Team colors: Padres

I admit I am quite enjoying the fact that the Padres are not in the playoffs. I knew they weren't good enough, and I didn't appreciate their fans laughing at my Dodgers.

Unfortunately, the Padres' demise benefited a team that I despise even more. I dislike the Giants so much that I am actually rooting for the Braves, an activity I can remember participating in maybe two other times in my life.

Ick.

But that's the way the postseason works sometimes. You root for some strange teams, and you hate yourself when it's over.

Recognizing that the Padres and my team, the Dodgers, are now both battling for tee times on Southern California golf courses, I've decided to dedicate my next "team colors" post to San Diego. What the hell. Let's let bygones be bygones. That is, if you can consider ripping a team's choice of colors as patching things up.

San Diego is one of those teams that did a complete team color overhaul in midstream. Normally, I do not like that. It's an instant sign that your team is maybe not on the varsity level. But with the Padres, I understand completely. They couldn't possibly stay with brown-and-gold forever. Eventually they would have been ask to leave the league just on their color scheme alone. I mean that stuff was acceptable in the '70s, but not now surfer dudes.

So, the Padres have had two basic colors schemes in 40-plus years: brown and gold, and their current scheme of dark blue and whatever other color that is. I'll call it beige.

Topps has done an excellent job representing the Padres' colors over the years. In fact, it must have had a surplus of brown ink back in the '70s because unlike other teams, Topps matched San Diego's colors almost year for year.

Here is the breakdown for each year that Topps determined its colors based on the team:

1969: brown and yellow
1971: light blue and orange
1972: light blue, gold and light green
1974: gold and black
1976: gold and brown
1977: brown, yellow and red
1978: brown and gold
1979: gold, light blue and black
1980: light green, yellow and light blue
1981: red, brown and yellow
1982: green and brown
1983: green, brown and yellow
1984: gold and red
1985: brown and yellow
1986: gold
1987: gold
1988: brown, blue and gold
1989: gold and brown
1991: brown, gold and black
1992: light blue and gold
1993: orange, blue and gold
1994: gold and blue
1998: blue
2000: blue
2002: dark blue, brown and orange
2003: orange
2004: dark blue and orange
2005: beige and dark blue
2006: brown and orange
2007: blue and beige
2008: blue and beige
2009: beige
2010: blue

OK, here's the thing: The Padres have worn so many color combinations and variations of individual colors that I separated the color categories into as specific of a color as I could. That's why I didn't lump all the blues under "blue" or lumped the golds and oranges under "yellow."

If I had lumped all the blues together, then "blue" would definitely be one of the top two colors. But that's not the way it's going to work around here.

So, without further malarkey:

Padres' team colors: Dark blue and beige (that's "beige" for those who can't read light colors).
What Topps thinks are the Padres' team colors: Gold and brown

Sorry, Padres. You can't erase the past.

(The tally: Gold-15, Brown-13, Blue-8, Yellow-6, Orange-6, Light Blue-5, Beige-4, Dark Blue-3, Black-3, Red-3, Light Green-2, Green-2)