Last week, we had another “Question of the Week” from Mike Chamernik, and he’s back today with his latest QOTW.
Enjoy!
by Mike Chamernik
Mother’s Day was Sunday and MLB celebrated it with a lot of pink: pink bats, spikes, accessories and protective gear, plus pink ribbon patches. The holiday was a much bigger deal in years past, however, with pink hats (or pink hat logos) and pink wordmarks on the uniforms. It was a similar deal with light blue for Father’s Day.
What are some of the best ways teams and leagues have commemorated holidays? And what are your favorite holiday-themed uniforms?
The best example might be the “Christmas card” uniforms that NBA teams wore in 2015 and 2016. Those were great. The Bulls and White Sox, among other teams, have a history of green unis for St. Patrick’s Day (or for the Sox, “Halfway to St. Pat’s Day” in mid-September). Most years, the Lions and Cowboys honor tradition and wear throwbacks on Thanksgiving.
Was there any holiday design that was particularly unappealing? What’s the most obscure holiday a team has ever commemorated with a uniform, patch, or accessories?
I’m very surprised New Era/MLB didn’t have special Mom’s Day (and presumably no Dad’s Day) caps. If only they’d have the same restraint when it comes to Armed Forces Weekend — even though Armed Forces DAY is the third Saturday in May, teams are supposed wear Armed Forces Caps for three straight days. Maybe they’ll surprise us and ratchet that down to just, ya know, Armed Forces Day. While most of the baseball holiday designs are fine by themselves, they inevitably clash with the different MLB uniforms, both in colors and style. And unfortunately, with MLB’s new 4 + 1 rule, fun gimmicks like the Sox’ Halfway-to-St.-Patrick’s-Day don’t happen anymore. But have there been some good holiday uniforms? Absolutely. Looking forward to what the readers have to say there.
Fire away!
Throwbacks in football are so out of place with the modern protective gear and often played on artificial turf, so it’s not Thanksgiving football. I have always liked baseball on the 4th of July and the red, white and blue accessories. My favorite baseball teams are the Red Sox and Braves, so the colors fit. Not sure how I would feel if I was an A’s or Giants fan. To make a unsolicited comment, I am glad some of the holiday uniforms have been done away with or cut back. There are way too many uniforms as is; much less having a special one for the holidays.
I actually like most holiday promotions as long as it’s limited to one day and doesn’t change the color of the uniform tops and pants, or as long as it’s not over the top. This sentiment don’t apply to items worn for pregame warm up, which I love to be over the top. But once the game is on, I don’t want to be blinded by garish costumes.
Those Christmas card unis were fantastic and are what I think of when I hear about the NBA playing on Christmas. They should have just continued to roll those out every year.
Right, I do like some of the simpler Independence Day designs, when you were basically just doing red or flag blue caps, with a stars and stripes version of the logo. But they definitely can clash. I think for the Athletics it is fine because the flag colors are so different from green and yellow it still works.
But black teams and even royal blue teams definitely clash with the flag blue, which is basically navy.
Maybe the best solution would not be the alternate color hats themselves, but just doing the flag based cap logo on the standard team color cap.
Besides the fact that you didn’t answer the question, I don’t really understand the thinking behind feeling that throwbacks are ‘out of place’ with modern equipment updates, because it seems like all you’re really complaining about is that the team ever changed their uniforms from the throwbacks in the first place. There are a TON of examples of teams who have never really changed their uniforms, and have only made updates to things as new technology and equipment gets updated. The Packers, the Bears, the Browns, Penn State, Alabama, USC, Notre Dame, Michigan…do any of those uniforms look ‘out of place’ to you? Would you prefer if they all updated their uniforms to something more ‘modern’ looking, so they fit better with the equipment changes?
I suppose it would be too much to ask for NFL or college home teams to dress up like turkeys on Thanksgiving and the visitors like Pilgrims.
Otherwise, I don’t really care about holiday-themed uniforms. It was nice when baseball players on their own would simply wear a pink wristband or something for Mother’s Day, but now everything has to be Nike-ized.
Sorry for being so negative.
Cowboys red, white, and blue helmet stripe for Veterans Day. Simple and effective.
I don’t have a great answer for this. St. Patrick’s Day in MLB is always fun, I just wish it fell during the season as I rarely tune into Spring Training at all.
I liked the Christmas Day NBA uniforms in the 2010s, but NOT when they were the t-shirt style.
Worst has to be Italian team Atalanta. The team celebrate Christmas by wearing a special jersey. All well and good, but in 2021 instead of putting the skyline of Bergamo on their shirt, they instead somehow put an adobe stock image of the skyline of Turin on the shirt.
They wore their normal jersey for the match against Roma instead.
That’s pretty bad
Always liked the WBS Penguins’ Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day uniforms.
Ha, a Penguins logo in a santa hat
Not uniform related but I love that the Red Sox always host a Patriot’s Day gamethat starts in the morning. I love that the Lions and Cowboys always host Thanksgiving Day games.
Absolutely none of them. I hate them all, they’re stupid gimmicks and they all look terrible. I’ll grudgingly make one exception — green for St. Patrick’s Day was cool the first time the Reds did it, partly because it was a new, surprising thing at the time and partly because it was spring training and who cares.
I’m with Perry. They all kind of suck.
+1
The Nuggets this year played on St. Patrick’s Day, and the coaching staff wore green quarter zips with a fun leprechaun version of their throwback Maxie Miner logo!
link
Ha!
I absolutely love when some German Soccer (fussball?) teams wear special unis for Carnival!!
Mainz 05 (who does it best) link
FC Köln does it too, more detail here link
IMO unless any team can do it as well as Mainz 05, it’s not worth doing.
Koln
My favorite would be the Lions and Packers on Thanksgiving day.
I remember back in the day when the NHL wrote Seasons Greetings with a holly decoration at the blue line during the Christmas season hockey games, always seems so festive. Not sure why they quit doing that.
Good stuff, everyone.
For those who aren’t a fan of holiday uniforms and accessories, what did you think of small patches, like the snowflake patches NBA used to do for Christmas (and brought back in 2023)? link
In the UK, Poppies are used for remembrance and honouring those who lost their lives during wars.
This is associated with 11th November, marking the end of the first World War. My team, Leicester City were one of the first to start wearing a poppy on their shirts for the game on that weekend, and this is now adopted across English football.
Its a small gesture, and teams do it to highlight the cause.
It is not over the top, you can’t buy special shirts and it is not done for any profit.
Quite rate in modern sports!
Kitchener Rangers of the OHL have had many different Remembrance Day jerseys over the years, some of them nice looking:
link