Baseball T-Shirts Are the Underdog Trend Taking Over Spring Style

There’s a new archetype of sporty style gaining traction among the fashion set: the cool-girl tomboy. It’s athletic-adjacent, with one item similar to what you’d wear for the 40-yard dash or to kick a ball back and forth, but the end result is always closer to downtown chic than track star. Exemplar outfits include a tech-y windbreaker teamed with lace-trimmed shorts, side-stripe track pants paired with pointed-toe pumps, and, most popular of late, a baseball-style raglan T-shirt styled with separates that wouldn’t fare well on the diamond.

Not to be confused with the performance jerseys MLB players wear on the field, the baseball tees I’m talking about are casual, made of soft cotton, and come with contrast-color raglan sleeves. You’ll find them in the vintage T-shirt section of a thrift store or worn by an underdog little league team at the heart of an inspirational ‘70s sports movie, like the ones I’d watch in P.E. class when it was too rainy to go outside and play. Only now, in 2026, you’ll find them anywhere a fashion girl goes.

At the most recent New York Fashion Week, my fellow runway guests looked ready for a Yankees game (or Mets game, depending on their allegiance). Combing through Marie Claire’s celebrity street style coverage, you’ll read about trendsetters wearing baseball T-shirts with slip skirts and cutesy capris on strolls around SoHo. Elsewhere online, fashion content creators and Substack writers with follower counts in the high hundreds of thousands share outfit diaries featuring color-blocked raglan-sleeve shirts from mass retailers like Zara, Cos, Madewell, and Uniqlo's collab with JW Anderson.

All this is to say: baseball T-shirts have become the MVP of Spring 2026.

Perhaps my greatest takeaway here, though, is that the sporty staple is a perfect pinch-hitter trend to wear instead of a basic white tee or button-down—one that adds a stronger punch of personality and ups the intrigue of any outfit.

That’s how the celebrity set is using them at least. (Or, I should say, has been using them, considering high-profile trendsetters have been wearing raglan-sleeve tops for months.) While bopping around downtown NYC last summer, Zoë Kravitz wore look 43 from Auralee’s Spring 2026 runway: a brown plaid midi skirt and a sky-blue baseball tee. (If you want to impress a fashion know-it-all, mention that the Japanese menswear brand is on your radar.) The cerulean-sleeve pop of color made the chocolate browns of the skirt look sharper, richer, and overall heightened the entire look's impact.

The same applies to how Emily Ratajowski styled black pedal pushers last July: a button-up blouse would have worked, but she chose a sky-blue raglan-sleeve “I’m a speed skater” slogan tee from Bode, which was unexpected and thus more inspired.

There’s also a throwback vibe with a baseball tee that automatically makes them more compelling than, say, a regular all-white cotton crewneck. Women throughout the 1970s sported the color-blocked raglan-sleeve shirt with Daisy Dukes and denim flares. Cut to the late ‘90s, and baseball T-shirts were a key element of Rachel Green’s effortless girl-next-door aesthetic on Friends.

Because of its fashion history, when you wear a raglan-sleeve tee in 2026, whether it’s an authentic relic or a new-in buy from Aritzia, there’s a sense that the shirt has been around the block a few times.

What strikes me most about the recent rise of baseball tees, however, is that even I, someone who's allergic to athleticism, feel influenced to buy into the trend.

The only other time I can ever remember wearing one was when I played T-ball at age 8. (My uncle was the coach, so my mom made me join the league). I didn’t enjoy them then, as they were a symbol of exercise and time spent away from my Polly Pockets. But now, styled over a lace slip dress or with tailored Bermuda shorts, they can maybe help me tap into the latent cool-girl tomboy that’s hidden somewhere inside.

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