From: Jon Rossen on
NFN Smith wrote:
> John Walsh wrote:
>> On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 23:53:25 -0700, Jon Rossen<jonr17(a)comcast.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> John Walsh wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 23:01:48 -0700, Jon Rossen<jonr17(a)comcast.net>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I cannot stand the orange alternate unis...
>
>>>>>
>>>>> Let me be real clear: I hate all alternate unis that clubs wear.
>
> Concur.
>
> BTW, does your dislike also apply to, say, the sleeveless variants, as
> well? I haven't seen a lot of evidence of that happening this year, but
> I know that in the past, the White Sox, Indians, Rangers, Angels, and
> maybe a couple of others that I can't remember at the moment have done
> that.
>
> I'm not sure if I dislike those or not, although I'll take Cleveland's
> sleeveless alternate with the cap logo on it over the all-blue alternate.
>
>>>>> The specific
>>>>> color is not the main point and is more of a secondary point; the main
>>>>> point IMHO, is the break from the traditional look where the pants and
>>>>> jersey match (white at home / gray on the road) it just looks tacky
>>>>> and
>>>>> not like the major leagues.
>
> True, although the more recent retro styling (namely shirts with
> buttons) are an improvement over the stuff in the 70's done with
> polyester fabric and V-neck shirts.
>
>
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course this is really superficial and not really a big deal.<g>
>>>>> What's really sort of ridiculous is how some teams do this. For
>>>>> instance, I seem to recall that when the Astros moved to their new
>>>>> ballpark they had posted on their website what appeared to be a
>>>>> 'wardrobe schedule' about which uniform they'd wear when. Of course
>>>>> there were the home and away unis. But within those two major
>>>>> groupings
>>>>> there were a whole slew of variations depending on whether it was a
>>>>> day
>>>>> or night game, weekday or weekend game....sheesh.
>
> One of the worst was the original unis done by the Diamondbacks (circa
> 1998). They were trying for some combination of classic and modern, and
> the mistake that they made was trying too hard to do *everything*. Thus,
> they had the trendy colors of the 90's, black and purple and teal. They
> did pinstripes, they did sleeveless, they did multiple color
> combinations on the cap, and multiple logos, and multiple colored
> alternate jerseys, black and purple. Simply too much. Yecch.
>
> For what it's worth, I think there was a while where the were letting
> the starting pitcher make the decision. I know that for a while, they
> were letting the starting pitcher make the decision whether to leave the
> roof open or close it (until MLB made them stop that).
>
>
>>> Hmmm...that 'Halloween in June' thing is a weird twist on the taunts
>>> some of my Dodger fan friends used to toss at me. They'd always tell me
>>> that the only time you see black and orange in October is at Halloween.
>
>>> That's OK...I'll be laughing sometime this week at them (hopefully)
>>> when the Celtics win the NBA championship! (oh, please, please, please).
>
> Actually, one of the more wretched alternate uniforms I've seen in the
> NBA is the alternate green one that the Celtics use. Fortunately, for
> both the NBA and the NFL (and I think the NHL, too), they don't allow
> use of alternate uniforms in the playoffs.
>
> Remember also that the Pirates used an alternate uni that was orange a
> few years ago. Pretty ugly.
>
>>> Keep in mind my point wasn't that the fact that the jerseys are Orange
>>> specifically. My main point is that they strayed from the traditional
>>> uniform look and went to an 'alternate' uniform. I'd have the same
>>> problem with it if the Giant's main team color was blue and the jerseys
>>> were blue or if their main team color was red and the jerseys were red.
>
> Say, the Indians or the Blue Jays? Both seem to wear their alternates
> fairly frequently.
>
>>>
>>> On the other hand, having a garish orange as your jersey color is
>>> perhaps a good way to simply 'mock' the entire concept of having
>>> alternate uniforms. Or...if you are going to have a tacky approach to
>>> displaying a uniform, (going non-traditional) you might as well do it
>>> with an 'over the top' color.
>>>
>>> -jon rossen
>>
>> Straying from traditional uniforms is all about marketing and sales.
>> There is no faithfulness to tradition anymore. It's all about
>> creating new uniforms to rack up money for MLB.
>
> Yep, and it's not just MLB, either. NFL, NBA and NHL are doing it, too.
> In fact, the reason that the NHL moved from having the home team wear
> white to the home team wearing colored sweaters was to facilitate use of
> alternate unis by the home team. Otherwise, the visiting team's
> equipment manager would have to pack both the colored road unis, as well
> as the white ones when the home team decided to wear a colored alternate.
>
> Plus, besides regular alternate-color unis, there's the throwback ones,
> as well.
>
> One other effect in all of this -- have you noticed that from
> year-to-year, it's a lot less frequent that teams do major redesigns of
> their uniforms? Remember, in the 70's, it wasn't uncommon that a team
> might have a new uniform nearly every year. In fact, until about 1980,
> the Padres changed *every* year, until they got to those monstrosities
> that had the orange trim.
>
> I think that part of that is that the rules are such that in order to do
> a uni change, a permission request has to be done something like a year
> in advance, so that there's sufficient time to ramp up production of the
> new ones (for souvenir sales), and clear out stocks of the old ones.
> Thus, rather than doing major redesigns, most teams are simply doing
> incremental tinkering (especially alternates) with what they have.
>
> Now that I think of it, some of the teams that used to make major
> changes frequently (including the A's, Indians, White Sox, Padres,
> Braves and Brewers) have remarkable consistency in their base uniforms
> (and the only major redesigns coming in conjunction with new stadiums),
> and the only real changes have been with alternate unis.
>
>> Even with that garish neon orange, I didn't pay much attention to it
>> until you mentioned it and I focused more on the uniforms than the
>> game. They don't look right. With all the designers and analysts
>> that teams use to create new looks, you think they could have done
>> better.
>
> Somehow, the color doesn't quite look right -- I don't know if it's that
> the color seems washed out (or perhaps a little too much yellow in the
> shading) or that there's not enough contrast with white and black. For
> what it's worth, the orange unis from the late 70's looked better, at
> least in terms of the balance of color.
>
>
> BTW, in the "hall of shame" of ugliest uniforms, besides the Astros'
> rainbow unis, I include dishonorable mentions of the White Sox'
> "billboard" uniforms of the early 80's (the first ones following Bill
> Veeck's collared ones), and the Padres' camouflage alternates.
>
> Smith


