First, did you see the story over the weekend about the Red Sox fan who got a job as a construction worker at the new Yankee Stadium and buried a Red Sox jersey in the concrete of the foundation in order to try to put a hex on the Yankees? The Yankees had workers go in with a jackhammer and excavate the David Ortiz #34 jersey from under a couple of feet of concrete. Now they're talking about filing a lawsuit against the guy to try to recover the cost of doing it, which was supposedly around $50,000. It could turn out to be a very expensive prank.
Second, here is a fun link to a page on the National Baseball Hall of Fame's web site, Dressed to the Nines, which has a database allowing you to see what any major league team's uniforms looked like in any particular season. Some fun ones: 1937 Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League (yes, they wore green uniforms for that one season) and the 1916 New York Giants (National League), whose uniforms were beyond hideous. Purple plaid?! Yuck!
So why was I looking at that site? Well, over the weekend, the Kansas City Royals resurrected their old powder blue uniforms, or at least the jerseys. They had a giveaway for fans coming to the stadium on Friday night, and then they wore the jerseys for yesterday's home game against the Minnesota Twins. The odd thing is that while there is a nostalgic feeling about those old powder blue uniforms, since the Royals wore them during that all-too-brief span of years from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s when the team was really good, they were road uniforms. The Royals never wore the powder blue uniforms at home. This version is different from the ones worn from 1983-91 in that the "Royals" on the front of the jersey is in royal blue with a white outline. To someone familiar with the old road uniforms, it looks strange.
If you look at the Royals' uniforms starting from their beginning in 1969, you see that from 1969-70, the team wore gray road uniforms with "Kansas City" in blue script, similar to the blue script "Royals" on their home jerseys, which were buttoned up the front. From 1971-72, the road grays had "Kansas City" in blue capital letters arranged in an arch. And then came the powder blue uniforms starting in 1973 and running through 1991. There were two different styles: From 1973-82, the jerseys were V-neck double-knits with "Kansas City" in white capital letters arranged in an arch, and no number on front. From 1983-91, the jerseys were button-front, with a white script "Royals" and the player's number on the left side. In 1992, the team went back to gray road uniforms and the powder blues were history... Until now.
The only time I ever saw them play in the powder blue uniforms was in a game at Boston's Fenway Park in the spring of 1985. All of the other times I saw the Royals play were home games at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium).
