The Good, the Bad and the Oddly (Volume 3): A Leo’s World Special

Good Tuesday morning, Uni Watchers. I hope everyone had a good Monday.

Longtime UW reader/contributor/author/stalwart Leo Strawn, Jr. is back today with the third part in a new series he’s calling “The Good, the Bad and the Oddly” focusing on, well, good, bad and odd baseball uniforms and caps he’s encountered over the years. I think you’ll all really enjoy this one! If you missed Volume 1, click here, or if you missed Volume 2, click here.

Sit back and enjoy — here’s Leo:

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The Good, the Bad and the Oddly (Volume 3)
by Leo Strawn, Jr.

I’m Leo…welcome to my world!

I’ve been cleaning out my sports photo files and have been running across some pics that I thought I’d share, along with a question or two for readers. I want to thank everyone who contributed answers and additional info in the comments of Volumes 1 & 2. Keep it coming!

In the comments of the previous volume, Dom Marino pointed out Okkonen’s 1987-88 A’s graphics show white and green pullovers and stated, “There is absolutely no record, no photo, or mention these jerseys ever existed, Even in MLB Collectors thats a definitive uniform website, they even question their existance.” (I’m familiar with that site and check references all the time on it. If you’ve never visited, it’s a great resource for uniforms.) I looked online, including Getty, but didn’t see any white or green pullovers from those two seasons. It wouldn’t be impossible to prove this, but it may require locating and going through game photos from newspapers of every A’s contest for both seasons, so unless someone is up to that task, all I can do is ask if any readers have any proof of their existence. If so, let us know.

Still on the subject of the Athletics, Michael Emody linked to this KC team photo from 1967 (1968 Oakland Topps card) and pointed out the yellow undershirts, stating, “As a kid I saw them in Chicago wearing the “sea-mist” light green vests with yellow sleeves.”

I had never heard of “sea-mist” vests and I’ve never seen the KC A’s with yellow undershirts. They certainly don’t show up in Okkonen’s database for Kansas City, unless these are “sea-mist” and not gray. No yellow undershirts with them, though. I did however, find this SI cover of Jim Nash from March 13, 1967, on which the uniform on the right does seem to me to have a sea foam green hue, but that may just be from the lighting or the printing process. Anyone have any photos or info regarding yellow undershirts and/or “sea-mist” Kansas City uniforms?

Patrick Manion and Derek Jackson noted that Okkonen does comment on Detroit’s sleeve numbers and A’s white hats in his book. I’ve gotten so used to just going to the website for reference that I rarely pick the book up. Here’s what Marc has to say in his publication with regard to the white caps, “Charley O. elected to distinguish his manager and coaches from the troops by assigning them white cap crowns.” I’ve been digging into this, but I’ll save what I’ve found for a spring edition.

Regarding Detroit’s sleeve numbers, he stated, “A minor novel feature of the new ’60’s road uniforms was the inclusion of the uniform number on the right sleeve.”

From what I’ve been able to determine on this, the numbered sleeves appear to be on 1960-71 road jerseys. In 1972, they changed their road look when they quit wearing flannel buttoned jerseys. 1959 was the last regular season for road script lettering they had been using.

Most of the Topps cards below are of Norm Cash (as is the 1964 coin and photo used for it), though I had to use other players in years when Norm wore a home jersey on his card. One from each year, 1961-72 Topps, most likely showing all of the 1960-71 road jerseys.

The photo of Detroit playing at KC in 1967 showed Tigers, some with numbers on the left sleeve and some on the right, and possibly, some with no sleeve numbers at all as seen on the jersey in the pic below.

I have been able to nail down that 1967 was not the only season this randomness occurred. These pics show Mickey Lolich and Bill Freehan celebrating their 1968 World Series victory, with Lolich’s number on his right sleeve and Freehan’s on his left, Al Kaline in his 1969 uniform, with the MLB centennial patch on the right sleeve and number on the left, and Don Wert’s 1970 Topps card in his 1969 uni, showing just the opposite.

So, we can say that at least for the 1967-69 seasons, Detroit’s road jerseys had numbers on either sleeve, and possibly some on neither.

Now, on to Volume 3…in living color!

Black & white photography sometimes just isn’t enough for accurate research, e.g., 1915 Yankees. As mentioned above, I refer to the MLB Collectors site quite a bit. Had it not been for them, I would not have known that the Yanks had red and blue pinstriped caps and jerseys for 1915 and some 1916 home games. It appears the “NY” is faded on those jerseys (one in link, one below) as compared to the cap logo on the link. Was it a grape color or black on the jersey logo that has faded…thoughts?

It looks to me as though this next photo could be another example of that tendency for dyes from that era to fade, seen by comparing the logo on players’ jerseys in this black & white photo from the 1915 season.

This 1912 cap appears to have some fading in the threads. Where the lighting hits the upper right stem of the “Y”, sometimes it’s that washed-out purplish hue, sometimes it’s navy.

