Garrett Stubbs did his best to sell people on the Phillies City Connect jerseys on the Foul Territory show, calling the squad a “sexy beer league team” and hoping they’d grow on fans. But he even admitted the colors were a little off for him:

The main problem I have with the City Connects are that Nike designed them based off the color of the city’s flag, and no one cares about the flag. Half the people in this city couldn’t tell you what it look liked before the jerseys were released. I didn’t even know there was Swedish influence on it. I mean we’re not Chicago or Maryland. We don’t have a passion for our flag because it’s not a great flag. You don’t see it down the shore flying in the breeze or outside your neighbor’s home. Sure, the Union have hitched their color scheme to a version of it, but they are a brand new team. They didn’t have a history of red, white, maroon, cream, and baby blue jerseys. We hate change in this city, for better or worse. Going from those colors to yellow and multiple blues was too much for people to wrap their heads around. And good luck getting a Philly fan to change their mind after it’s already made up.

Interesting that Stubbs said he’d like to see a version of the Phanatic become a City Connect. I wonder how realistic that is with copyright laws and legal stuff, but this is a clear favorite in the clubhouse. Talking to some people before the jerseys were released and seeing comments on social media, plenty have said they should’ve done a version of the Phanatic. The one thing Union fans like about the new jerseys is that they can wear them to soccer games. Imagine the cultural impact of a Phanatic jersey. The crossover potential is limitless. From Eagles tailgates to the Wildwood boardwalk these jerseys would do numbers.

Instead we have these for a couple years: