Fantasy Baseball Uniforms Page

Lots of columnists, baseball announcers, and sports radio talk show hosts talk about uniforms. But I still haven't seen a web page devoted to them. Well here it is. There are links to sites about current Major League Uniforms, but it mostly contains my ideas about what current MLB team uniforms and potential expansions site uniforms could look like.

Now a lot of these ideas are ridiculous, but that doesn't matter. I just want to get the dialogue started. E-mail comments to the address at the bottom of the page.

Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates really haven't changed radically from 1996. Both home and road uniforms now sport piping around the buttons and the collar. The left sleeve now displays the new team insignia. The road uniform features pinstripes and a gray cap. The alternate cap uses for the first time in 50 years, a color other than the traditional Pittsburgh black and gold: a red visor. The alternate shirt is black.

Toronto Blue Jays. Also not a radical change. The new team insignia more prominently features the Canadian maple leaf. Red has been added as an accent color: as the visor on the road cap and the full-sleeved solid blue alternate jersey. There are two alternate jerseys, both solid blue, one is sleeveless, the other has red and blue, rather than blue and white lettering. Although the new jerseys continue to feature the split lettering which has been the Toronto Blue Jays trademark, now the initial letter "T" in "Toronto" and the letter "B" in "Blue Jays" is slightly larger than the rest of the letters.

Arizona Diamondbacks. After a couple of years of hints, we finally see what the Arizona Diamondbacks will look like on the field. Perhaps to challenge the late 1970s, early 1980s Pittsburgh Pirates for variety of uniforms, the Diamondbacks will have five different jerseys and four different caps. On the road, the D'backs will have both a purple and a black alternate jersey, while their alternate home uniform is a sleeveless style with a purple undershirt. The caps will be purple at home and black on the road, but there are also alternate turquoise and white caps. The most surprising development in the design is the batting helmet which will be purple with a snake twisted in the form of the letter "D", rather than the "A" which appears on the soft caps and all the licensed material released so far. The purple emphasis is to coordinate with the Phoenix Suns, which are also owned by Jerry Colangelo.

Clicking on the thumbnail pictures get you an expanded view.

Washington Nationals. The name and design comes from the failed 1991 effort to bring baseball back to the Nation's Capital which eventually resulted in the additional of the Rockies and the Marlins. That bid intended to play within the District of Columbia at RFK Stadium and was headed by Chip Akridge, the President of D.C. National Bank before it was eaten up by NationsBank. Current efforts to bring baseball back to Washington center around playing in suburban Northern Virginia and is headed by cellular phone mogul William Collins. The pinstripe designed is adapted from the late 1970's Pirates uniforms where double pinstripes were spaced widely apart. In this case, there is a triple stripe.

New Jersey Meadowlarks. With 18 million people, the New York metropolitan area can certainly support more than just two teams. For 55 seasons, there were at least three major league teams. In 1914 there were four teams and in 1915, there were five. Of course, the odds on a third major league baseball team in the Big Apple vicinity are slightly less than Cecil Fielder being mistaken for Kate Moss. When the team that would become the Mets was first awarded to New York City, one of the nicknames that made the finalist list was Meadowlarks, since their new stadium would be in Flushing Meadows. A Northern New Jersey team would most likely be placed in the former toxic waste dump known as the Meadowlands, so the nickname Meadowlarks would be appropriate. Every ten minutes, George Steinbrenner threatens to move the Yankees there. The colors are the brown, black, and gold of a real meadowlark. The home uniform features pinstripes with a meadowlark and an outline of the state of New Jersey over the left breast.

New York Mets."As you may know, the Mets introduced their first alternate jersey this year to a lukewarm reception. Personally, I liked it. Anyway, apparently team brass didn't like the lukewarm response and has now gone insane. Next year the Mets will have BLACK alternate jerseys--both home and road--in addition to a modified version of this past season's alternate (black piping instead of blue) and a black alternate cap. They haven't unveiled the new duds yet, but the plans have been confirmed.
   "Most fans on the Mets newsgroup and also a Post columnist hate the idea for the simple fact that the team is changing its 35-year-old tradition-laden colors (Brooklyn Dodger blue and New York Giant orange) in the hopes of selling more merchandise. Black has never even been a trim color for the Mets up to this point, and now we've suddenly got black jerseys and caps. Ugh.
   "Anyway, while we both prefer the "classic" Mets uniform and even wrote team management some years ago to lobby for the return of the old logo (they had a church-league-softballish "swoop" under the word "Mets" for a couple of seasons), I have a friend who wanted to see a blue jersey, so I drew one to see what it would look like, along with a sleeveless top."

Pittsburgh Pirates name, logo and uniform design are property of the Pittsburgh Pirates Acquistion, Inc. and Major LeagueBaseball. Toronto Blue Jays name, logo and uniform design are property of the Toronto Blue Jays Baseball Club and Major LeagueBaseball. The name Washington Nationals was the property of Metropolitan Washington Baseball. New York Mets name and logo design are property of Sterling Doubleday and Major League Baseball. New York Mets uniform design © 1997 S. Sparks. Arizona Diamondbacks name, logo and uniform design are property of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Major League Baseball. All other nicknames, logos and uniform designs © 1997, 1998 B. Barrientos. All rights reserved.

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