I agree with you on your additions to the 'hall of shame'.....
Yes, and I was going to mention the D'Backs too after discussing the
Astros unis....but I thought I would get sick to my stomach. I was glad
when they redid their uniforms and changed team colors to being red. I
think now that they have a more traditional look for the most part, but
I'm sure they still sneak in an alt. uni from time to time but at least
it's not formalized rotating wardrobe anymore.

Interesting about the sleeveless unis. I hadn't thought of that. A
long time ago, didn't the Reds have a sleeveless uniform...perhaps it
was their home uniform that they wore all the time...so it really wasn't
an alt uni...it was their only one I think but I may be wrong. I think
it was back in the 60's.

-jon rossen
From: Peter Lawrence on
On 6/15/10 5:29 PM, Jon Rossen wrote:
>
> I have to admit that I did wear my only orange Giants t-shirt to the
> game on Sunday. I don't think it was quite as bright of an orange as the
> players were wearing. I did buy it at a Giants dugout store. Actually I
> bought it in '03 when they were pushing for folks to wear orange to the
> ballpark...was it an 'Orange Friday' thing back then?

The Giants still have 'Orange Fridays' (every Friday home game). That's
why they were their Orange alternate unis on Fridays, because it's
Orange Friday (and they encourage Giants fans to wear orange as well to
Friday night games).


- Peter

From: NFN Smith on
Jon Rossen wrote:

>
> I agree with you on your additions to the 'hall of shame'.....
> Yes, and I was going to mention the D'Backs too after discussing the
> Astros unis....

