About seven or eight years ago, the Blue Jays made one of my least favorite uniform changes of all-time.
For a reason that may be only known at team headquarters or maybe Toronto proper, the Blue Jays -- let me stress, the BLUE Jays -- decided that their primary colors would be black and gray. I know their official team colors as of 2004 still list blue, along with black, white and "silver," but tell me where is the blue in the uniform that Brandon Morrow is wearing?
Mostly what I see is black and gray, with a touch of red, which may or may not be on one of those patriotic caps that teams wear on Memorial Day and Independence Day.
This is probably a better example. This is pretty much how it's been for the last eight years. Black helmet, black jersey, gray pants, and tiny touch of blue that makes it seem as if the BLUE Jays are embarrassed about the color.
It is a depressing look. And as far as I was concerned, the team lost their identity when they made that decision.
I once brought it up with a Blue Jays fan, who said -- and picture his response in your whiniest, most defensive voice -- "there's BLUE, around the letters and the logo."
Oh, sorry. I forgot my microscope.
For the last few years, the Blue Jays have trotted out the old-school powder blue uniforms from their early days and everyone got nostalgic all over themselves. I like the powder blues, too, but it's not something you can wear everyday and have people take you seriously. It looked like the team was clowning.
What I wanted was real blue, serious blue, like they once had.
Fortunately, in a breakthrough that's almost a decade overdue, the Blue Jays announced in the offseason that they would return to blue uniforms and blue caps. And baseball in Canada made sense again.
Through it all, Topps continued to issue cards that featured blue in the design whenever it got to a Blue Jay. The team may have acted ashamed of the adjective in its nickname, but Topps knew that one of the key identifying characteristics of the Blue Jays is and always will be BLUE.
So here are the colors that Topps used for the years when the colors were determined by which team was featured:
1977: blue, green and pick
1978: orange and brown
1979: yellow, green and blue
1980: green, blue and yellow
1981: green, blue and yellow
1982: blue and purple
1983: blue and purple
1984: blue and yellow
1985: blue and purple
1986: blue
1987: blue
1988: blue, yellow and red
1989: blue, light blue and red
1991: blue and light blue
1992: blue, light blue and red
1993: blue and purple
1994: blue and purple
1998: blue
2000: light blue
2002: red and blue
2003: light blue
2004: blue and red
2005: blue and gray
2006: blue and red
2007: blue and gray
2008: blue and gray
2009: blue
2010: blue
2011: blue and light blue
2012: blue
Blue Jays team colors (as of 2012): Blue (and red and white)
What Topps thinks are the Blue Jays' team colors: BLUE
Wave your freak flag high, Blue Jays.
Just remember that the flag is blue.
(The tally: Blue-27, Light Blue-6, Red-6, Yellow-5, Purple-5, Green-4, Gray-3, Pink-1, Orange-1, Brown-1)
Comments