Indians: Cleveland’s Little League inspired jerseys are very well done

The Indians take on the Angels on Friday and are set to wear a new uniform.

New uniforms are always tricky. You never know how fans will react, or how they’ll go over in history. Sometimes initial opinions are wrong. For instance, those Cavs city jerseys from this past season? They’re the best jersey’s the team has in their rotation. I’ve come to accept them as “good”. They’re also a testament that the Cavs haven’t had “great” jersey’s since the Shawn Kemp days, but still. The Indians and Angels are set to debut new Little League World Series-centric jersey’s in their upcoming series.

Both jerseys are largely the same layout, but Cleveland has dark blue, and red colors, with a white base, while the Angels will have a lighter dark blue and red combo on grey. The biggest difference is that the Angles will have “West” on their chest, while the Indians will have “Great Lakes”.

It’s that specific attachment, the “Great Lakes” wording, that really sells these jerseys to me. The team logos are on the right part of the chest, with the Nike swoop logo on the left, and all in all, they’re solid.

Indians should consider a design similar to Little League jerseys for a new look

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With the name change to the Guardians coming, many wondered why the Indians are sticking with the jerseys from the last few years. The answer to that is obvious; the team is trying to make the change as seamless as possible without causing any more fans to be any more upset than necessary.

The problem with that idea is that it falls apart when you realize those fans get mad at anything new. Catering to them won’t really help negate any backlash. Other fans saw the name change as a change for something different and new and were let down by the jerseys just getting new names on them.

The jerseys have largely been the same for decades, save for that one period in time where they used the white vests during the Eric Wedge era. Those were admittedly very stylish.

Incorporating elements of the little league design into a new jersey would really help make the Tribes’ jerseys pop when they’re the Guardians. Instead of ‘Great Lakes’ maybe you can just do ‘Lake Erie’. It’d be something different, and different isn’t always bad.