A very cool baseball uniform database

With my limited attention span and not contradictory ability to lose myself in any deep well of data on subjects dear to me, a friend forwarding a link to a baseball uniform database tempted me severely today.

The database is part of Dressed to the Nines, a section of the Baseball Hall of Fame Web site devoted to the history of uniforms. What a treasure trove it is. The uniform history of each club – National League, American League, Federal League — is presented in graphic form. At top right is a side-by-side panel of the Detroit ballclub’s home and road uniforms from 1905, the first year the fabled gothic “D” graced the front of the Tigers’ jerseys.

Some of the styles are classic, others – shall we say? – misguided. Get a look at the crazy window-pane plaid uniforms the New York Giants wore in 1916.

If you want to find out when the Houston Astros switched to their mustard-in-a-blender-accident double-knit softball uniforms (1975), the database will let you figure it out. The database will also show you the franchise’s cool original Colt .45s uniforms, which were worn from  1962-64.

The site is also instructive on changing cap styles. The first thing I did upon entering was to trace the evolution of Cleveland’s caps, noting that the primitive Chief Wahoo first appeared on jersey sleeves in 1947. Restyled to what became his traditional look in 1951, he moved up onto the cap inside the wishbone “C” logo in 1954.

Maybe that’s what doomed the Tribe in the World Series that year.

The Angels compile the best record in baseball

The Los Angeles Angels go for victory No. 100 tonight. Even if they lose and lose again tomorrow on the final day of the season, they’ll still have the best record in baseball with 99 wins. No matter the record, no team is a lock to advance even past the first round of the playoffs. But such is the playoff system, where a team that gets hot in September can sneak in as a wild card and win it all. That’s happened four times, including the Angels’ 2002 defeat of the San Francisco Giants — who were the NL wild card winner, incidentally.

Even back in the pre-playoff days, the best record did not guarantee a World Series triumph. The 1954 Cleveland Indians racked up 111 wins in a 152-game season, yet got swept by the New York Giants. So good luck, Angels. It’s been a great season — but a new one starts in a few days.

This Angels cap, by the way, was the one my son wore on his team three seasons ago. Technically, it was an Anaheim Angeles cap at the time, but I won’t quibble. The Angels caps have evolved over the years to this red model, which I like. Disney undertones notwithstanding, I actually preferred the previous “winged A” version of the Angels’ cap. The expansion club’s original LA with the halo circling the crown was also pretty cool. I did not care much for the “CA” logo during the “California Angels” era.

The Cleveland Browns and a brand new NFL season

The Thursday night game between the Redskins and Giants notwithstanding, today marks the real kickoff to the 2008 National Football League season. In celebration, I took my natty corduroy Cleveland Browns cap out into the warm California sun for a morning portrait.

Classic Cleveland Browns corduroy cap

I call this a classic Browns cap because it dates not from the present franchise but from the last years of the old Browns, the team that the sinsister Art Modell carted off to Baltimore to become the dead-to-me Ravens.

The original Browns started in the All American Football Conference that was folded into the NFL in the early 1950s. My early childhood centered on baseball, and football didn’t enter my consciousness until early grade school. In fact, my earliest pro football memory is of the day of the 1964 championship game in which the Browns defeated the Baltimore Colts (another team that would ultimately and appallingly be wrenched from the hearts of its fans). The game was blacked out on television in Cleveland, so my dad sent me to the attic to move our antenna around so we could catch the game on a Toledo station.

The demise of the old Browns roughly coincided with my move to California, where I’ve since attached my primary allegiance to the San Francisco 49ers and, given a few beers and the right opponent, the Oakland Raiders. I have not bonded with the new Browns, but should they advance to the playoffs, I’ll be pulling for them hard. And yeah, I want them to crush the Dallas Cowboys today.

In the meantime, I reserve my Browns cap mainly for the winter months, always hoping for the delightful contrast of white snowflakes settling on its rich brown bill.

Your (well, mine, actually) San Francisco Giants cap

This orange and black beauty was a freebie I picked up on moving to San Francisco and the Bay Area in 1993. Of all places, I got it at the tony Nordstrom department store in downtown San Francisco, just for trying on a pair of Bostonian dress shoes. I was not shopping for shoes that day, but for a free baseball cap, I’d try on a corset.

The cap was produced right after the Giants reverted to this seriffed logo, which hearkened back to the old New York Giants logo. With or without seriffs, the Giants’ logo is instantly recognizable, bringing to mind* Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, and many others.

While the San Francisco Giants have had few cracks at World Series glory in my lifetime, it’s a time-honored franchise. I saw the Giants often in the 1990s at “the Stick” — Candlestick Park, where the unpredictable bay breezes were as much a factor in the games as was Barry Bonds. Now the Giants play at AT&T Park, the Nordstrom of modern ballparks. The Seattle retailer started out as a shoe store in 1901 just as the American League was getting started. Nordstrom evolved into a department store. For most of the 20th Century, a ballpark was just a ballpark. But for the 21st Century, it must be a shopping mall.

I finally got inside AT&T Park at a game last September, and it was a memorable trip with my son as we took the ferry from Alameda to the game. What struck me on arriving was how many lures the team laid out to separate you from your money. Restaurants, souvenir shops, video games — I was on sensory overload within two minutes when all I wanted was garlic fries and my seat.

While I suppose it’s great to be able to buy Asian fusion cuisine or sample Sonoma chardonnay between innings, just give me a beer, a hot dog and an unobstructed view of the diamond. What matters is between the foul lines.

*Depending on your age, feel free to substitute Will Clark, Robby Thompson and Rick Reuschel.