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Saturday, May 18, 2013
Major League Baseball unis. Let's start with the classics.
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About Me
- Hoolie
- Why Hoolie? I was named Hoolie by my dad as he watched our beloved Cardinals beat the Red Sox in the '67 Series. I was born shortly after with the nickname already in place and have gone by it since. I have a passion for sports, fashion, uniforms and design. This blog is a chance for me to talk and rant about my passion for uniforms and have some friendly banter with fellow uni lovers.
As this article and a few other photo sources successfully illustrate, Major League Baseball in the 1960's was the Golden Age of Baseball. And that's for many reasons. I specialize in the aesthetics of the 60s era, so I'll cover that here:
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The players also dressed very well. As a comment on a Uni Watch post says, the jersey and pants are trim but not tight. Button down jerseys with short sleeves and true vests reign supreme. The stirrup socks were at the most ideal proportion of stirrup to sanitary sock, allowing for plenty of white (Or yellow in the A's case) while still giving enough space for colorful and creative stripes. It was pre-double knit so every jersey was soft flannel but you still had an injection of powder blue roads. The cap is not quite the exaggerated high peak but isn’t formless either, with green underbrims for reduced glare (The grass is green too) and leather sweatbands with white reeding. No matter what style a team happened to wear, it was almost guaranteed to look like baseball.
Teams with classic designs (Yankees, Cubs, Dodgers, Red Sox, Cardinals, etc) and those who experimented with their looks (A's, Pilots, White Sox, Expos, Padres, etc) all looked very elegant, particularly because button-front jerseys and belted pants were still in vogue, giving off a classic, formal vibe, going with the notion of baseball being a gentleman's game.
The umpires also looked their best, many times being outfitted in dark navy suits, caps, and black ties and dress shoes, with either white shirts, adding to the aforementioned formal and official vibe.
The players not only dressed well, but the equipment they used, consisting of Hillerich and Bradsby made Louisville Slugger or Adirondack natural-colored ash wood bats; Rawlings, Wilson, or Spalding tan leather fielding gloves and mitts; the aforementioned black (Or white in the A's case) leather spikes; simple-construction batting helmets with one earflap, which just seems to scream baseball to me; and catcher's equipment with simple patterns on the chest protector, shin guards (Both of which preferably in team colors), and the steel bars of the mask, were also simple compared to today, but elegant.
And that's just the aesthetics of that era-not to mention the caliber of players during that time. But I'll let others cover that. I hope my Heaven is 1960's MLB when my time comes.