Orioles Return "Baltimore" Text To Road Uniforms For '09 Season

Baltimore Name Absent From Road Jersey Since '72

The Orioles today unveiled new uniforms for the '09 season, and "no change will attract as much attention -- and be met with as much applause -- as the addition of 'Baltimore' to the team's road jerseys for the first time in 36 years," according to Jeff Zrebiec of the Baltimore SUN. The Baltimore name "hasn't been on the Orioles' road jersey" since '72, and few topics have "drawn more ire from Orioles fans, who have cited the organization's failure to make the change as proof that the club had lost touch with its local fan base." The team's road jerseys will have "Baltimore" across the front of the "gray jerseys in orange and outlined in black and in lettering very similar to the way 'Orioles' is scripted on the home jerseys." Also, the Orioles logo and the bird on the team's cap "have undergone alterations," and there are also "changes in each of the team's three jerseys, some more subtle than others." The Maryland state flag patch on the left sleeve of the road jersey "will be surrounded by the text 'Orioles baseball,'" while on the right sleeve, the "Orioles" script, "which stretches across the home jerseys, will be written in smaller form" (Baltimore SUN, 11/12).

ROAD WARRIOR: In Baltimore, Rick Maese writes under the header, "Give Angelos A Hand For Being Hands-Off." Maese: "Endorsed by years of fans begging and pleading," the team's new road jersey was a "move personally handled by" Orioles Owner Peter Angelos. Returning "Baltimore" to the road jerseys is a "symbolic gesture that tells us not that [Angelos] is open to change -- but more importantly, that he's capable of it." Orioles fans "measure progress in inches, not wins. So, yes, 'Baltimore' probably should've returned to the jerseys years ago." But "focus today on the fact that it has happened and what that change represents" (Baltimore SUN, 11/12).