
Good Tuesday morning, Uni Watchers. I hope everyone had a good Monday.
Longtime UW reader/contributor/author/stalwart Leo Strawn, Jr. returns today with the sixth 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, Volume 2, click here Volume 3, click here, Volume 4, click here, or Volume 5, click here.
Sit back and enjoy — here’s Leo:

The Good, the Bad and the Oddly (Volume 6)
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, sometimes including a question or two for readers. I want to thank everyone who contributed answers and additional info in the comments of Volumes 1-5. Keep it coming!
In the comments of Volume 5, DJ and Dom Marino answered my question about the cap Tony Pacheco was wearing during the 10 cent beer game in June of 1974 at Cleveland, noting that it was another instance of manager/coaches having caps that were different than players. I located these photos of Ken Aspromonte and his coaching staff, Pacheco, Clay Bryant and Larry Doby. The pics are from postcards issued by the club in 1974.

If anyone is interested, here is a YouTube video (you’ll have to sign in, though) from the May 29 game in Texas that was the fuel for the kerfuffle at Cleveland less than a week later. You can see a couple of those caps in the dugout on Aspromonte and Pacheco. Side note: You can also spot Oscar Gamble’s legendary afro in the dugout, one of the two best afros of the era, in my humble opinion.
Jerry Wolper sent me a link to a photo of the 1976 Cards from a game at Busch Stadium vs. the Mets that appears to be from the second inning on June 22 (Hernandez didn’t play in the June 23 game listed as the date of the photo in that link). So, we have proof that St. Louis did wear the pillbox caps at home, for at least one game that season.
Also, I asked if anyone had ever seen Tommy Lasorda, Bobby Valentine, Steve Garvey and Bill Buckner in the same photo, other than the 1970 Spokane Indians pic I posted. Garvey and Buckner split time between Spokane and LA that season and never again played in the minors after 1970. Valentine played under Lasorda again in 1971 in Spokane, but by the time Tommy became third base coach under Alston in 1973, Bobby was playing with the Angels, so 1970 was the last season those 4 would be photographed in the same uniform at the same time. However, Brice Wallace knew of one earlier photo of the 4 of them from 1968, when they were all with Ogden in the Pioneer League, the first year in the minors for Buckner, Garvey and Valentine. Nice find!
The St. Louis Brown Stockings and the Cubs, then known as the White Stockings, played the first postseason baseball series in 1876, the first season of the National League. Chicago finished the season in first. St. Louis and the Hartford Dark Blues were both 6 games out, but the Brown Stockings had a better win percentage and were the only club to have a winning record against every other team. So, Chicago agreed to play a 5-game series with St. Louis to determine the “Champions of the West.” St. Louis won that series 4 games to 1, but MLB still considers Chicago as that season’s champion. I would give the Brown Stockings the uniform edge because of those creative collarless jerseys. Chicago’s 1876 team wore a multitude of caps without bills. That would be the last year the National League played a postseason series with two NL clubs until the 1892 “World’s Series” after the demise of the American Association.

Did you know…the first postseason baseball series between two league champions featured the Reds and Cubs?
The “Beer and Whiskey League” was formed in 1882 and lasted 10 seasons. Unlike the NL, the AA allowed alcohol and Sunday games. Following the tradition of playing “unofficial” postseason games, the two circuits’ 1882 champs played in an exhibition series that featured the NL’s White Stockings and the AA’s Cincinnati Red Stockings. The two-game series ended in a 1-1 tie.

The first official pre-modern era World Series took place two years later. The Providence Grays of the senior circuit defeated the New York Metropolitans of the AA, 3 games to 0. Evidently, no photos of the 1884 Mets have been found, but they seemed to have a penchant for wearing blue ties with white dots in other seasons, so my guess is they wore something similar in this series. (Craig Brown, whose amazing 19th Century uniform site can be found here, noted that the St. Louis Post Dispatch stated the New York club wore “white shirts with large dots,” which, in my opinion, is not inconsistent with the blue ties that featured large white dots sticking out of the top portion of their white shirts. That’s just my opinion, though.)

The NL vs. AA World Series ended in 1890, a season prior to the AA’s final year. At the end of their decade-long existence, the American Association would have 1 win and 2 ties against their predecessors, with the NL winning 4 of the 7 official series played. Add one more tie to that tally if you want to include the 1882 series.
13 years after that last postseason series between two leagues, 1903 saw the first modern World Series, won by the junior circuit champs, Boston Americans v “Pittsburg”, 5 games to 3. (Note: The spelling of that city was officially without an “h” at that time.)


Sadly, that two-team photo of the first modern WS clubs doesn’t show the socks worn by the NL Pirates. And…I’m not sure if I’d want to be the World Series photographer on top of the “dugout” in this pic.

Giants owner John Brush didn’t want to subject the 1904 NL champs to a potential humiliation like the Pirates suffered a season prior, to Boston of the AL, after the NL had dominated the AA in postseason contests. He staunchly refused to play the champions of the “inferior” league, which turned out to be Boston again. Due to criticism from fans and writers, this 1904 refusal led to an official agreement between the two leagues, resulting in the season-ending champions facing off against each other every season until 1969, when postseason league playoffs began determining WS participants.
New York won the NL pennant again the following year. After leaving Baltimore to manage the Giants, John McGraw’s “white elephant” comment about the Athletics was never forgotten in Philly and would come back to haunt McGraw later.

