A staple of games at Wrigley Field through much of the 2000’s, the Cubs almost exclusively don pinstripes at home today.
As a lifelong fan of one of the most historic franchises in North American professional sports, the uniforms of the Chicago Cubs play a major part in the team’s lore and history.
Having been tied to Wrigley Field as a franchise for 110 years, the Cubs have also mostly maintained the same logo for over 60 years, making slight changes as generations have gone by while holding on to a classic, instantly recognizable look.
After dabbling in some other uniform designs in the early 1990’s, the Cubs latched on to the designs used today back in the legendary 1998 season, which saw the North Siders adopt their current grey away jerseys as well as their blue alternates.
Since their introduction, the blue alternate uniforms have become staples of the Cubs’ jersey rotation, serving as the team’s most used alternate jersey over the course of the past 28 years.
Although predominantly used on the road, the blue jerseys also saw plenty of shelf life for home games as well throughout much of the 2000’s, with the jerseys being known as the personal favorite of longtime Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano.
Directly tied to Zambrano’s preference, the Cubs typically donned the blue alternates for home games that Zambrano was on the mound for – although blue uniforms weren’t worn at home exclusively for Zambrano’s starts.
The blue alternates also saw a slight change for use at home during the 2005 and 2006 seasons, which saw the Cubs remove the names from the back of their jerseys for home games, opting to only have numbers on the back of both of their jerseys worn at home. Still, the names remained on the back of the blue alternates that were used for away games in these seasons.
Towards the end of Zambrano’s time on the North Side, the Cubs moved to phase out the blue uniforms at home, moving to exclusively wear the white pinstriped jerseys at home beginning in the 2010 season.
Since then, the Cubs uniform appearance has remained largely unchanged outside of City Connect alternate jerseys and other special promotions. The white pinstriped jerseys are worn for most home games, while powder blue uniforms that were introduced in 2025 are used for Friday home games.
While the Cubs’ pinstriped white jerseys are among the most iconic in all of sports, I would love to see the team break out the blue alternates fans have grown to love at Wrigley Field every once in a while.
Perhaps it’s just pure nostalgia for the Derrek Lee/Aramis Ramirez era of Cubs baseball, but there’s something special about the way those blue uniforms look at home.
The unorthodox but harmonious marriage between the blue tops and pinstriped white pants. A packed crowd of 40,000 fans in blue pairing with bricks and ivy to create the perfect backdrop for the blue-clad Cubs on the field.
While tradition and history is what fans immediately think of when seeing the classic white uniforms, the blue uniforms would emphasize the unmistakable home-field advantage the Cubs have when playing important games at Wrigley Field. Furthermore, with the blue alternates being the jerseys worn when the Cubs finally broke the Curse of the Billy Goat in 2016, the uniforms will forever have a special spot in the hearts of Cubs fans.
Since the end of the 2009 season, blue uniforms at home have been exceptionally rare after being an incredibly common sight throughout the previous decade. The Cubs first brought back blue at home on different uniforms during the club’s 100th anniversary celebrations of Wrigley Field in 2014. With different uniforms celebrating different decades, the Cubs donned blue jerseys that read “Cubs” across the front in red text on Aug. 24, 2014- a throwback to the infamous “Cuba jersey” days of the mid-1990’s.
The Cubs didn’t touch blue uniforms at home until the summer of 2019, when players had randomly opted to wear the jerseys for a home game against the Atlanta Braves on June 25, 2019 – which turned out to be a one-off occurrence for the team.
Most recently, the Cubs wore an altered version of the blue alternates at home on Aug. 2, 2025 in a game against the Baltimore Orioles for a celebration of the life and career of Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg – a franchise icon throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s. The uniforms were similar to the alternates the Cubs would wear at home in 2005 and 2006, with the names removed from the backs of the uniforms in a nod to the designs used during Sandberg’s playing days.
Although it’s refreshing to see that the Cubs have embraced an alternate home uniform for Friday games while hanging on to their now-iconic blue threads, it would be nice to see the blue unis get a little more use – and a designated day to wear them at home would likely please a large amount of Cubs fans who haven’t seen them at Wrigley Field in years.
To perhaps add another nostalgic twist to the uniforms, I would also love to see the Cubs revive their two-toned caps that used to be worn on the road throughout the late 1990’s and 2000’s – a noticeable difference from the all-blue cap used by the team in both home and away games today.
Although the Cubs only wore solid blue caps with either jersey at home, I personally wouldn’t mind seeing the two-toned caps make a comeback with the blue uniforms regardless of where the game is being played.
While it’s understandable that the Cubs don’t fully embrace red as a team color given that it is the primary color of the archrival St. Louis Cardinals, it would be nice to see red utilized as the potent accent color it can be with the Cubs’ current color scheme.
With the red lettering used on the blue alternates being the most prominent use of red on any of the team’s primary uniforms, adding the two-toned caps to the blue jerseys would provide a more vibrant appearance to the uniforms, allowing the secondary red to pop a bit more – especially on screen to fans who are watching at home.
The Cubs have long held some of the best uniforms in all of sports, and much of it can simply be attributed to the team not fixing something that isn’t broke. Yet still, minor changes and additions over the years are welcome, and a fitting way to differentiate the team from the always stagnant New York Yankees when it comes to uniform design.
I’m sure this is an issue far from the forefront of the minds of Cubs’ brass, but fans generally love seeing a uniform switch-up that doesn’t totally disregard tradition and convention. With blue uniforms at home, it’s hard to think of an easier way to spice things up.
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