I am loving the yellow A’s uniforms

NOW they are starting to look like the Oakland A’s again!
I always liked the solid yellow jerseys that said “A’s.”

And frankly I just like the name “A’s” better than “Athletics.” There’s something goofy about a team named after a letter and Athletic is such a vague term that I find myself siding with goofiness.

I like that it is a button down jersey with the piping and not the pull over shirt from the 70s.

I know this yellow jersey will be an alternate uniform. But like my love for the new Pirates jersey, I think they should wear it more often than not.

I hope they do the same thing with the green uniforms, like the one that Reggie looked so awesome wearing.

Outfit the A’s in the green jerseys with piping down the front and make that the permanent road jerseys.

How cool would they look?

And their regular home jerseys should be like the one Rickey Henderson wore during the 1980s. White jersey, piping, with “A’s” on the front.

It has a combination of class and color… which is always a good thing.

OK, enough fashion.

Back to baseball.

The Pirates Alternate Unis Are Awesome

I’ve written a few snarky posts about uniforms this year… from the Indians indecision about a hat and the Royals and Rays not getting how to do powder blue uniforms properly.

And I’ve written a few things about the Pirates… one encouraging… and a few more where I insist that they give out free tickets for the season (I made this assertion twice.)

But with all of this sarcasm and complaining, I think it is time for a positive post.

So I’ll say it: The Pirates alternative uniforms are the best alternative uniforms in baseball.

The black top with the yellow P looks terrific. And it doesn’t harken back to any specific era… it is just a well thought out piece of merchandising.

It is a hell of a lot better than their ill conceived red tops that they vomited up in the mid 2000s.

Does anyone remember these?

Does anyone own any one of these?

Is this a left handed pitcher or a freshman quarterback?

And I certainly like it better than any of their uniform options with the lame Pirate logo on it.

That Pirate logo has always stunk… as has most of the teams playing with that logo.

Besides, anyone knows that the best Pirates logo was THIS ONE:

The 2010 Pirates have no shortage of uniform options… and they are all good solid traditional uniforms. The black and gold with the old fashioned lettering is all nice.

The white top/white bottom look is a little conservative but fits the Pirates tradition.

I am not crazy about the pinstripe variation, but the sleeveless is good.

It harkens back to the Bill Mazeroski era.

But the black uniform is cool… in fact I would argue that it is a better top than the road unis with PITTSBURGH written across.

I think the black tops should be the regular road jerseys.

I don’t that is a radical idea… and the Pirates have had some radical uniforms in the past, including when they last won the World Series in 1979.

How many uniform variations did they have?

Striped tops, striped bottoms…

Black tops… black bottoms…

Yellow tops… yellow bottoms…

Yellow Caps… Black Caps.

It seems like they used a spinner to see what random combination they’d have.

Even the great “Dressed to the Nines” data base missed one combination

The black top, yellow bottom, yellow hat combination wasn’t covered in their drawing.

They certainly stood out (and resembled bees in the process.)

I say don’t save the new black tops for special occaisions.

Bust it out on the road and look cool in the process.

You may not have a winning product on the field, but that doesn’t mean you need to LOOK like a loser.

Might be time to change hats in Washington

When the Montreal Expos moved to Washington just before the 2005 season to become the Nationals, there wasn’t a lot of time to come up with a look for the team’s cap.

So basically they dusted off the Senators hats that have been sitting in a warehouse since they left town in 1971 and call them Nationals caps.

Heck the Mets took the old interlocking NY from the New York Giants, so there is a precedent for stealing from the past.

They of course could just flip the old Expos “M” upside down… but that would have been too radical.

Besides I guess they wanted to put the Montreal experience behind them.

But the why embrace a Senators past?

The Senators who, over two franchises between 1901 and 1971, won exactly 3 pennants… the Senators who between the 1933 AL Pennant and leaving for Texas after the 1971 season finished as high as second place two times, and both of those seasons were during World War II when the best players were fighting fascism.

They embraced the history of the Senators, a team so bad that a musical was made about them winning the pennant… and it involved a deal with the Devil!

But I already covered that in my post about Long Suffering Nationals fans.

Believe it or not, this is the beginning of the 6th season of Washington Nationals baseball.
That’s more than enough time to develop a winner. The Diamondbacks won a World Series title in their 4th year (and nearly bankrupted the team.) The Marlins won in the 5th season, dismantled that team, and won it again in their 11th.

Now nobody is saying the Nationals should have a World Series contender by now… but an identity would be nice. That is, an identity other than “the worst team in baseball.”

Well that identity might be on its way.

They have a young star in Ryan Zimmerman. The Nats have talented Ian Desmond at shortstop and some young arms like John Lannan, Jordan Zimmermann and Craig Stammen already on the big league squad and Drew Storen is on his way.

Plus the Nationals have the #1 pick over all this spring and can pick a potential star.
Am I missing anyone?

Hmmm…

Oh yeah!

The Messiah of Washington baseball!

The only player on the Nationals that most baseball fans have heard of… and he has yet to throw an actual game for the Nats!

The last time I remembered such an anticipation for one player to change the culture of a team, it was LeBron James looking to become the savior of Cleveland.

And do you remember what they did before King James arrived?

They changed their look!

Gone were the blue wave across the belly look.

Gone were the tops with CAVS across the top.

Those were the uniforms of a losing team.

In came a new logo…

A new color scheme…

New font on the uniform…

All fit for a king!

And none reminding the fans of the dreadful years that led to the lottery pick!

So before Strasburg becomes part of the big league team, let me suggest it might be time to ditch the cursive W.

Even Hall of Famers like Ted Williams and Frank Robinson couldn’t manage a contender with that logo on their head!

I say go to the DC logo full time.

Yeah I know they use the DC hat as a practice hat and on some days as an alternate uniform.

Heck with that. Go full time! Ditch the cursive W all together.

The Strasburg era is coming up… and if he is as good as advertised, then maybe a young Washington pitching staff might blossom JUST as the Phillies run slows down.

Maybe there will be a contender in Washington without the aid of the devil.

And if that is the case, then I want them looking the part of a winner… and that cursive W just doesn’t cut it.