Bring Back the Blue!!

Tomorrow, I turn 31.  And when a birthday comes along during your 30s...you always think back to when you were a kid.  The things you did....the way the world was...and those blue uniforms.

Huh?

Yeah.  Blue uniforms.  If you were a kid in the 1980s....you basically believed that road uniforms in baseball were supposed to be blue.  That's the way it was. 

Nearly everyone had it.  The Phillies had those cool home uniforms with the burgundy pinstripes and, to me, that great "P" logo.  But it was those road blues that I always remember.  We remember Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton in them....winning their lone World Series

                        

Oh....but it wasn't just the Phillies.  It was the Toronto Blue Jays.  It was the Milwaukee Brewers.  It was the Montreal Expos.

Or remember those great Atlanta Braves pullovers??  Or those Cubbie blues?

               

It was also the St. Louis Cardinals.  And their cross state rivals, the Kansas City Royals.  Even the early 70s Chicago White Sox donned the blue.

Also, the Seattle Mariners had it.  And the Texas Rangers.

Sure....the entire league didn't have it.  Not even my beloved Cincinnati Reds.  But it was there.  And....why?  Why road blue?  You don't see that anywhere else and it really made no sense.  It was a gray-blue...kind of a drab color.  But why did baseball accept that blue was the secondary road color to use?

I mean....this came after a period in baseball where all kinds of colors were used.  I mean, now every team uses an alternate jersey that mainly lookslike spring training gear.   But in the 1970s, jerseys were all kinds of colors.  The Orioles had that drab orange jersey. 

We had the Hank Aaron-era Braves blue.  Or the rainbow Astros unis.

The Giants also had a weird reddish-orange and black period. 

Or the myriad of ugly color combinations the Pirates or Padres had?

There is also the unfashionable White Sox unis in the mid 1970s.  They even crafted SHORTS  and COLLARS to go with their uniforms.  Yeesh!  The Indians didn't do anything that dumb.  Having an all-reduniform with "Indian" lettering on the front is good enough. 

The Oakland A's of the 1970s were known for their colorful uniforms as much as they were known for their winning.

                      

Of course....the crappiest could have been...yep, those Phillies in 1979.  Ugh.  Makes you kind of appreciate the Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers and Tigers...who have barely changed their uniforms in 100 years. 

                               

Of course, you cannot just pick on baseball.  It is just the easiest.  Every sport has it's mistakes.

In the NFL....the biggest mistake was probably the Tampa Bay Buccanners.  Not only did the franchise suck [and house future Super Bowl winning QBs Steve Young and Doug Williams]....they had the worst uniforms and helmets of all time.  A pastel orange and the "jolliest" of "pirates" you will ever see.

Like the old WFL...who had the original Charlotte Hornets.  Yep, the Hornets were a football team first.  Next to them is the great Detroit Wheels helmet and San Antonio Wings [below].

Speaking of the WFL....it has some DOOZY of uniforms.  For the uninformed, the World Football League was around briefly in the mid-1970s and has some memorable fashion DON'Ts.  Check out the entire stable of uniforms:  World Football League Uniforms

                        

In the NBA....wow...there has been some horrible uniforms.  In fact, 1995 introduced us to two of the ugliest uniforms the NBA has ever seen.  The expansion Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies. 

Not to be outdone are the early 1990 Cleveland Cavaliers and mid-90s Detroit Pistons. 

There is also those pajamas the Houston Rockets used as uniforms