The Boston Red Sox would like a little space.
The club says it is “adjusting” its home white jerseys for the 2026 season after fans criticized the lack of spacing between the RED SOX lettering and piping on the chest. The team issued a series of statements Wednesday accepting blame for approving the design and absolving the league’s uniform manufacturer, Fanatics, of responsibility. The updated jerseys will be ready for the Red Sox’s home opener April 3 against the San Diego Padres, according to the team.
Closely inspecting teams’ threads has become a spring training ritual for many fans since MLB’s uniform fiasco in 2024, when Nike unveiled a new template, the Vapor Premier, that was widely panned and then rolled back. Road grays returned last year to a pre-2024 look and feel, and home whites followed suit for this season. So, fans reviewing the Red Sox’s player images from the club’s photo day in Fort Myers, Fla., this week were surprised to find something still felt off. Unlike in years past, the D and S on the jersey slightly overlapped the red piping.
Compared to last year (left), there’s something off about the lettering on the Red Sox’ home whites this year (right). pic.twitter.com/1whb3Vlyj8
— Brendan Campbell (@brendan_camp) February 17, 2026
“As part of Major League Baseball’s return to the 2023 jersey template, we approved a design for our home white jerseys that, once produced and seen in person, we felt could be cleaner in the spacing between the lettering and piping,” the Red Sox said in their initial statement posted on X on Wednesday afternoon. “In collaboration with MLB and Fanatics, we’re adjusting the home whites to restore clearer separation.”
That statement was then deleted and replaced with one adding that Fanatics had produced the jerseys “exactly to our specs.” The club’s clarification continued in a follow-up post: “To be clear, the original design was selected by the Red Sox. Fanatics executed to our specifications and has been an outstanding partner throughout. They deserve no blame and we are grateful to them for making the new jerseys in time for Opening Day.”
The Red Sox are not the first to attempt to direct blame for botched baseball uniforms away from Fanatics. In 2024, both MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association defended their merchandising partner, saying Fanatics had manufactured the uniforms to the exact specifications provided by Nike, the league’s uniform supplier. “This has been entirely a Nike issue,” stated a players association memo circulated to players that spring. “At its core, what has happened here is that Nike was innovating something that didn’t need to be innovated.”
In the Red Sox’s case, the issue appears to be more a lack of attention to detail than anyone over-innovating. Each offseason, clubs receive their uniform designs for the following season and have an opportunity to provide feedback. In their statements, the Red Sox did not explain whether moving the lettering and piping together in the first place was their decision or Nike’s. The club approved the design, and the jerseys were stitched at the Fanatics factory and shipped. Now, that process will restart.
Fanatics drew the ire of Boston sports fans for another reason recently, as New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks fans complained about the quality and availability of its Super Bowl 60 merchandise. Fanatics apologized for the availability issues in a statement, citing “unprecedented challenges for us because of the massive surge in demand we saw from Patriots and Seahawks fans.”
A Patriots superfan who goes by “Babz” said he is meeting with Fanatics founder and CEO Michael Rubin next week. Babz encouraged his followers on X to tell him how they’d like to see Fanatics change. He plans to read the suggestions to Rubin. Until the Red Sox took the blame, the Red Sox jerseys were on the list.