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Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century

Since the subject matter of this research deals with the twentieth century, we will defer any discussion of nineteenth century precedents. Certainly, the history of baseball jersey is evolutionary and the uniforms of 1900 are a continuation of 1899 but the story of earlier uniforms is even more difficult to develop and we will reserve that information for future additional research. An important finding of such research will be establishing the starting point of use of separate uniforms at home and on the road, which was standard for all major league teams by 1900.



FABRICS



Uniform fabrics in 1900 were either 100% wool flannel or a blend of wool and cotton. Summer temperatures and humidity were no different than now and the idea of playing baseball weighted down with these heavy uniforms seems unthinkable today. But play they did, and with as much vigor and dash as the modern, more comfortably clothed players of the 1980's. The weight of these wool and cotton flannels was gradually reduced in half by the 1940's but the problems of durability and shrinkage had not improved much. The advent of synthetic fibers in the post-WWII era (NYLON, DACRON, ORLON) paved the way for improved blends. The most successful of these was the WOOL / ORLON blend in the sixties — seemingly the "ultimate" material for baseball shirt. But the double-knit fabrics introduced in the early seventies provided so many more attractive and practical features over flannel: lighter, cooler, more comfortable, more durable, etc. etc. Traditionalists insist that the tight-fitting stretchy double knit suits cannot compare with the well-tailored flannel look of the sixties, but the use of the flannel materials for sublimation hockey jersey is "history" — unless some new miracle fabric comes along that more clearly simulates flannel.



FABRIC PATTERNS AND COLORS






SHOES



Baseball pants, up to the TV age, were like Henry Ford's Model T: you could have any color you wanted as long as it was BLACK. The shoe height dropped from just below the ankle bone to a basic low-quarter style by 1910. The KC A's revolutionary white shoes in the sixties opened the door for color matching and hardly an all-black shoe can be found on today's major leaguers.



JERSEYS AND UNDERSWEATERS





Stockings in 1900 were made of heavy wool and were of one-piece full-length (above the knee) construction. The foot covering part below the ankle bone was white or natural wool and often created the illusion of stirrups. The true stirrup stocking, separate from the "sanitary" foot stocking, first came into being about 1905. The popularity of striped or multi-tone stirrup stockings ebbed and flowed in cycles, becoming widely used around 1910 and less common by the late teens. Except for a few "candy-cane" varieties (particulary by the Giants, Cardinals & Washington), striping was quite minimal during the twenties and, in contrast, enjoyed a revival of sorts in the early thirties. As pant legs became lower and stirrups were stretched higher and higher over the following decades, the stockings became a neglected component in the overall appearance of the uniform. In fact, since the sanitary undersock has gained more and more visibility, its traditional white color, in some cases, has been abandoned for a distinct color to complement the new colored variety of shoes.



TRIM COLORS AND GRAPHICS



In the 1890's stocking colors were the principal device in distinguishing one team from another (hence the team names White Stockings, Red Stockings, Browns, etc.) and graphic displays identifying the home city were merely extra window dressing. In fact, some clubs after 1900 elected to wear plain unmarked jerseys and left their unique identification to their stocking colors and caps (i.e. the Chicago Nationals and St. Louis Americans).



Although trim colors were abundant in uniform schemes, the selection was limited to BLACKS, DARK BLUES, MAROONS or REDS, & BROWNS and seldom in combinations (some exceptions: Pittsburgh's maroon & navy stockings, Detroit's black stockings with a red stripe). Lettering styles for the home city name were usually in plain block capital letters (from the manufacturer's standard stock) and the single letters or monograms were either a similar block style or a heavily ornamental Victorian or Old English type. John McGraw was quite unpredictable and often innovative in dictating the color schemes of his Giants. Once the team's N-Y monogram style was established (c. 1909), he stayed with it but he boldly flaunted color traditions by introducing VIOLET in 1913 as a trim color. The Cubs in 1916 added a second color red to dress up the navy blue trim and a wave of patriotism in the WWI years encouraged a more generous display of red, white and blue on some major league uniforms.



