The Good, the Bad and the Oddly (Volume 7): A Leo’s World Special

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

ICYMI, I had two later articles yesterday you may have not seen: the Oregon Ducks unveiled their fifth and final “Generation O” uniform which they’ll debut against Michigan this Saturday, and the Tennessee Volunteers will wear their BFBS “Dark Mode” uniform against Kentucky on Saturday — a very good uniform for two days after Halloween.

Now then.

Longtime UW reader/contributor/author/stalwart Leo Strawn, Jr. returns today with the seventh 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, Volume 5, click here, or Volume 6, click here.

Sit back and enjoy — here’s Leo:

• • • • •

The Good, the Bad and the Oddly (Volume 7)
by Leo Strawn, Jr.

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 1-6.

Since running GBO articles, we’ve been catching some errors, possible errors & omissions in the baseball database initially compiled by Marc Okkonen, now hosted and (minimally) updated annually by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. GBO v7 is a collection of what we’ve found thus far, so I figured this would be a good time to explain why I focus on Dressed to the Nines so much.

I also wanted to state that if someone asks me a question or makes a claim, I try to answer/verify. The sites I scour for verification have photos/videos, but that doesn’t mean they are 100% accurate. The biggest problem I have noticed in online media is lack of precision with regard to dates, requiring a bit of additional research.

If I’ve learned anything from trying to help the guys at Gridiron Uniform Database now and then, it’s that without photographic references, newspaper articles, etc., you’re simply taking someone’s word for it. Photos, videos and newspaper/magazine articles are important for verification because someone’s graphics or claims aren’t proof. It might be accurate or it might not, but, either way, it’s not proof.

It’s a shame there isn’t a comprehensive 20th century-thru-present day baseball site that is as thorough as GUD. They post photos and newspaper articles for evidence directly onto their site to show proof of what they say a team wore in a particular game. The depth of their research is nothing short of phenomenal. Anytime I ask them a question about a game, uniform or photo, I get several newspaper articles and photos from them in response.

The closest we have to a one-stop source for our summer pastime is Dressed to the Nines, which has been the go-to source for baseball uniform reference since it was first published in the 1990s as the book, “Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century”, researched and written by Okkonen. That’s why I mention his database when I find something that isn’t in it or when it appears to be in error based on photos I run across; it’s the database for all NL, AL and FL teams from the start of the 20th century.

I am in awe of what Marc did in the days before the internet. His book was a monumental task and the overwhelming majority of what he published is spot on. It was a fairly large publication, even without compiling all of his references as proof. Today’s tech would have made it easier to research and to show verification via the sharing of pics and links, as GUD does. Still no small task, but easier than traveling city-to-city and then deciding what to pare down for a book, as Okkonen had to do.

Unfortunately, Marc didn’t show much photographic proof, so we are taking him at his word for most of his research. But I’m not trying to bash anyone’s research. The fact is that no one’s research is 100% correct regarding a huge amount of information. If it’s just a limited amount of general info, that may not be as much of an issue, but the larger, more precise and detailed the research is, the more those details will need to be refined. Ask the people who run GUD. It’s always a work-in-progress, even with mountains of photos and newspaper articles already collected.

Nevertheless, unless someone takes the bull by the horns and pores over every nook and cranny of the internet like the researchers at GUD have done for gridiron, Dressed to the Nines is the best overall source for baseball uniform data. It’s no surprise that no one in the internet era has tried to dig that deep into a sport with Spring Training games, (currently) 162 games per regular season, plus playoffs and over 12 decades of history since the beginning of the 20th century. Yes, there are team-specific sites, but the HOF site is the most comprehensive we have and that’s why I link to it as often as I do.

(Just throwing this out there: If there was a way to find 30 individuals/groups, one for each of the other current teams and one for all the defunct clubs, to dig deep and put individual sites up, complete with photos and references like the St. Louis crew did for the Cardinals, and then combine them all into one site…mission accomplished!)

All that being said, GBO was initially intended as a way to share some rare/odd pics I have collected, but it has also become a means to add info to that online baseball database as we discover something, and this is what we have stumbled across, to date…

* * *Additions to Dressed to the Nines database:

• 1906 Chicago Cubs wore white undershirts at home at least in one World Series game.

• 1911 New York Giants World Series uniforms appear to have also featured black socks with two white stripes that Okkonen doesn’t show until 1912, paired with different uniforms.

• 1926 St. Louis Cardinals also had special uniforms (which I erroneously posted as a 1929 jersey) for the ’26 World Series.

