For a Friday night game against the L.A. Angels, the Toronto Blue Jays sported their classic uniforms from the 1992 and 1993 seasons, the years they won the World Series. A few members of those classic teams were on hand to watch the modern Jays beat the Angels, 5-4.
1993 was a long time ago, and the Jays are no longer a threat to win a title. But how well do their jerseys stack up? Will my completely arbitrary grading scale be kind to these powder blue uniforms? Find out after the jump.
The Blue Jays are no strangers to changing their uniform design, which they seem to do every couple seasons. I guess when you haven't won anything in 16 years, you have more time on your hands to fiddle with the look of the jersey.
The nice thing with a name like Blue Jays is that they're locked into only wearing blue uniforms. They can never pull off a stunt like the Toronto Raptors, who decided one day to ditch their purple uniforms and start wearing red and black. The Arizona Diamondbacks did the same thing.
Why, you may be asking yourself, did the Toronto team call itself the Blue Jays? Well, when they were formed in 1976, the team held a name contest and one of the suggestions was the Blue Jays. Because the franchise was owned by the company that makes the Labatt Blue beer, it seemed like a perfect fit. Plus, it synced with the colors of the town's oldest sports team: the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League.
"A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab?" If you follow politics, you know who said that. God the 2008 election seems like an eternity ago... Anyway, if Barack Obama's fist bump was really a sign of terrorism, we should all be afraid. Apparently it's spread to Canada.
This shot must have been taken in the shadows somewhere, hence the uniform's darker-than-usual appearance. Take a look at the Blue Jays' logo. Smiling. Happy. A round eye. Nowadays, every bird logo in sports is frowning, angry, vicious, ready to attack. Whatever happened to friendly birds?
For the sake of reference, here is the home edition of the classic Jays uniforms, which they wore against the Baltimore Orioles two weeks earlier. The design is pretty much the same except for two things: the logo is smaller and moved to the side a bit and the pant leg stripe is less noticeable.
Overall:
The Blue Jays had some pretty good jerseys. I love the powder blue. It's especially nice to see some deviation in the color scheme, as almost all road baseball jerseys are gray. I'm not going to give it an A, just because there is still something about it that seems a little too... retro (if that makes any sense). But the throwback Blue Jays unis are nice to look at nonetheless.
Final Grades:
Classic Blue Jays Uniform: B
Photos taken by Jim Ross, Associated Press