St. Louis Cardinals: It’s time for another alternate jersey

Last offseason’s newest St. Louis Cardinals jersey was met with some unnecessary hate. However, there is one more jersey the Cardinals need.

There was one awesome story surrounding the St. Louis Cardinals in 2019 (completely independent of the on-field product) that I don’t believe got enough attention. This was the Spanish broadcast of the games hosted by Polo Ascensio and Bengie Molina.

This broadcast began in 2016 with just two games covered but after expanding in 2017, the crew did 39 games in 2018 and 67 in 2019 including all of the playoff games.

Yadier Molina discussed how important this broadcast is in a KMOX interview here, and it’s something the team has fully backed; naming the two broadcasters as the first official Spanish Cardinals broadcasters. The team has also created a verified Cardinals Twitter account (@cardenales) and an Instagram account (@stlcardenales).

The team really has done an awesome job supporting the Spanish broadcast and working with them to bring Cardinals baseball coverage to more fans all over the globe.

I want the team to go even further.

Recently, the Arizona Diamondbacks came out with yet another batch of jersey adjustments and the following jersey was included.

The last jersey is the one that caught my eye. Starting on September 15th, the MLB celebrates Hispanic Heritage month and in 2019 the Cardinals wore a “Cardenales” jersey. In this game recap, you can see the jerseys. If, like me, you forgot that the Cardinals did this in 2019, it’s probably because that was the game where Ryan Braun hit a Grand Slam in the 9th inning to cap off a Brewers comeback against the Cardinals bullpen.

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That game aside, I think the Cardinals could really start a good trend in the MLB if they came out with their own “Cardenales” jersey and wore it on a regular basis.

Last winter, the Cardinals unveiled their Saturday away alternate jerseys to a roar of backlash (for no reason), and I’m sure that made them a lot of money in jersey sales. Unveiling a Spanish jersey would not only appeal to that goal of the Cardinals’ top brass but also the goal and effort that they have put into spreading the hometown team’s coverage to more people.

I may be wrong when I say that no other team wears a Spanish jersey outside of the month of September, but why should that celebration of the heritage of more than 30% of the league’s players be restricted to just one month of the season? 

The Cardinals pride themselves on trying to be on the leading edge of the league and this is a move where they can keep going in the right direction. I am not saying the team should wear this jersey once a week, but what would be the issue with wearing a Spanish jersey on Sunday home games? That would likely mean 1-3 times a month. That’s not too much to ask.

This idea may not truly be feasible for some reason I don’t understand, but if you follow the path of how this side of what the Cardinals do is growing, a Spanish jersey is a logical step to arrive at down the path. So why not get ahead of the curve and do it now?