Yankees’ lockers in every road clubhouse during the regular season, but they are typically worn only by pitchers throwing bullpen sessions that day.
Because the Yankees wear the navy tops in spring training, they are already approved by Major League Baseball to be worn in regular-season games — and have been since the start of 2025 — according to a source.
Stanton said Yankees players have talked about wearing those navy tops which they would do with their regular road gray pants “for a few years” and that “a lot of people would be OK with it.”
“Every team has an alternate uniform,” Stanton said. “We have the uniforms — it’s not like we sat in a room and designed it ourselves. It’s here. It always has been. So it’s not like we reinvented the wheel necessarily.”
“I love them,” added the fashionable Yankee Jazz Chisholm Jr. “I think these are sick. I think alternate jerseys are sick.”