In the case of many clubs, team nicknames were an unofficial invention of the press and changed constantly. On the other hand, clubs such as the Cardinals, Tigers and Athletics were universally identified by fans and team management alike. However, display of the nickname (or representative symbols of same) on the uniform were rare in the early decades of the century. The first instance of displaying a graphic symbol of the team nickname was the small red tiger on the black cap of the 1901 Detroits. When the Boston Americans decided to adopt the new nickname of RED SOX in 1908, they did so with an unusual graphic display, showing a red sock silhouette (with the word BOSTON inside) on their shirt fronts. The small cub figure inside the Chicago National "C" in 1908 would be the only other such embellishment of this type among NL teams in the 1900-1910 period.



The first spelling out of the team's nickname on the jersey was on the Washington home shirts of 1905. Determined that they were no longer to be called the "Senators", their now official name "NATIONALS" was displayed in capital letters across the chest. Simpler and more established nicknames [Cubs, (White) Sox, Reds] soon appeared. By 1910, the new cadet-style collar shirts placed a new emphasis on the front button lapel and it became fashionable to stack up the letters of the team name or city name in a vertical position. By the 1920's, display of the team name had become common (even the conservative Yankees did it for a time on their road uniforms). Oddly, the Philadelphia Athletics had never in their long history displayed so much as a letter P to identify the home city, yet they were the last of the original 16 major league franchises to spell out the full nickname ATHLETICS — in their final year (1954) in the City of Brotherly Love.



The Detroit Tigers in 1930 established an important precedent by using a script lettering of DETROIT in place of the traditional capital letters. By the end of the decade, the idea of slanted script letters with an underline flourish was widely used. Also, a second trim color became the norm for many other major league teams in the thirties. As for graphic symbols, almost every club by this time had displayed some pictorial version of club identification at one time or another. Even the Athletics exploited their elephant symbol (whose origin is a story in itself) as early as 1905 on their team sweaters and later on the uniform jersey. Many of the team nicknames defy visual identification (Reds? Phillies? Nationals? Dodgers?) and thus escaped usage. Perhaps the St. Louis Cardinals have the most notable and familiar graphic presentation with their 2-birds-on-a-bat design which began in 1922 and, with few interruptions has persisted to this day. In the last years before numbers became standard on the backs of the shirts, the Detroit and Boston NL clubs boldly displayed a colorful tiger's head and Indian head profile respectively, on their backs.



On rare occasions the entire team name (city and nickname) has been spelled out on th uniform. The Cubs in 1909 were the first with CHICAGO in vertical lettering down the buttor lapel and the CUBS emblem on the left breast. The last major league uniform to show the full team name was by the San Diego Padres in 1978. In recent decades, more imaginative lettering styles appeared — notably, the Indian with an unusual interpretation of American Indian-type calligraphy in the early seventies. Probably the most tasteful and attractive use of a modern type face is exemplified by the current BLUE JAYS uniform set.



The proliferation of color TV coverage of major league baseball probably did more to invite the use of brighter and non-traditional uniform color schemes in the 1960's. The Athletics' gold and green ensembles started a color revolution that culminated in the bizarre "rainbow" jerseys introduced by the ASTROS in 1975. However, in midst of the color orgy, a handful of teams (i.e. the Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers) maintained a fairly consistent conservative image, hoIding steadfastly to the dictates of a long tradition Even the trends of the double-knit revolution (pullover jersey, beltless trousers) seem to be reverting to earlier styles (buttoned jersey and belted trousers). The popular practice of stretching the stirrups far up under the trouse legs also seems to be reversing itself and once again revealing the heretofore unseen striping on the outer socks. Among the expansion teams, the two Canadian entries have maintaned stable, consistent uniform designs. The other side of this coin is the San Diego franchise, which has at times changed its uniform designs almost annually in their nearly 2 decades of existence in the majors.