MLB Uniforms

When I first started visiting the Around The Horn sites I was told that I could find or get to information on just about anything baseball related from right here on the Around The Horn. That was not an exaggeration.

As I was going through the beat writer coverage I came across a Minnesota reporter that wrote an article on who gets to pick the Twins uniform for the day. That's something different. Not an injury report, not a steroid scandal, not a controversial play review, just a simple interesting tidbit on who picks what MLB players where.

Anyone ever wonder who chooses the uniforms that MLB teams wear on game day? For the Yankees, Dodgers, Cardinals and Tigers (only ones I think?) they have just a 1 home and 1 away uniform, so the answer is no one. The ones you saw as kid or on highlights or pictures from before you were born are the same ones they are using now. They exhibits class and tradition.

At some point in the 80’s teams occasionally wore their batting practice jerseys as uniform tops (they used to wear one type of jersey in pre-game activities and another for the game). They still do that quite a bit in spring training games (it must be cooler).

Then we had expansion and the Arizona Diamondbacks with their endless combinations and permutations of uniform accessory changes, hats, socks, belts, undershirt (showing), long sleeve, short sleeve, pin-stripe, etc; and that started off a marketing frenzy among the majority of MLB teams. Look at the Mets 10 different combinations in the picture ……. After a while it gets silly.

Nowadays, most teams have a few different uniform versions when they take the field. It’s a marketing thing. Now even if you have your favorite player’s jersey, there are two or three other “authentic” ones that they can sell you as well.

So who chooses which one to wear on any given day? We’ll for the Minnesota Twins; apparently it’s the starting pitcher that day. As Michael Cuddyer put it, "The chances are that the starting pitcher is not going to play all nine innings, yet, he gets to pick what wear for all nine innings. It doesn't make sense to me."

I guess that’s a kind of corny tradition that the Twins have, but it’s cute and it’s their own. That said, I still like the traditional uniforms that exhibit class and tradition……….

Here’s the article I was referring to. “Fashion police: Who decides what Twins uniform to wear?”

The above article was submitted by Richard Swenson of Baltimore, MD.