In 1905, it led to McGraw being presented with this white elephant sculpture prior to game one by Philadelphia’s captain, Lave Cross. The Giants pillbox cap is pretty clearly visible in this photo, matched with special black World Series uniforms.

It looks like that cap had stripes. However, unless the stripes in the graphics are so light that you can’t really see them, the striped cap isn’t paired with the WS uni in the database.

As you can see in this 1905 photo of Mathewson, McGraw and McGinnity, the stripes around the cap can sometimes be difficult to see.

New York won the series and rubbed it in everyone’s noses the following season, another faux pas that was certainly noted by Mack and the Athletics. The Giants would go on to lose the next 4 series they appeared in before winning their second WS in 1921.

1906 saw the first all-Chicago World Series. The Chisox still hold a 1-0 advantage over the Cubbies in WS matchups after all these years. (Okkonen only shows the Cubs with dark undershirts at home.)

The first Giants-Athletics rematch came just 6 seasons after their first meeting in 1905. NY looked dapper in mono black again. In the photo on the right, Fred Snodgrass is wearing socks that don’t show up in Okkonen’s research until 1912.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia made good use of the white elephant on sweaters, like the one worn by Chief Bender in the second pic, and had revenge on McGraw’s Giants. I love those Philly pillbox caps!

If you couldn’t make it to the game, you could always follow the action on the Play-o-Graph. This photo was taken during the 1912 series between the Red Sox and Giants.

Out of the first ten modern World Series, three were contested between the junior circuit’s Philadelphia club and New York in the senior circuit. The rubber match took place in 1913. The Giants had abandoned black for purple on home whites and road grays. Meanwhile, as seen in the pic below, the Athletics continued to embrace the white elephant, though not yet on their uniforms. McGraw was certainly regretting ever having said that about Philly after this series, losing again to Mack’s squad.

1916 saw plaid make the WS on the uniforms of the Brooklyn Robins, who lost the series to Boston.

Now this is a dugout! 1917 Chisox in the World Series.

1919 and 1920 were big baseball seasons in Ohio. I loved these Fleer World Series cards as a kid.

The Reds were still proudly embracing the 1869 Red Stockings as part of the club’s history and both clubs looked sharp in this series. (Side note: The Indians finished second to Chicago, 3 1/2 games behind, nearly making this an all-Ohio series. They got even closer to making that a reality in 1940, finishing 1 game behind the Tigers, who went on to lose to the Reds.)

This is a shot of Redland Field (later renamed Crosley Field) during the ’19 series, with people sitting on the terrace in left. I imagine that made for some interesting plays on fly balls. (I will have an article on Crosley next spring, including shots of the terrace. It’s pretty much ready now, but we’re running out of baseball season for 2024.)

After winning it all in their first series appearance in 1920 vs. the Dodgers, Cleveland took a page out of McGraw’s book the following season. It worked out about as well for the Tribe as it did for the Giants. The Indians would not win another AL pennant/WS until 1948.

100 years ago, Washington won their only World Series in the AL and the only title for a Washington club until the senior circuit’s Nationals won their only WS appearance to date, 5 seasons ago. Check out the sweater on the Giants runner trying to score.

Then known as the Browns, the team we now know as the Cardinals would make 4 consecutive pre-modern WS appearances (4 out of the 7 total official AA-NL WS), earn the AA’s only World Series win over the NL in 1886, as well as playing to a tie in the previous postseason, both of those against the White Stockings. After the American Association folded, St. Louis joined the NL in 1892. It took over 3 decades for them to return to the level of success they had achieved in the AA. The Cards finally made it to their first modern World Series, and won it, in 1926 over the Yanks. The next season, like Cleveland in 1921, they too followed McGraw’s lead in letting everyone know about it all year. They would go on to lose their next two WS appearances before winning it all again in 1931.

Speaking of the Yankees, when they are in the series, it’s not the other team you expect to be wearing pinstripes. That’s the Reds in 1961.

I’ll end my Fall Classic edition with this: In my opinion, the award for best looking set of World Series uniforms in history should go to…the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates. They were indeed (a good looking) family.

Cheers!
Readers? What say you?
Great pictures again, Leo, thank you! I will always have a soft spot for the A’s because of the white elephant story and I hope it will be prominent in the upcoming change to Las Vegas.
GTGFTU: 9/17/1961 – Pittsburgh Steelers (24) at Dallas Cowboys (27) Cotton Bowl, Dallas TX.
I’ll continue to opine that the Cowboys got their uniforms right from the jump…had they kept them, they would probably not be mired in the decades-long mismatched blues and silvers they sport to this very day.
Make for great throwbacks – so there’s that.
Great stuff as always
Great article Leo! It would be interesting to see a team don some polka dot studded unis again.
Always thought the 1883 Metropolitans unis would make a great base for a Mets City Connect.
In 1979, I was a bit salty we were denied seeing Pittsburgh in solid black.
Surprised that the GTGFTS remains unanswered
Game 1 of 2018 World Series 23 October
JD Martinez just doubled off of Clayton Kershaw to score Steve Pearce
Sox win the game 8-4 and eventually take the Series 4-1.