• 1941-42 Chicago Cubs (only shown in that graphic with long sleeves under home vests and short sleeves under white-lettered road vests) apparently wore both long and short sleeve “shoulder pad” undershirts with home vests in both of those seasons. In 1942, they evidently also wore plain blue undershirts with long sleeves under road vests.

• 1945 Brooklyn Dodgers had a dark blue satin night game jersey.

• 1961 Los Angeles Angels had an early season halo-less cap, worn at least for their first ever regular season game, 04.11.61 at Baltimore.

• 1967-69 Detroit Tigers had sleeve numbers appearing on either the left or right sleeve, and possibly some jerseys without sleeve numbers (commented on as being from the 1960s on the right sleeve, but not shown in graphics, in Okkonen’s book).

• 1967 Kansas City Athletics players wore a white cap in at least one game at home and at least one road game.

• Circa 1975-77 Cleveland Indians wore a blue cap/blue jersey/red pants combo. Note: Not certain of which season(s), yet.

• 1976 Chicago White Sox also wore shorts (commented on in the book but not shown in graphics, though Marc does include a photo).

• 1976 St. Louis Cardinals pillbox cap was worn in at least one home game with white jersey/pants.

• 1977 Pittsburgh Pirates wore white pinstripe jersey/yellow pants combo in at least one game. [Editor’s note: at least 19 in ’77, and 15 in ’78. They also wore the black jersey with the gold pants and both the black and gold jerseys with the white pants, but Okkonen only had room for five combinations.]

• 1978 San Diego Padres wore a brown jersey/yellow pants combo.

• 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates wore their yellow pillbox cap with black jersey/yellow pants combo at least in World Series game one, 10.01.79 at Baltimore & game five, 10.14.79 at Pittsburgh. [Editor’s note: They wore that combination at least 40 times during the regular season and once during the NLCS in addition to the two World Series games. Okkonen mistakenly included the white over black combo, which they stopped wearing after 1978, instead of the black over gold.]

* * *Errors in database:

• 1901 Milwaukee Brewers pillbox caps had “M” on the bill. Also, the stripes on the caps are wrong in the database.

• 1905 New York Giants World Series pillbox cap appears to have stripes.

• 1915-16 New York Yankees home jersey and cap pinstripes are alternating red and blue.

• 1932-33 Chicago Cubs home alts should have yellow and black lettering on the jersey rather than white inside of black lettering outlined in yellow.

• 1975 Houston Astros star on jersey was outlined in red.

• 1979 Philadelphia Phillies red jersey is zippered, not buttoned.

* * *Possible errors in database that need game photo/description verification:

• 1903 New York Highlanders may have also worn white caps with blue bills while sporting mono blue road uniforms.

• 1934 Chicago Cubs home jersey could have a gold, brown or an orange bear outlined in blue rather than red/blue. This could also be the case with the “C” surrounding the bear, as the interior of the “C” and the bear in a black & white photograph are similar in value.

* * *Unanswered questions needing verification:

• 1962 New York Mets possible prototype jersey with thinner lettering and “Y” that was not on placket as it was on 1962 uniforms was depicted in this ad. Note: This may require a Mets historian to pore through 1962 newspaper articles and game videos to determine if these were worn or not.

• 1967 Kansas City Athletics may have had sea-mist uniforms. They also possibly wore yellow undershirts. Note: This may require an Athletics historian to pore through 1967 newspaper articles and game videos to determine if these were worn or not.

• 1987-88 Oakland A’s white home pullover jersey and green road pullover jersey shown in the database have not been verified by any photos. Note: This may require an A’s historian to pore through 1987-88 newspaper articles and game videos to determine if these were worn or not.

* * *That’s all for now. If you can help with verification on unanswered questions, please share!

I still have plenty of good, bad and odd baseball photos to share and will most likely do some stand-alone articles (one on Crosley Field and a compilation of manager-and-coach-specific caps/odd batting helmets, at least), but I will pause on those until spring. I’ll keep the name, The Good, the Bad and the Oddly for baseball and it will return next year.

I have photos from other sports that I’m currently sifting through and I’ll share some of those over the fall/winter and come up with a different title. I’m taking a week or two off, but I’ll return soon.

Until next time…

Cheers!

• • • • •Thanks, Leo! Another fantastic piece. And this has been a fantastic series (sad to see it temporarily on hiatus, but with the change of seasons, comes a change in sports seasons as well). Very much looking forward to your next projects!

Readers? What say you?