Worcester Red Sox Become Worcester Ruby Legs for a Day of Historic City Celebration

Paying homage to a historic Worcester-based ballclub from the 1800s, the Worcester Red Sox transformed into the Worcester Ruby Legs Sunday, June 11, in their 5-2 win against the Rochester Red Wings.

Trading in their usual red, white, and navy uniforms, the WooSox took the field in white pillbox hats and jerseys with screen-printed bowties and buttons along the center. Courtney Cowsill, the WooSox director of graphic and web design, said she designed the Ruby Legs uniforms with classic ballfield ambiance in mind.

“I was thinking about how baseball is so much of a take-you-out-of-your-regular-life kind of thing,” Cowsill said. “When you go to a game, the scents, the smells, the sounds—you’re there for a moment and everything else sort of goes away. I wanted to really lean into that completely and be like, well, we’re already taking people away, let’s take them all the way away and just make it a full throwback. What if you were here in the 1800s? What if we were the Ruby Legs?”

Tying into the city’s history, “Ruby Legs” is the nickname of Worcester’s original ballclub from the 1800s, the Worcester Worcesters, who used to play ball at the Worcester Driving Park Grounds (also known as the Worcester Agricultural Fairgrounds). Most notably, the first-ever perfect game was thrown by Worcester’s own Lee Richmond against the Cleveland Blues at home on June 12, 1880, not far from where Polar Park now stands.

Before the Ruby Legs game, the WooSox content team held a photoshoot with some of the players to promote the day and get a first look at the new uniforms. Tayla Bolduc, the WooSox coordinator of social media and content, said she and the content team were “dying” at how good the uniforms looked on each player.

“For the promo, we had David Hamilton, Ryan Fitzgerald, and Narciso Crook,” Bolduc said. “Narciso Crook was the first one out of the tunnel, and he loved it. He said that he usually doesn’t keep the [specialty] hats, but he loved the pillbox hat and was like, ‘I’m definitely keeping this hat.’ It was fun to feed off that energy and to know that they were excited.”

According to Bolduc, the WooSox content team—made up of Bolduc, Ashley Green (team photographer), and Eddie Monigan (team videographer)—did some research and found baseball cards from the 1880s with poses they wanted the players to replicate. Additionally, Monigan created a highlight reel in the style of a silent film for gameday, staying true to the 1800s theme.

“As a content team, we knew that we had to live up to [Cowsill’s] expectations that she made because the uniforms were just so cool,” Bolduc said. I’m really proud of the content team and what we achieved all together, and that we were able to make this vision come to life for us and for Courtney.”

When first designing the Ruby Legs uniforms, Cowsill said she found difficulty connecting the name with a modern link.

“When I was trying to think of something current, new, and modern that we could do, it was like hitting a wall,” she said. “I was like, this isn’t the direction that I can take this creatively. This is blocked, so where is the other way to go? If the present isn’t working, let’s step back.”

Once the historical perspective was introduced, Cowsill said she still faced challenges with how to design the uniforms in a realistic way that the players would be comfortable with.

“It very much was, how do we make sure the players can still play?” she said. “That’s why we screen printed it. Nothing was going to get in the way when they’re throwing. At the end of the day, they’re uniforms for baseball players, so it was finding that balance of this is a costume but this is a uniform that they need to be able to play in.”

After an entire year of brainstorming, planning, and designing, Cowsill said she was “thrilled” to finally see her idea come to fruition in the finished product.

“I still can’t believe it,” she said. “I’m still riding that high of watching them all step out onto the field, looking how they looked. Going along with it the way they did was amazing.”

According to Cowsill, the players only had to wear the hats and uniforms, but every other aspect of their appearance was their own decision. To her surprise, every WooSox player wore their socks high on game day, some even in stirrups, solidifying the team’s resemblance to the Worcester Worcesters from long ago.

With the WooSox serving as the city’s new favorite ballclub, Cowsill said it was important to acknowledge the team that came before, even including the original Worcester Worcesters logo on the Ruby Legs uniform sleeve.

“I think with the Worcester Worcesters, it’s the history,” she said. “A lot of [the WooSox] coming here was honoring the town. This was a way for us to bring it right back to the city itself and what was here before we came and a little nod to who came before us.”

Before coming to Worcester, the WooSox ran a poll to collect potential names for the city’s new ballclub. Along with the Ruby Legs, the favorites were Wicked Worms, Green Bananas, Dirt Dogs, and Gritty Kitties. The next WooSox What If? Night arrives on August 17 when the team transforms into the Wicked Worms of Worcester to take on the Scranton Wilkes-Barre RailRiders at 6:45 p.m.