Another obscure baseball color question

[oldschoolvikings]

Back in the late 80's, when the Padres had the brown pinstripe uniforms, what was that color on their road duds? I always thought it was a beige/tan color, but I have a friend who insists it was just regular gray, and only looked beigey because of the brown pinstripes.

Along those lines, since they're now wearing that strange putty color on the road, here's a trivia question:

Discounting the 70s/80s sky blue craze, and the current ugly inclination to wear a dark top, how often has an MLB team regularly substituted another color (both pants and jersey) for gray on their road unis? I can think of a few off the top of my head, but I'll bet there's a lot.

[TBGKon]

the current ugly inclination to wear a dark top,

alternates are definitely not ugly, I believe it adds a different spice to a black-and-white (or should I say gray-and-white) uniform.

[TruColor]

Back in the late 80's, when the Padres had the brown pinstripe uniforms, what was that color on their road duds?  I always thought it was a beige/tan color, but I have a friend who insists it was just regular gray, and only looked beigey because of the brown pinstripes.

It WAS slightly "beigey"...it was a light Warm Gray. Here's a sample:

This IS a confirmed Pantone as well. Officially, this is what it was.

[TruColor]

Oh, and I've been in the process of getting all of these .JPEGs generated for my MLB section of the Team Colors on the SSUR...hopefully, I'll have them all up soon...

MLB Team Colors

[ZBoyer]

Oh, and I've been in the process of getting all of these .JPEGs generated for my MLB section of the Team Colors on the SSUR...hopefully, I'll have them all up soon...

MLB Team Colors

Awesome work again, buddy. I love it. Good job!

[CubsFanBudMan]

I know the Marlins road uniforms before 2003 had a slight green tint to the gray. I don't think that carried over to the new look.

[ltravisjr]

Oh, if you go back a bit there's plenty. The Pirates all yellow, all black, yellow/black, black/yellow. The Indians had their all maroon set. When the White Sox first had their pajama uniforms, the roads were all navy. Oakland had an all yellow and a green/yellow set as well I think. That can't be all.

LT

[oldschoolvikings]

Oh, if you go back a bit there's plenty. The Pirates all yellow, all black, yellow/black, black/yellow. The Indians had their all maroon set. When the White Sox first had their pajama uniforms, the roads were all navy. Oakland had an all yellow and a green/yellow set as well I think. That can't be all.

LT

yeah, I know all those... I guess I mean when a gray-like color is substituted (beige, tan... I guess the all yellows (Pirates, A's) and all oranges (Oreoles) would count). If the Marlins really did wear a green-tinged gray (Pantone????) I'd like to see a Pic.

[leopard88]

Oh, if you go back a bit there's plenty. The Pirates all yellow, all black, yellow/black, black/yellow. The Indians had their all maroon set. When the White Sox first had their pajama uniforms, the roads were all navy. Oakland had an all yellow and a green/yellow set as well I think. That can't be all.

LT

yeah, I know all those... I guess I mean when a gray-like color is substituted (beige, tan... I guess the all yellows (Pirates, A's) and all oranges (Oreoles) would count). If the Marlins really did wear a green-tinged gray (Pantone????) I'd like to see a Pic.

To be picky, the original question was about road uniforms. The Orioles' all-orange set only saw the light of day at home.

[whitedawg22]

A bunch of teams, including the Royals, wore sky blue instead of gray in the late 70s-early 80s... here's a picture of the George Brett "pine tar" game in 1983 at Yankee Stadium.

[CC97]

A bunch of teams, including the Royals, wore sky blue instead of gray in the late 70s-early 80s...

What's this about the Superbas becoming the Robins?

[leopard88]

A bunch of teams, including the Royals, wore sky blue instead of gray in the late 70s-early 80s...

What's this about the Superbas becoming the Robins?

Superbas? Don't you mean the Bridegrooms?

