Padres to wear popular, polarizing City Connect unis for final time on Friday

After four years, the Padres on Friday will don their pink-and-mint City Connect uniforms for the last time.

The club announced in January that this would be the final season for the brightly-colored alternates.

Teams can swap out designs after four seasons. The Diamondbacks, Red Sox, White Sox, Rockies, Astros, Marlins, Giants and Nationals all debuted new City Connects this year. The Padres will unveil a new City Connect design next year.

“It’s always fun to get a new jersey,” center fielder Jackson Merrill said. “As long as I stay on the same team with the new jersey.”

The 22-year-old Merrill appreciated the change-up that the Nike-produced City Connects provided for Friday night home games. Merrill’s favorite Padres jerseys are either the Sunday camos or the road pinstripes, but the bright City Connects bring “a little different vibe,” he said.

“Nothing crazy,” he said. “Different colors. Different fans. Different jerseys. Just change it up a little bit.”

The Padres began wearing their City Connects in 2022, the second year of a partnership between Nike and Major League Baseball aimed at weaving cultural aspects of each team’s home city into the design.

The Padres said the pink, mint and yellow colors were an ode to life on both sides of the border, our region’s sunsets and San Diego’s surf and skate culture.

The look proved popular among kids, but not everyone was a fan. A 2022 Union-Tribune poll found that 84% of readers didn’t like the bright colors, a departure from the Padres’ already popular brown and gold gear.

Phil Hecken of Uni-Watch.com called the look “fun … whimsical even,” with a caveat.

“Is it something I want to see every day? Of course not — no one with eyes would — but it’s fun and whimsical to have as a sparingly-used alternate,” he wrote.

Hecken’s biggest complaint was what he called “a too-clever-by-half bi-color wordmark, which comes off as unreadable in most viewings.”

The uniforms took some getting used to, even for those who wear them for every Friday home game at Petco Park.

“I like that it’s unique,” pitcher Joe Musgrove said. “I think it grew on a lot of people, including people in the clubhouse as the year(s) went (on). I thought it was clever the way they tied in some of the Baja culture into the uniforms.

“But I think anybody after you wear something for a couple years and you see everyone getting new ones, I think everyone’s pretty excited to see what the new ones look like here.”

The Padres will tease their City Connect 2.0s sometime after the season, with a full unveiling scheduled for sometime next spring. Musgrove said he has gotten a sneak peek at the new gear.

“I’m excited for something a little more basic,” Musgrove said. “ … I’ve seen some of the mock-ups. … I think it’s going to look really clean.”