Luv ya blue

Nostalgia is a funny thing. What was once mediocre, or even disliked, becomes a sentimental landmark of a certain time and place.

I'm one of the few baseball fans who doesn't care much about retro uniforms, but I do sit up and take notice when the uniforms of the '70s and '80s are worn by current players. These are the uniforms that I knew as "the way uniforms are supposed to be" as I was growing up, even though there is no clothing designer in the country today who would consider the Astros' tequila sunrise unis as the template for baseball wear.

Baseball teams broke out their clothing freak flags in the 1970s and even those teams who weren't willing to go as far as the Astros, Padres, Pirates and Oakland A's, ventured into converting their traditional gray uniforms into -- *gasp* -- powder blue.

The powder blue uniforms became so pervasive during the '70s and '80s that uniform traditionalists like the Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox stood out as stodgy. Half of each league appeared to be wearing powder blue uniforms during this period.

The phenomenon began with two teams in the 1960s.

The Montreal Expos started out of the box with powder blue uniforms. Those were the road unis of choice from the very first season. The White Sox, meanwhile, started wearing bluish road uniforms as early as 1964 (still not the first though as those who know Brooklyn Dodgers history are aware). Chicago abandoned those blue-tinged unis in the late 1960s before returning to them again in the 1970s, and then abandoning them again.

The Seattle Pilots also wore baby blues in 1969 before handing the color off to the Milwaukee Brewers.

But the golden age -- or shall we say the "true blue age" -- of powder blue uniforms was the mid-to-late 1970s into the mid-to-late '80s. When I think back on those baby blues, which I didn't really care for and was glad the Dodgers didn't wear, I tend to think of the late '70s and early '80s. But I wanted the cards to confirm it.

How many cards are showing players in powder blue uniforms in Topps sets from 1974-91 (when powder blues were at their peak in popularity)?

I started a-counting.

1974: 131
1975: 95
1976: 99
1977: 108
1978: 152
1979: 118
1980: 146
1981: 189
1982: 164
1983: 204
1984: 192
1985: 150
1986: 101
1987: 69
1988: 52
1989: 39
1990: 29
1991: 25

Here it is on a line graph:

The powder blue uniforms peak in the 1983 and 1984 Topps sets, which were featuring the 1982 and 1983 baseball seasons, respectively. That makes sense to me. If I had to pick THE powder blue uniform year of all years, it would be 1982, and part of that is because the 1982 World Series was the second all-powder blue uniform series in three years (1980 being the first).

My counting is probably not super accurate just because the photo quality wasn't great in the mid-to-late '70s (there are some cards, such as the 1978 Dusty Baker, in which the player looks like he's wearing blue, but we all know the Dodgers did not do that then), so I had to rely on the Dressed to the Nines site for confirmation. I let that site be the determining factor for several cards, particularly the Brewers, who seemed to wear powder blue uniforms, according to the card images, long past when Dressed to the Nines said they quit (after the 1984 season).

I want to look at this year-by-year a little bit more just to get some other thoughts out of the way.


1974

The 1974 set reflects the addition of the first '70s teams to wear powder blue uniforms aside from the White Sox, Expos and Brewers.

Those teams were the Phillies, Royals and Twins. The Twins went with a pale blue that sometimes makes it difficult to determine on cards whether they are wearing powder blue or gray. But the Phillies and Royals dove in full force with bold baby blue. Those two teams, probably right along with the Blue Jays, are the ones I most associate with powder blue unis. They made up the first all-powder blue World Series in 1980 and the Royals were one of the last teams to stop wearing powder blues in 1991.

1975

Who are the powder-blue crusaders? The ones who appear consistently in powder blue? Whose card career is basically defined by their powder blue get-up?

George Brett has to be right at the top, wearing powder blue on his very first card and then still wearing it into the late 1980s. Others that I noticed over and over: Brett's teammates Frank White and Hal McRae and catchers Bo Diaz and Alan Ashby.

1976

The powder blue uniform became such a way of life by the mid-1970s that Topps even color-coded its design around the powder blue for certain teams in the '76 set. The Royals feature that beautiful Houston Oiler Luv Ya Blue color on their cards -- see how well it goes with Vada Pinson's card. And the Expos feature a lighter shade of blue for the name bar.


1977

The number of teams wearing powder blue road uniforms expanded greatly in 1976. In the American League, the Rangers joined the crowd. In the National League, the Cubs and Cardinals added the color as well. Their uniform updates are all featured in '77 Topps.

The 1977 Topps set also marks the first time that a player was airbrushed from head-to-toe into a powder blue uniform as Topps took a photo of Doyle Alexander wearing Yankee pinstripes in Yankee Stadium and added blue whitewash to make him look like a Texas Ranger.

1981

By the 1980 season (shown in 1981 Topps), the teams wearing powder blue included the Expos, Phillies, Royals, Twins, Brewers, Cubs, Cardinals, Rangers, Mariners, Blue Jays and Braves. Atlanta joined the group in 1980. This was the high point for the number of teams wearing powder blue. That probably explains why two powder-blue teams reached the Series that year, and it probably explains this:

I didn't think I could find a shot of an entire team in powder blues. The powder blues were used as road uniforms and who poses for their team picture in road uniforms?

Well, the Cardinals do. Because it's the Powder Blue Era. Look how proud they are. And look how sad Whitey Herzog is because he's wearing white.

1983

The 1983 set marks the dawning of a new kind of wear: softball-top jerseys.

Best as I can determine, these debuted in MLB in 1982 as they are all over the 1983 Topps set. (Here, Mickey Hatcher wears his top untucked while taking batting practice -- don't let Joe Simpson see this).

The softball tops would eventually overtake wearing powder blue uniforms. But for one glorious period in the mid-1980s, teams mixed-and-matched their softball tops with powder blue bottoms.


1984

The 1983 and 1984 sets show the most powder blue and the '84 set gives you a taste of what's coming with the very first cards in the set. Cards #1 through #6 are season highlight cards and there is someone wearing powder blue on all but one card. Rickey Henderson, because he's Rickey, is the outlier.


1985

The '85 set marks the end of the powder blue era for several teams. According to Dressed to the Nines, the 1984 season is the final year for Milwaukee, St. Louis and Seattle wearing powder blue (the Cubs stopped after 1981).

It gets tricky after that for some of those teams, though.

Dressed to the Nines will tell you this is not powder blue. Must be an optical illusion.


1986

Fat tub of goo in powder blue.


1988

Possibly the greatest powder blue card of all-time appeared in the 1988 Topps set. There were just 52 powder blue cards in this set, but that's probably because everyone was scared to wear it after seeing Bo and this card.


1991

By the 1991 season, only the Expos and the Royals were wearing powder blue uniforms and then they quit doing it after that season. I didn't bother going through the 1992 set, partly because it's not complete and I don't have time to look at all those cards online.


Today, you only see powder blue uniforms on some sort of retro night. Honestly, I don't really miss them, even though I grew up with them. And the modern ball players somehow just don't look right wearing that uniform style that is now 30-to-40 years old.

I probably should like those uniforms more considering how much I liked the Houston Oilers because they wore that color in the late 1970s. But then Earl Campbell wasn't draped head-to-toe in it.