I’m not much of a baseball fan, so please help me out here.
I belong to Toastmasters. One of the routines of the bimonthly meeting is that the person appointed to be Grammarian picks a Word Of The Evening, and then it’s up to the rest of the group to work the word into their speeches. Last Wednesday, the Grammarian was a visitor from another chapter, an older guy who was wearing the shirt mentioned. It had a typical “LA Dodgers” logo in blue but on a basketball-orange background. The reason I mention TM is that the word he gave us was “jostle”, which he said was inspired by having been jostled on the Staten Island Ferry. It’s not good form, but I couldn’t help but interject–“And you were wearing that shirt?”
For all I know they love the Dodgers in Staten Island, and maybe his fellow passengers wanted to ask him where he got it. It’s not as if he was on the train to The Bronx, after all.
But I’ve never seen that color associated with the Dodgers before. Could it be a farm league team or something like that?
There are various stylistic colors for licensed sports merchandise. I’ve seen baseball caps in various colors the teams don’t actually use, as well as pink T-shirts and jerseys meant for girls.
An LA Dodgers shirt in orange is simply taking a well-known logo (LA Dodgers) and having fun with it.
Nothing more.
Pro sports teams have always had fun with this sort of thing. That’s why sometimes you see teams “update” their uniforms from time to time, and why some teams have even changed colors through the years.
Yes. It’s a relatively new trend – teams usually only had paraphernalia in standard team colors until recently – but nowadays they’ll license any color combination. I think it started with pink baseball caps with team logos and branched out from there.
Orange, BTW, is both appropriate for the Dodgers (it’s the New York City official color, with blue) and wildly inappropriate (it’s one of the Giants team colors).
This current trend of non-team colors in team fashion is one of the signs of the Apocalypse. One should never see a red, baby blue, pink or green Yankees cap. Ever. It is an abomination against man for non-team colors to lie with team logos. So sayeth the shepherd…
This started sometime around 1997 I think. Before that, licensed merchandise was always in team colors. Now, you can get them in almost any color. I think it started with issuing a black cap for every team. Then I saw a yellow Yankees cap with a black “NY” insignia. After that all hell broke loose.
Damn, you San Franciscans never quit, do you. I think we’ve all got it by now.
But it’s amazing to me nonetheless. Nobody down here cares one way or the other about SF. We like it. We visit a lot. But as far as anything like a rivalry is concerned, it’s all in your heads.
On the other hand I do give you credit for your forceful commentary on this occasion. And I agree about the colors thing. Next thing you know, there’ll be Cardinal red Yankees gear.
I sat next to someone wearing almost this exact hat on the subway this morning- except the “NY” was also in red. Actually it was probably a knockoff, because the logo didn’t look right.
I agree with everything but the green. Teams tend to wear green hats when playing a spring training game on St. Patrick’s Day. If the team wears it on the field it’s fair game for fans in my opinion.
Yeah but that’s still lame. Just like the San Diego Padre Camouflage jerseys and caps and any assortment of horrid theme night jerseys for minor league teams (both baseball and hockey), its abhorrent…
Most teams have Camo and Pink (the “pink hats” may have started with the Red Sox) and half a dozen other colors. Teams also are allowed at least one additional jersey to their standard home and away gear. As mentioned, Green for St Patrick’s day has been used by several teams.
The NFL and MLB have the throwback jerseys as well, which often remind us of how bad fashion sense was in the days before color TV was widespread.
Actually it’s not “new” at all. Certainly it has become more widespread in recent years, but the practice has actually been around for many decades.
Talking Major League Baseball, at least, the practice of offering “alternative” colors and design schemes of team uniforms and logos – and making them readily available for purchase by fans – goes back to at least the early 1970s and in some cases the 1950s. You can probably even find examples that pre-date WWII!!
Examples:
The 1960 A’s had baseball caps available for sale to fans in the colors of green, red, gold, or blue. Pick your color!
The Houston Astros (previously the Colt 45’s) of the 1960s and 1970s toyed with several uniform designs before eventually settling on multi-striped shades of oranges and browns.
The 1977 Cincinnati Reds had a “shamrock uniform day”. Yes that’s right: as a publicity stunt the R-e-d-s wore all-green uniforms. They still sell the green baseball cap with the trademark wishbone “C” available to fans.
The White Sox: Where do I begin? They were constantly coming up with alternative colored whatsits for much of the late 1960s and into the 1970s.
It is frequently a Very Bad Idea when teams invent new and “interesting” uniforms and crap to market to the masses, but I can let that pass if the team is at least wearing said gear. Making orange Dodgers shirts or red Yankees caps or pink… anything athletic, is just wrong, Wrong, WRONG! Non-team colours on liscensed merchandise makes the baby Jesus cry. Heck, I balk at seeing Dodgers gear in royal blue, as opposed to Dodger blue, so you can imagine how opposed I am to putting entirely the wrong colours on this stuff!
And don’t even get me started on wearing ball caps sideways or backwards or with the brim flattened out or with the merchandising stickers left on after purchase… or pants without at least six inches of exposed socks… or Manny Ramirez’s embarrasingly baggy clown outfit… or basketball shorts that extend below the knees…
Some other genuine field-worn alternate designs I can think of:
-The Toronto Blue Jays wear a red uniform every Canada Day.
-Every MLB team wore a cap with an American flag-colored logo this 4th of July.
-In 1998, the Seattle Mariners had a clever “Turn Ahead The Clock” promotion involving a fantasy depiction of a future game. When this promotion was done leaguewide the following season, the results were less than stellar. The less said about the Mercury Mets, the better.
It’s not as if he was on the train to The Bronx, after all.