For caps and jerseys from decades and decades ago, that’s not surprising. Dyes weren’t as colorfast and certainly more so in some colors than others, also leading to instances of bleeding in the wash. I’m not sure washing instructions on labels was even a thing back then. The blue on this circa 1905-06 Pirates jacket is an unfortunate example.

This 1929 Cards road jersey is another unfortunate victim.

I had never given laundry in baseball’s early days much thought prior to reading about it in The Summer of Beer and Whiskey, which is a great book about the American Association. I couldn’t find the passage I was looking for, but while flipping through it, I did find this passage that noted “the players…were lax about keeping their uniforms clean…”

I recall reading a passage in that book that would explain why road uniforms were traditionally gray. There were no laundromats back then and paying someone in each city to hand-wash uniforms would have been expensive for the players, so on road trips there was a frugal tendency to wear the same uniform, unwashed, game-after-game until returning home. No doubt gray hid stains and dirt better than unwashed whites would have. Wikipedia has a statement that says, “Aside from the obvious need to distinguish one team from the other, conventional wisdom held that it was more difficult to properly launder uniforms while on a road trip, thus the “road grays” helped to hide accumulated soil.”

Even after the turn of the century, electric washing machines were still a novelty, which may have contributed to some of the bleeding on the jerseys above.

It took improvements in colorfast dyes, washing instructions/methods and an eccentric baseball club owner to bring bright colors into baseball for good. “Old Charlie stole the handle and the train won’t stop going, no way to slow down…”

I can’t really say, “If not for Mr. Finley, we wouldn’t have had…”, because there were monochromatic uniforms along the way. Yet, aside from home whites and road grays, those were always dark, at least in the 20th century, as this article from the Attica Daily Ledger pointed out in 1909.

Also, the Cubs unveiled a light blue monochrome vest/pants combo in the 1941-42 seasons and Brooklyn wore monochrome blue satin under the lights in 1944.

Which brings me to this question: Does anyone have any additional info about this dark blue satin Brooklyn jersey? It was authenticated and sold by Leland’s as a 1945 Dodgers game-worn satin jersey, but there’s no record of it in Okkonen’s research.

Back on topic, the Reds beat Charlie to the punch in one sense when they broke out these bright red pants in 1936 (seen here in 2019 as a throwback).

Everything in fashion, even in sports, ebbs and flows, but it was Charlie O who certainly got the ball rolling in bright, living color, within the realm of baseball. Yet, even after Kansas City debuted their monochrome vest/pants combo in 1963, it would take nearly a decade for other clubs to jump in. In 1971, Baltimore wore this bright orange uni, which they also wore the following season. I doubt we will ever see four 20-game winners on the same club, in the same season, ever again, but even if that does happen, I seriously doubt they’ll be wearing anything as bright as this.

Oddly, the A’s dialed it back a bit in 1972, while the Padres jumped on board, and, like the O’s before them, kept this look for the next year.

In spite of Oakland’s abandonment of colored pants again, 1975-77 saw Cleveland complete what the Reds had flirted with in 1936 by pairing their red pants with red jerseys.

1975 was also the debut of one of the most iconic jerseys in history. Okkonen has the star incorrectly outlined in white, though.

1976 saw the return of the dark monochromatic uniform.

In 1977, Pittsburgh entered the chat with mono-gold and mono-black as part of their mix-and-match set, each paired with the opposite color cap.

They sported black-over-gold twice in the 1979 WS, in games one and five. Okkonen’s database doesn’t have room for all nine possible combinations, although by 1979, they only wore the white shirts with white pants. (As many readers know, all of this information is available on the BucTracker site.) They also had a team photo taken in the black-over-gold combo that Okkonen didn’t include.

1978 was the year SD returned to a monochromatic yellow look, this time with brown sleeves. The brown-over-yellow Padres combo in the third photo doesn’t show up in Okkonen’s database.

The following season, 1979, was the year the Phils entered the fray.

While I loved all these uniforms, it should be noted that mono combos were not slimming.

In 1985, the Pirates abandoned their colored mono look, but Charlie had indeed stolen the handle and the fabric of the 1970s didn’t slow the train down. Bright colored jerseys, occasionally paired with contrasting colored pants or with pants of the same color, have remained an on-again/off-again part of baseball fashion, whether you consider them good (as I do), bad or just odd.

* * *If you have photos or any kind of information regarding the 1945 Dodgers dark blue satin jerseys or the 1967 KC A’s “sea-mist” light green vests/pants or yellow undershirts, info on games from 1978 when the Padres wore brown-over-yellow or additional pics or info/photos of the 1987-88 A’s wearing white or green pullover jerseys, please share.

Also, any additional color photos of the 1915-16 Yankees blue and red pinstripes anyone has and could share would be awesome!

I’m also looking for black & white photos of the 1936 Reds Palm Beach uniforms (original uniforms, not 2019 throwbacks).

* * *Until next time…

Cheers!

• • • • •Thanks, Leo! Another fantastic piece.

Readers? What say you?