Yankees make change (you'll actually notice) to jerseys for 2024

The New York Yankees might not be doing a City Connect design, but that doesn't make them immune to Nike's tweaks.

For the first time since 2015 -- wait, really? The Yankees made a change to their road jerseys in 2015? As a lifelong fan, I expected that year to be "1934," when they finally stopped making the uniforms out of cardboard.

New York Yankees Logo History & Changes Through the Years

Well, for the first time since 2015, the Yankees are making an alteration -- not to their home pinstripes, but to their almost-as-iconic road grays. New York has agreed to remove the white outline, as well as the navy-and-white striping that has long surrounded the edges of their sleeves. Whatever the change was in 2015, it wasn't this drastic. According to Sports-Logos.net, the road grays with white outlines have been in use since the 1973 season.

While the Yankees have been reticent to look to the future, it's worth noting these jerseys more closely resemble the outline-free uniforms the franchise was raised on, worn by the likes of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Mickey Mantle. Of course, back then, they didn't have the Nike swoosh.

While Yankee fans are historically averse to change, early returns on this move have been ... surprisingly positive. Young fans are always intrigued by alterations to swag, and fans of a certain generation seem touched by a return to tradition for the franchise.

The team has plenty of '70s and '90s history to lean upon too, of course, but ... there's something special about the plain, unaltered navy-on-gray from the 1930s-1960s that harkens back to the era of almost uninterrupted dominance. As the Yankees hope to return to their status as an unimpeachable global brand -- or, as Brian Cashman put it after the Juan Soto trade, the "mecca of baseball" -- it makes sense they'd want to evoke the time period where it was almost laughable to challenge them.

Add in the pre-renovated stadium vibes of the current Yankee Stadium's exterior and rotunda, and you've got a fuller picture. All that's missing now is a cream pinstriped alternative for Sunday home games.