The Atlanta Braves have had a cursive “Braves” written across their chests since their Boston days in the 1940s. Cursive writing is the go-to style for MLB uniforms. Script font logos began in the beer industry and others followed suit. Britain’s first trademark is the Bass script logo. Today, script font logos are tied to baseball. Teams began implementing the script logos in the 1930s.

When you think about cursive writing you instantly link it to baseball uniforms. Generic softball league uniforms, MLB teams, any jersey with cursive is clearly a baseball uniform. Did you know the first cursive logo came almost 50 years after Coca-Cola linked the letters in its iconic logo?

Why major corporations are changing their logos from cursive to print

Massive corporations like Johnson and Johnson and Eddie Bauer recently changed their old logos from a cursive font to print. They are worried about ostracizing the Gen Z customer population. Cursive is not modern and they want everyone to be able to read their name. So companies are beginning to modernize their logos be taking the cursive out of them.

Would MLB teams consider removing cursive logos?

On one hand, many of these cursive logos are linked to the team like the flowing letters of the Braves jerseys. They are uniquely identified and instantly recognized by their logos. On top of that, cursive writing in a non-cursive world can differentiate brands. In baseball’s case, it differentiates the sport. However, you have to be a little concerned with baseball’s recent attempts at modernizing the game. With pitch clocks, bigger bases, ads on uniforms, and letting half the league into the postseason… would you be surprised if Rob Manfred banned cursive writing because it was offensive to an entire generation that can’t read it?

Why can’t Gen Z read cursive?

In 2010, cursive was removed from the Common Core standards. The board of governors (who made the decision) thought that computers and digital means of message conveyance had overtaken the need for handwritten documentation. The decision was made to eliminate cursive writing so children across the country wouldn’t be able to read letters from their parents, grandparents, or other ancestors. They wouldn’t be able to read historical documents. Most alarming, they wouldn’t be able to read the logos of large corporate brands that used cursive, like Johnson & Johnson.

My personal experience with cursive and typing as a middle school teacher

Schools stopped teaching cursive because they thought writing by hand would be antiquated by the time those kids became adults. A few years ago, I taught middle school and they didn’t have any typing classes available to the students. They were all required to use computers for their assignments, yet none knew proper typing techniques. I had classes full of people hunting and pecking with one finger. The logic behind not providing a typing class to the kids was that everything would be on a device like a phone or “speak to text” by the time they were adults. I can now report to you that all of those kids are out of high school and in college or working. I assure you they don’t live in the world their school thought they would. Now they don’t know cursive nor do they know how to type.

On a side note, the opportunity to hold typing competitions with the students proved to be a real self-confidence booster for me. I would let them compete in an in-class tournament. The winner would have the “privilege” to compete against me. They didn’t understand what it meant when I said I was raised by Mavis Beacon. They really thought they had a chance after the best typist vanquished all of his or her classmates. Then (thanks to Mavis Beacon), I would crush their spirits by more than doubling their speeds. Hey, don’t blame me. Blame the system that did this to them!

Then, to really lay it on, I would give them one more shot in a bonus round, but they had to type a copy of the Declaration of Independence, which of course was written in cursive and they couldn’t read it.

Why are schools bringing back cursive?

We mentioned some of the points that proponents of reintroducing cursive are arguing already. Gen Z can’t read cursive and that poses some problems. Opponents of the historical documents argument point to AI translations and other technologies as a solution. Ironically, AI is another driving force to bring back cursive writing. Many students are (unsurprisingly) using AI to cheat on paper after paper. So what should we do? Looks like the answer is to bring back cursive writing.

In October, California brought cursive back to grades 1-6, and other states are expected to join. Writing in cursive on paper engages and stimulates the brain in ways that typing does not.

Researchers have credited learning how to write in cursive with an array of benefits for young students—from building fine motor skills to stimulating and creating synergies between different hemispheres of the brain involved in thinking, language, and working memory.

Elizabeth Heubeck, Education Week

But let’s get to the most important part of all of this. With cursive coming back, baseball uniforms should be safe. The cursive “Braves” should remain on the chests of Atlanta’s ballplayers for the foreseeable future.