New City Connect Jerseys for the San Diego Padres Leaked and They Are Atrocious

Over the past several years, Nike and MLB have made a concerted effort to add some variety to baseball's uniforms by launching the "City Connect" initiative.

The redesigned alternates have slowly spread around the league, with 13 out of the 30 teams having already released their new jerseys.

One of the latest teams to be added to the program is the San Diego Padres, an organization that already has a complicated uniform history.

The Padres have repeatedly changed their uniforms in recent years, redoing their colors, altering fonts and styles, and eventually moving from a more generic white and blue color scheme to their current brown and gold set.

The City Connect style is, uh...none of those colors.

In what's supposedly a nod to a roller coaster at a local San Diego amusement park, the new style is remarkably bright and has a varied set of, shall we say, vibrant colors:

These are, quite simply, atrocious.

The colors don't really work together on a uniform and the overall look feels like it would be much at home in the minor leagues, not MLB.

While the goal of the City Connect series is quite obviously to include local references in uniform design, Nike had so many other choices they could have used for San Diego.

The ocean, Torrey Pines, Sea World, Legoland, the San Diego Zoo, Coronado Island and the Hotel Del Coronado, the military connection...there were so many other options and color schemes they could have used. Instead, they decided on some kind of neon and mustard colored hybrid.

The worst part is, Nike has already demonstrated that they can successfully design alternates for some franchises.

The Brewers City Connect jerseys, for example are great:

Same with the Angels, despite the tenuous connection to the ocean when Anaheim is located squarely in inland Orange County:

Nike clearly has the ability to pay tribute to local areas while designing a unique and visually appealing alternate jersey.

The Padres version, while certainly unique, is conclusively not appealing.

Written by
Ian Miller is a former award watching high school actor, author, and long suffering Dodgers fan. He spends most of his time golfing, traveling, reading about World War I history, and trying to get the remote back from his dog. Follow him on Twitter @ianmSC