[TruColor]

Side note: I uploaded what I've done so far with the MLB:

MLB Team Colors

I've stopped (for now) on the Philadelphia Athletics, but will pick it back up later on.

You'll notice that all of the All-Star Game colors are up...each and every one is a confirmed Pantone color. I've got all of the World Series color sets too...they'll be up shortly as well.

As far as the Marlins' road jerseys go: the only color I have (going back to 1999) is a standard Gray (429 C). A little bit of Blue in there, but not Green. I'll keep looking around though...I'm not saying you're wrong...

[CubsFanBudMan]

As far as the Marlins' road jerseys go: the only color I have (going back to 1999) is a standard Gray (429 C).  A little bit of Blue in there, but not Green.  I'll keep looking around though...I'm not saying you're wrong...

PANTONE, I'd be happy to send you a jersey I bought on sale before the Marlins switched if you want to examine it up close... don't think a picture would do it justice. It is definitely different than my Cubs road jerseys and -- shudder -- a White Sox road I bought during my "I want a cap and jersey of every MLB team" phase. (came close on the caps -- jerseys? not so much)

The Marlins jersey I have is a Russell Athletic "Diamond collection authentic." Not sure what year it's from, but it's got the MLB logo on the back of the jersey. I figured that and the brand name would help. Maybe it's before 1999? I never noticed the difference until I moved to Florida and saw them in person. It's subtle, but it definitely seems to have a green tint to the gray.

EDIT: This shows the difference I'm seeing when I look at two together:

I found other photos online that had the same jersey looking gray, but this is the difference I'm seeing as I hold them in front of my face.

[mkwing]

PANTONE, I looked up your Oakland A's colors, and I'm not sure about the early ones. I distinctly remember their sleeveless "gray" vests actually being a grayish-GREEN -- kind of a mint thing. I don't know if they were that way in 1968, but I'm pretty sure they were in '69-'71.

[TruColor]

PANTONE, I looked up your Oakland A's colors, and I'm not sure about the early ones. I distinctly remember their sleeveless "gray" vests actually being a grayish-GREEN -- kind of a mint thing. I don't know if they were that way in 1968, but I'm pretty sure they were in '69-'71.

I'll look into it.

The MLB isn't very thorough when it comes to documenting road uniform colors. In fact, they don't even list them as official colors. The only way I can truely figure out the colors is if I get ahold of the official vector artwork see what Pantone swatches were applied. The road uniform colors aren't listed along with the other official colors. And, I only have official artwork back to 1999. I have other resources that can help me with the older sets, but road uniform colors are a guessing game.

[CubsFanBudMan]

Not sure this adds anything to the conversation, but I remember that when I was having "Big League" All-Star jerseys designed in 1991 in the mold of the new (and current) White Sox jerseys, the athletic supplier I visited gave me the choice of gray (like the Cubs) or "Baseball Gray," which was gray with just the really slight hint of blue (?), like the White Sox. Since then I've always thought of the color as "Baseball Gray," but I'm guessing you have a better term for it, PANTONE.

As I realize now how much of a teen I was at the time, I went the full Sox route. The unis did turn out sharp, though. But I believe our team got trounced.

At any rate, it's interesting that there's at least three shades of road gray out there... or at least there was.

[Gothamite]

Just to add to this, when the Brewers added green to their scheme in 1994, the road uniform was a greenish-gray.

They went back to a standard gray in 1996.

[zig]

Back in the late 80's, when the Padres had the brown pinstripe uniforms, what was that color on their road duds?  I always thought it was a beige/tan color, but I have a friend who insists it was just regular gray, and only looked beigey because of the brown pinstripes.

It WAS slightly "beigey"...it was a light Warm Gray. Here's a sample:

This IS a confirmed Pantone as well. Officially, this is what it was.

where do you guys get those color charts? Is there a website that has them all or something like that? It would be a great help if you could tell me

[speedo]

Sometimes the differences in grey can be a bit surprising when the visitors line up before an all-star game...