Baseball and Nike entered into an agreement last year to put out "City Connect" uniforms, eventually one per team. The idea is to move away from the team's traditional uniform style, but come up with an alternative to be worn occasionally that speaks to the unique culture of the city in question. I think it's safe to say that the San Diego unis may have been a swing and a miss.

On the other hand, last year the Boston Red Sox were one of the three teams chosen to inaugurate the program, and their uniforms were by contrast a home run and have set a very high bar for other teams. At first glance, they seem weird, blue and yellow, colors closer to the UCLA college teams rather than something associated with Boston. But the "connection" is that they're the colors and font of the Boston Marathon, with a sleeve patch that looks like a marathon runner's bib bearing the number 617. The Red Sox are now forever connected to that event. The Marathon bombing in 2013 took place just as the team was concluding its "Patriot's Day" game, and before their next game, they had a team uniform made up with the number 617, the city's area code, on the back between the words Boston and Strong. The uniform hung in the dugout for every game that year, with players touching it before going up to the plate, right up until the time the team--good, but flawed and definitely not great--surprisingly won the world series.

Boston celebrates major sports championships with a parade through the city on Duck Boats, World War II inspired amphibian craft, and as the parade approached the marathon finish line, the parade came to a halt, and two players came down from the Duck Boats. One carried the world series trophy and placed it in the middle of the finish line (painted in those blue and yellow colors) and the other draped the 617 uniform shirt--the one that had spent the season in the dugout--over the trophy, and the crowd lining the streets spontaneously burst into a singing of God Bless America.

The uniforms recall all of that and have become extremely popular. Players and fans love them, they have clearly connected to the city, and if they're making some money for MLB and Nike, it seems a small price to pay.

To call baseball the dullest sport in America is an indication that you know zero about the game. In reality it is the best game out there for thinking people. In the first place it is the only game with a true one on one competition built within a framework of a team. The pitcher vs. the batter. The way defenses are set up is like playing chess on a large scale. Teams will shift the infielders and outfielders to match the hitting history of a certain batter, pitchers will throw away from or into a batter depending on the history of what they swing at. Pitchers and batters are inserted into the lineup to take advantage of them being right-handed or left-handed. Most of us like to see a lot of base running and scoring but a good pitchers duel is also good to watch. Only when there is little scoring and yet not a good pitchers duel like in a 3 to 2 game do I find the game less interesting to watch. Baseball is my favorite pro sport. While I also like football when there are two good teams playing, pro basketball is worthless in my opinion. College basketball on the other hand is my second favorite sport to watch followed closely by golf. If you really want to get bored though, watch a bunch of guy run back and forth like squirls trying to decide to continue across the street or go back the way they came as a car bears down on them! This is what soccer looks like to me! I guess we each have opinions about certain sports but to call baseball dull just doesn't seem right.

Yesterday, I was flipping through the TV channels, and stopped at an MLB game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the San Diego Padres (in San Diego). Do my eyes deceive me? Has to be the ugliest MLB uniform I have ever seen...even out-did the striped Houston Astros uniform of the past. San Diego presented a combination of mint green on one sleeve and putrid pink on the other sleeve. Add in a touch of yellow trim, a mint green hat, the San Diego words in the same obnoxious colors in a hideous font, numbers in pink, and players name in an unreadable yellow against white. Also, check out the catcher with pink chest protector, shin guards, and mask. What were they thinking?