Major League Baseball / National League - San Diego Padres

San Diego Padres Unveil New Logo, Uniforms

By Mike Scarr / MLB.com

SAN DIEGO -- It's a new look all around for the Padres and that will extend to the shirts on their backs.

The ball club unveiled new uniforms, a new logo and overall color scheme on Thursday and hope to combine this new appearance with their new home, PETCO Park, to usher in a new era.

"A lot of thought and effort went into trying to make sure that this new look symbolized San Diego," Padres president and chief operating officer Dick Freeman said. "It's something that really ties into the personality of the city."

In the first major uniform change in over 10 years, the Padres introduced a new palette that incorporates navy blue, medium blue, sand and white.

A new script "Padres" will adorn the front of the home white and alternate blue jerseys, and the city name San Diego will be on the all-sand shaded road uniforms. The Padres will be the only team not to wear gray on the road.

The interlocking letters, S and D, will remain on a navy blue cap and also the image of the Swinging Friar will be retained.

Each of the colors is intended to reflect the city of San Diego and also PETCO Park.

"All these colors, the blues, the sand and the white, represent the new direction of this team and the beautiful setting that is your city," said vice president of design services for Major League Baseball Anna Occi.

Where the previous logo was circular in nature, the new logo is anchored by a shape of home plate, making the Padres the only one of 30 Major league teams to incorporate home plate into its logo.

"That represents the new home that you will have here," Occi said of the logo that was on a sail of a boat that skated by on Glorietta Bay as part of the unveiling in Coronado. "We believe that it will be something very warm and endearing to everybody."

The evolution of the Padres uniform has been a long, strange trip.

Their last alteration came in 2001 when they dropped the pinstripes that had been a part of their uniforms since 1985. Marking what may have been the club's most dramatic uniform upgrade in franchise history, the year 1985 saw the departure of the orange and yellow sunburst look for an overall brown scheme.

"I was never sure what happened there," Freeman said about the uniforms in the 70's and early 80's when the colors of yellow and brown dominated. "But it had something to do with the 1970s, I'm convinced."

New ownership in 1991 ushered in the blue era and the days of brown were over, an era that Freeman said was never meant as a nod to the Franciscan Friars but instead was a reflection of the club's first owner, C. Arnholt Smith, who liked the color brown.

But the new-look Padres are more than ready to place all of those previous looks into the archives as they move forward to what they hope will be a successful beginning in their new ballpark.

"I think it's going to be a really good statement for the team," second baseman Mark Loretta said who modeled the road uniform. "This is going to be pretty unique; I think people are really going to enjoy this."

Phil Nevin, Trevor Hoffman and manager Bruce Bochy joined Loretta on the runway and the skipper took a more pragmatic in their outlook.

"I'm not one to get too caught up in uniforms but I think they did a good job with them," Bochy said, who acknowledged wearing some tough looking unis as a member of both the 80's Padres and Astros.

But while not being a true critic of baseball fashion, Bochy did have offer one thought.

"I just hope these new uniforms have a lot of good luck in them."

Mike Scarr is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

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