One month ago today, Grant Brisbee wrote about the structure they're putting in the new Marlins stadium that will, um, go into action when a Marlins player hits a home run, calling it "the worst thing ever".
I have to admit, that's pretty "worst". But! The Marlins organization has topped itself. Although the official unveiling of the Miami Marlins' new uniforms isn't until this Friday, various leaks have revealed the Marlins' new logo (awful) and the new Marlins cap (worse, and found in, of all places, Buffalo).
Today, the Marlins fan site "Marlin Maniac" has uncovered evidence of the Marlins' new uniforms. "Garish" doesn't begin to describe them:
You have got to be kidding me. Orange jerseys with orange belts and orange caps with yellow bills? What is this team, the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers? The black one isn't quite as bad, but it appears that they've got just about every color of the rainbow in there.
This set is somewhat less hideous, except for the fact that it shows off the orange belt. When you are in south Florida and are wearing a white shirt and white pants with an orange belt, shouldn't the pants be hiked up to your chest? I cannot wait to see Ozzie Guillen wearing these colors. It would also appear that, if the drawings are correct, that three of the four sets have multicolored undershirts -- looks like the front of the sleeves are a different color than the back.
Maybe this is the Marlins' plan -- to blind their opponents with garish uniforms and that silly home run celebration thing. One thing we should be happy about is that the Marlins have not gone all the way back to the 1970s and had matching shirt-and-pants outfits like this one:
The Pirates had several matching sets, including black and pinstripe. Willie Stargell, pictured above, used to say he felt like "a giant canary" in the all-yellow outfits. How about this one:
Phillies players hated these so much they refused to wear them a second time. (The poor fellow in the photo is Larry Christenson, the starting pitcher for the one-and-done game on May 19, 1979.)
Why the Marlins are putting on a 1970s nostalgia act in their spiffy new stadium is beyond me. As the Miami New Times points out:
It's also ironic that the Marlins played in a stadium with orange seats for their entire existence, and only decided to embrace the color on their move to a stadium with blue seats (which just so happens to sit on the grave of the Orange Bowl).
We'll find out for real on Friday. You might want to wear sunglasses.
Update: A few hours after the above was published, Baseball Nation learned that the source for the Marlins' supposed new livery is a website devoted to sports logos ... and these uniforms are theoretical, based on various leaks in recent weeks. It seems likely that they'll look something like this, with colors like that. But we've still not seen the real things. Maybe they'll be even worse!