The interlocking “NY” is arguably the most famous sports logo in the world while the pinstripes are one of the best symbols in all of sports, but the New York Yankees sell a lot more than just pinstriped jerseys without wearing what they sell on the field.
The New York Yankees are just one of two teams, along with the Detroit Tigers, that do not have an official alternate jersey in their wardrobe despite offering fans a million different types of Yankees merchandise.
The Yankees have worn different variations of their jerseys in league-wide circumstances including changing their caps and uniforms on days like Memorial Day, Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day, the Fourth of July, in remembrance of Sept. 11, and last year’s Players’ Weekend jerseys that were met with mixed reviews.
The Yankees wore the uniforms of the New York Black Yankees in 1996 to celebrate the Negro Leagues, and they donned jerseys from 1912 against the Red Sox to celebrate the 100th birthday of Fenway Park.
Despite these few instances, nothing has ever been made official or permanent by the team.
Pinstripe Alley offered some ideas back in a 2016 article, but the Yankees have yet to even consider an alternative jersey at any point in the season.
Despite having just two uniforms, however, the Yankees sell millions of navy blue player tees online, at Yankee Stadium, and in sports stores around the world. These navy blue jerseys match the jerseys the Yankees wear throughout Spring Training.
The home spring training jerseys are navy blue with the interlocking “NY” that is worn with the pinstripes, while the road jerseys are the same color with the road “New York” plastered across the chest. When at home, the Yankees wear their normal pinstriped pants, and their road gray pants are worn in road spring games.
The Yankees even sell a jersey that is nearly identical to their spring training jerseys—except the only thing missing on the jersey in the MLB Shop is the official spring training logo.
This navy blue Giancarlo Stanton jersey is the 10th most popular Yankees jersey on the market right now, but we have not seen any hint that the jersey will be worn at all in the near future.
The Yankees offer the navy blue jersey for several of their players, while also giving fans the option to insert whatever number and last name they prefer, if they want one, in that jersey. This means that a Yankee fan could essentially have any player’s jersey they want in three different uniforms, despite only two of them being official jerseys.
The Yankees also offer other jerseys to be bought, like these gray jerseys that any kind of variation has never been worn by any Yankee ever.
The Yankees also sell this thing that they call the “Cooperstown Collection Peak Power Fashion Jersey.”
The Yankees pretty much entirely got rid of the navy blue in this jersey, another one that has never been worn and likely won’t see the light of day on the field.
Here’s one more jersey that the Yankees sell in their “Cooperstown Collection.”
All of those jerseys, along with the jerseys worn during holidays, are all under the “Fashion” tab on the MLB Shop site, so at least the Yankees are telling their fans that these jerseys are not officially theirs.
The Yankees also still sell the Players’ Weekend jerseys, but this one isn’t even real—Aaron Judge wore “All Rise” on the back of his jersey, rather than his last name.
Keep in mind that nine of the team’s top 12 selling jerseys all have last names on the back, according to the MLB Shop, while the Yankees, other than Players’ Weekend, have never worn last names on the back of their jerseys.
Now, the Yankees do sell jerseys with the last name on the back for a much cheaper price than the ones without, which is actually a good thing – it gives fans with less money the opportunity to wear the team’s merchandise.
The same thing goes for the player tees—fans can rock their favorite player for just 30 bucks, rather than over 200.
With that being said, if the Yankees gave their fans another option on the field, there is a legitimately good chance that the Yankees could even have more money in their pockets.
If the Yankees wore one of those jerseys mentioned above, the ones that no fan probably ever thought existed, just one time, even though the team might get ripped apart for breaking tradition, some fans will take notice and spend their money.