Padres' new City Connect jersey tease is incredibly satisfying

San Diego thought we’d already said our goodbyes. When word first spread that the Padres’ original City Connect set was riding off into the sunset, it felt like a hard cut to black. Those pink–mint–yellow road-trip postcards had become part of the soundtrack at Petco: the Friday-night glow, the cross-border vibe, the way a single uniform managed to bottle both a beach day and a downtown mural. Three years after debuting on July 8, 2022, the look still carried more cultural weight than most one-off alternates ever do. In an era when some City Connects were mocked, mothballed, or quietly minimized, San Diego’s stuck. They didn’t just sell; they resonated.

That’s why the new tease hits so clean. It isn’t nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, it’s the Padres acknowledging that the original set didn’t just work, it set a bar. The club’s first City Connects were conceived as a love letter to the binational identity of San Diego–Tijuana, blending sunset colors with surf energy and border-town personality. 

Padres’ new City Connect tease nails the vibe and hints at a bold reset

Wearing them nearly every Friday cemented a ritual: fans planned outfits, the concourses looked like a parade route, and opponents knew they were stepping into something that felt more like a night out than a night at the office. Replacing that kind of lived-in ritual is risky; matching it is rare. The video the team dropped on Sunday suggests the Padres aren’t dodging that challenge, they’re chasing it.

The 1 minute 24 second clip lands with the timing and symbolism of a well-booked main event: Day of the Dead weekend, candles flickering, marigolds crowding the frame, and a La Catrina figure moving like a memory come to life. WWE Intercontinental Champion, and San Diego native, Dominik Mysterio steps into that glow, approaches an altar, and places a white-toned Padres cap upon it. Then, smoke, blackout, and a single promise: the full reveal with Nike arrives in April.

The symbolism isn’t subtle, and it shouldn’t be. Día de los Muertos is about remembrance that transforms, honoring what was while inviting it forward. That’s the perfect lens for a City Connect relaunch in San Diego, a market that lives in two languages and celebrates two cities’ worth of heritage. The altar says the original look matters. The new hat says evolution is coming. And casting Mysterio, whose family story is stitched into the region, bridges pop culture, lucha lineage, and Padres baseball in one frame. It’s not just a uniform tease; it’s a brand thesis.

Of course, the question that immediately lights up group chats is the most basic one: is that the hat? Or just a mood piece? The Padres aren’t saying. A team spokesperson made it clear on Nov. 2 that the video is all we’re getting until April. That ambiguity is the point. If the cap is the new on-field lid, the palette hints at a fresh direction that departs from neon pastels without abandoning vibrancy. If it’s only a cinematic prop, it still telegraphs the palette, the fonts, the feel, enough breadcrumbs for months of speculation, mockups, and “enhance” screenshots on social.

Either way, San Diego’s creative north star is unchanged. The first City Connects worked because they didn’t chase a trend; they amplified a place. The pink, mint, and yellow weren’t random, they were sunsets, surf wax, desert blooms, quinceañera flyers, and taco-shop paint. 

The new tease leans into the same playbook: anchor the story in culture first, then let Nike’s design lab cook. If the original set crowned San Diego as the standard-bearer of City Connects, the sequel needs to be more than a remix. It needs to feel inevitable, like the next chapter of the same story.

What the video nails is tone. The marigolds and Catrina aren’t costume; they’re context. The altar moment reframes the uniform conversation from “what’s replacing the old look?” to “how do we honor and evolve it?” In a league where “new jersey” can mean “new for the sake of new,” the Padres are signaling intention. They’re not racing to out-neon 2022 or to copy anyone else’s 2025. They’re building a reveal that lets San Diego be itself, loud when it wants, understated when it needs, always bilingual.

If April brings a jersey that feels as rooted and as fearless as this video, San Diego won’t just repeat history; it’ll raise the bar all over again.