This story was excerpted from Jason Beck’s Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

CLEVELAND -- Tigers executives sat down with representatives from Major League Baseball and Nike two years ago to try to answer one big question: How does a team that has been very traditional with its uniforms join MLB’s City Connect generation?

Detroit has had home whites and road grays as its primary jerseys for more than a century. It hasn’t had a blue jersey in its rotation since 1905-06, Ty Cobb’s first two seasons. The last time the Tigers tried an alternate jersey, the blue tops lasted one game in '95 before then-president John McHale decided they would not be worn again. Even the letter size on the traditional cap, or the changing of the uniform letter to match the cap, produced headlines.

The Tigers were among the last round of teams to get a City Connect uniform, but that didn’t make the task any easier: How could the club strike the balance between old and new?

The answer was to put the focus on the city. The Tigers had a few potential narratives for Detroit, and they focused on the auto industry.

“I think with this one, it was a very clear vision for where we wanted to go and how we wanted to hone in,” Tigers vice president of marketing Katie Jackson said on Monday. “We put the world on wheels. And so, that innovative nature of what the city is known for, these are probably some of the most straightforward [elements]. If you're looking from the outside in, Motor City makes a lot of sense from the outside, but I think our fans as well can really get excited about the Motor City.

“It's a really important balance. We wanted to honor the history and the past, but also look ahead. For us, it's about turning the page to a new era of innovation. We've been on a similar path -- this city, the team and the auto industry -- where it's been very innovative. There have been challenges. We're kind of all going through this renaissance, and it's a really special time. If you're in this city, it feels different, it's a really special, forward-thinking time [with] a lot of energy. So with the uniforms, we really wanted to make sure that they were also feeling that way.”

That balance is seen in the jerseys. While the dark navy-blue base color represents Tigers tradition, the brighter blue -- "electric blue" as the Tigers call it -- represents innovation and the future. It resembles the blue of two of Detroit’s major automakers, and it represents the auto industry’s move to the future. A font created for the names and numbers reflects a racing style.

“While we wanted to really celebrate our history and the past, for us it was more about looking at the future,” Jackson said. “We are on this amazing trajectory as a city, as the Tigers, as the automotive industry, and innovation is a really key part of that. It's certainly a new era, and we really wanted to focus most of our attention on the future and the energy of innovation. I think the electric blue is one of the best vibes of that. It's a beautiful color, but it truly is that energetic feel that you see all across the front of the uniform. And when we showed it to our players for the first time, they were blown away just seeing the electric blue.”

The other big area where that balance shines, Jackson pointed out, is the Tiger eyes on the bill of the cap and the tag on the jersey.

“The tradition part is having the Tiger eyes,” Jackson said. “The innovation, the forward-looking [part] is really the zoomed-in, intense look that you get from those eyes. You also see it on the underbill of the hat. It's almost like when the team is on the field and they're looking up, there's some intensity under that bill. It's a more zoomed-in, really special, forward-looking Tiger eyes vs. that full face. It's a nice little detail that I think isn't going to be as in your face as some of the other ones, but it's a nice little touch on the hat.”