The Teal Phenomenon that swept the country during the early 1990s fascinated me. I've never seen one color emerge out of nowhere so quickly in the sporting world.
It became the color of choice for expansion teams. The Marlins in baseball, the Jaguars and Panthers in football, the Sharks in hockey, and the Hornets in the NBA. The color signified excitement and daring. Come see the new team with wild colors! Those stodgy, old teams would never wear teal. Squares.
People started displaying teal caps everywhere. Even I owned -- and wore -- a teal Marlins cap for a period (it was not pretty).
The teal fad has pretty much faded away. Oh, there are teams that still feature the color. The Sharks and Jaguars still consider teal as one of their team colors. The Marlins prefer to call it "Marlin blue" now, whatever that is. The Panthers call their color "Panther blue." I've never seen a blue panther.
But for my purposes here, I'm calling the color used with the Marlins on Topps cards as "teal." No "Marlin blue," no "turquoise." Teal.
I have to say that Topps was on the ball when the Marlins arrived. It mixed the right colors and was ready to slap them on the Marlins cards when the time came.
Here are the colors that Topps used with the Marlins cards during years when the colors were determined by what team was featured:
1993: teal, orange and gray
1994: gray and teal
1998: teal
2000: teal
2002: teal and gray
2003: teal and orange
2004: teal and gray
2005: teal and gray
2006: teal and orange
2007: teal and gray
2008: teal and gray
2009: teal
2010: teal
Marlins' team colors: Marlin blue, silver, black and white
What Topps says are the Marlins' team colors: TEAL!!!!
When I started this post, Josh Johnson had a no-hitter through six innings against the Mets. It's now 5-2 Marlins. The blog jinx lives on.
(The tally: Teal-13, Gray-7, Orange-3)
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