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Via George Richards at the Miami Herald (whose story was pulled, likely at the request of the Marlins). Keep fighting that uniform fight, George. Google's cache is still available for the time being, and I've pulled all the pictures into their own gallery. A PDF of the original article can be found here.

As much as the previous leaked logo turned out to be true, the first on-field merchandise has (accidentally) shown up at a New Era store in Buffalo, and, well, the leak has been absolutely validated. And in a completely unscientific survey of my dozens (dozens!) of Twitter followers (almost all Philadelphia-oriented, if not Philadelphia-based) people really seem to hate the new design. Normally, I'd not say too much about a non-Philadelphia uniform (note: this is not true), but as intradivisional rivals, we'll be seeing a lot of this design, unlike the new Blue Jays and Orioles logos/uniforms.

[Let me point out that the Blue Jays will be using a different typeface than shown in that artwork, and the Orioles rebranding hasn't leaked yet, though it supposedly invokes this historical logo. Really.]

6
Again, picture via George Richards of the Miami Herald.

But, the new Marlins logo isn't getting a fair shake, and here's why:

1) The entire uniform hasn't been seen yet. We've only seen the logo. Sure, it's safe to assume that there will be White jerseys, Grey jerseys, and one or two solid color jerseys with one of those being solid Black (more on that later), but to say the whole thing is a failure now isn't fair.

2) Let's point out what the logo isn't: it's not Red, Navy Blue, or (speaking of the logo itself) Black. Think of the post-2000 Baseball logos: Angels (Red), Astros (Red and Black), Blue Jays (Black — yeah, that makes sense), Brewers (Navy Blue), Diamondbacks (Red and Black), Nationals (Red), Padres (Navy Blue), Rangers (Red and Blue[not Navy, though]), Rays (Navy). Not a lot of variety in recent years. I'll point out that I'm ignoring historical considerations– the Rangers have always used Red or Blue, for example.

3) It's an evolution of the current logo, with the fish jumping around the letterform ("M" on the new logo, "F" for the current hats). A traceable lineage is a nice touch. There's a reason many people hated the previous Sixers uniforms; they were obviously designed in a bubble, with no connection to the team's history. As much as the Marlins have been a joke in recent years, they have one more World Series win than the Phillies do in the last 20 years (*ducks*).

4) The current logo is stale. The overly detailed Marlin reeks of late-80s/early-90s design. (the overly detailed Orioles logo, also being replaced, is from the same era). For the design geeks out there, check out the great use of negative space to split the Orange and Blue of the Marlin itself. Very sleek and clean design all-around.

5) For those that are hating the Orange, Blue, and Yellow, take solace in the fact that the Marlins went big with color on their previous uniforms, with Teal pinstripes, Teal hats (two different ones), and alternate jerseys featuring… Teal. But item-by-item the Teal was pulled out, leaving them with what was effectively a plain uniform with mainly Black using Silver and Teal as an accent colors. If Orange, Blue, and Yellow don't go over well, expect to see less and less of them in future years. It looks like most of the hate is directed at the colors, not the logo itself, so let's see if the folks in Miami end up liking the design, colors inclusive. In a superficial way, the presence of Orange, Blue, and Yellow means that a Marlins hat won't go with everything. Of course, they make team hats in, you know, every color, so let's call this a non-issue.

You can also find some folks talking about how this logo "feels" like Miami and so on. I'm not sure what that means. Miami is brightly colored and shiny? Or is it actually that simple because Miami is brightly colored and shiny? Or is there a Don Johnson joke in here somewhere?

5A) As a potentially negative color-related item, I'll point out that the colors are a bit non-exact in the pictures (shout-out to George Richards for taking pictures with and without flash, though). If the Blue is actually Greenish and pushing towards Aqua (Richards refers to it as "Dark Teal")… uh-oh. And if they're purposefully overlapping colors with the Dolphins, I won't be a happy camper. Pittsburgh pulls this crap. Think about it…yep, they're all yellow and black. As if you needed another reason to hate Pittsburgh– I kid. It's only OK because they've been doing it so long.

5B) Another positive color-related item: Instead of using a White stroke to make the logo stick-out on the Black hat, they use Silver. In fact, based on these pictures, it appears all of the non-White thread has a metallic fleck. I like that effect.

I'll be back with more when the uniforms are either unveiled (near 11/11) or leaked (any day now); I'm just asking we keep an open mind. It's much more interesting than yet another achingly-mid-2000s Navy Blue or Red design. Plus, I've been itching to write something ever since I typed 700 words about fake Flyers jerseys (thanks, Kyle).

Disagree? Hit the comments or bug me on Twitter (@dancfuller).