Like I said yesterday, I like kelly green and yellow more than brown and mustard, like the Padres sported back in the day, and yesterday's logo post wasn't about the ugmos of the uniform world. This post is also not about that, rather, it's just about the A's. I found some cool similarities out there and felt like sharing.
The team that currently plays in Oakland and calls themselves the Athletics, or A's for short, started play in Philadelphia many, many years ago. A team of ballplayers from Philly called themselves the Athletics started play around the Civil War era, and that was the name given to the team when the upstart American League started in 1901,
After a while, as baseball moved towards the modern age, the A's uniform in Philly coalesced around the "A":
That set is from 1950, and had been like that for maybe twenty years, the main changes having been the darkening of the blue trim to a navy, lightening to this royal color. In 1954 they switched for the first time to the upward lifting cursive "Athletics" word on the chest, a name play we still see today.
By 1960, the A's are in Kansas City and the jerseys haven't changed too much--now the caps sport a "KC" and the red on the chest may be a little more dominant, but it's still looks the same.
Now things begin to go a little haywire, only because of the proximity of the changes. This next kit is fromthe very next year, 1961, and we see a return of the big "A" on the chest, and the city's name on the road uni. The red seems to be gone. Overall, this particular kit is not a haywire representative...
...it just represents the dart of weird changes. By now Finley must be the owner, because the very next year they changed uniforms again, and below are the 1962 looks. Gone is the cursive upward lifting anything, and what we have is the familiar rainbow blocking of the '80s I remember, only the color scheme is wrong. I mean, I recognize the lettering, but from my youth, before the most recent change, but the colors here? Red, white and blue? Do you associate that with the A's?
Of course not, because Charlie Finley was a radical owner who even wanted to introduce an orange baseball (hitters didn't hate the idea, but purists did), and the very next year he finally got his way. By 1963 the A's had their "modern" color scheme of kelly green and gold set.
Wow, that was quick. 1960: we look mostly the same as ever. 1961: we look mostly like the years before looking mostly the same as ever. 1962: we're off on a blocky tangent. 1963: we've made it--blocks are set and eye-bleeding color scheme is set. Awesome.
Well, who's to say green and gold can't be a teams color scheme? Not me, since I'm a Mustang from Cal Poly, and our scheme is green and gold. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the nearly all-gold uniform, but what can you do?
By 1982 the A's are in Oakland, Rickey Henderson is on his way to a Hall of Fame career, and the A's uniforms have run almost off the track. Look below. They have five different unis? Seriously? Different socks? kay, well, at least they reclaimed the big "A", and here they retain the blocky rainbow script. These are the ones I remember, but only from being a littler kid than normal.
In 1987 they switched back to the upward lifting cursive lettering, and again we get "Athletics", and, for the first time since Kansas City, we get the upward lifting cursive city name on the road uni. These are specifically from 1989, the year they won it all over the Giants in the earthquake halted Battle of the Bay.
I didn't grab any more because they haven't changed it since. Mostly. They've added a solid black jersey as well as varying shades of green, but the lettering is the same. They have, though, adopted as an alternate a jersey that is basically the 2nd from the left in 1982 set, with the green piping and large "A's" letters, but it is a yellow base instead of a white based shirt.
Honestly, a while back I spent probably too much time looking for a throwback jersey of a specific player to buy. I was looking for the jersey on the far right from the 1982 set, the solid green with the big "A's", and wanted the name on the back to be Matsui, for my man Hideki. This was right after he hit his 500th professional homer and I had discretionary money to spend. No avail. They hoard those throwbacks like crazy, and when you can get players names for them, the're only players who played during that era, like Rick Honeycutt or Juaqin Andujar or Carney Lansford or Dwayne Murphy or Rickey.
I wasn't willing to spend silly amounts of money on it, but, since they let you pick a blank jersey and then pick any player, why can't they make the older "throwback" jerseys available for manipulation? What if I wanted a personalized Twins jersey from 1987?
Too bad.
Go A's.
I've been trying to find a reasonably priced Dave Kingman jersey for years to no avail. I still have one of those orange Charlie Finley balls. Julie got me a yellow pullover Reggie Jackson jersey that was pretty awesome. The A's have also had alternate black jerseys with green trim that are kind of cool
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