Speaking of the Astros' current unis... besides alternate colors (and
far too frequent use), I don't really like the pinstripes. I know that
when they went to them that that coincided with the new ballpark, and
they wanted that to go along with a retro-feel ballpark (including the
railroad motif of the park), but for me, that just doesn't work for a
team called "Astros".

For what it's worth, another traditional-style uniform that I never
liked was the the Disney uniforms of the angels. Although I don't mind
sleeveless, the combination of that with pinstripes (both home and
road), and the winged "A" logo didn't work for me. Plus, for some
reason, I really don't like pinstripes on gray road uniforms. I'm glad
to see that the Twins have finally dropped that with their redesign this
year.


> but I thought I would get sick to my stomach. I was glad
> when they redid their uniforms and changed team colors to being red. I
> think now that they have a more traditional look for the most part, but
> I'm sure they still sneak in an alt. uni from time to time but at least
> it's not formalized rotating wardrobe anymore.

For the DBacks, they wear the red with some frequency, and black
uniforms occasionally.

>
> Interesting about the sleeveless unis. I hadn't thought of that. A
> long time ago, didn't the Reds have a sleeveless uniform...perhaps it
> was their home uniform that they wore all the time...so it really wasn't
> an alt uni...it was their only one I think but I may be wrong. I think
> it was back in the 60's.

In the 60's, the Reds, Pirates, Indians and A's all wore sleeveless, and
the Orioles did it for a year, too. The Pirates dropped that in 1971
(being the first team to go to double-knit fabric, V-neck shirts and
drawstring waistbands), and the A's were the last to abandon the
sleeveless in 1972.

The Reds had a sleeveless in the early 60's (including a white
pinstriped cap -- yuck), and the sleeveless unis that they've done more
recently are pretty similar to the older ones. I'm not sure if they're
quite the same, or not. However, I do like the current set, where
they've gone back to sleeves, and just a little black contrast makes
them look a lot better than the unis they've had over the years that are
all red.

By the way -- one of the best collections of uniform history can be
found at the Hall of Fame's web site:
http://exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org/dressed_to_the_nines/database.htm

Most of this is what was printed in the book "Dressed to the Nines"
(published around 1990, I think), but somebody has picked up that
project and they continue to update that with current uniforms (at least
the primaries). I don't know if it's totally accurate -- I know that
they don't get all the combinations of yellow, black and pinstripes that
the Pirates were using in 1977 (before they settled on combinations of
just black and yellow), or when the A's wore an all-green uniform at
least once in 1973 -- I remember both of those from photographs.

and they don't bother with the current wave of alternates. However,
they do show some earlier alternates, even ones that were used only
once, such as the Phillies' all-red uniform, or the Reds' green jersey
that was used as an April Fool's prank during spring training.

Smith

From: Jon Rossen on
Peter Lawrence wrote:
> On 6/15/10 5:29 PM, Jon Rossen wrote:
>>
>> I have to admit that I did wear my only orange Giants t-shirt to the
>> game on Sunday. I don't think it was quite as bright of an orange as the
>> players were wearing. I did buy it at a Giants dugout store. Actually I
>> bought it in '03 when they were pushing for folks to wear orange to the
>> ballpark...was it an 'Orange Friday' thing back then?
>
> The Giants still have 'Orange Fridays' (every Friday home game). That's
> why they were their Orange alternate unis on Fridays, because it's
> Orange Friday (and they encourage Giants fans to wear orange as well to
> Friday night games).
>
>
> - Peter

Yeah, I know about the 'Orange Fridays' thing now; I was just wondering
if this is simply a new spin on what they were doing sometime back in
'03. Then, the team wasn't wearing the orange jerseys, but I think they
were trying to get fans to wear orange, but don't really fully recall.

-jon rossen
From: Jon Rossen on
Thanks for the link to the uniform history from the HOF; I'll definitely
check that out!!!

-jon rossen