Padres to wear retro uniforms

[grmuckrakers]

The team announces:

The Padres plan to break out their retro mustard-and-mud look for home Thursday afternoon games next season.

Team president Tom Garfinkel said a fan vote on padres.com will determine whether the players wear their 1978 whites, ?78 browns or ?84 whites during the six scheduled Thursday day games at Petco Park.

The ?78 whites have brown sleeves and yellow trim on white jerseys, with white pants. The ?78 browns have brown jerseys and white pants. The ?84 whites are similar to the ?78 whites but have a bit of orange and different lettering.

Garfinkel also said Thursday games will feature organ music.

[Sodboy13]

I'd be all for this, if:

1) The Padres didn't already have a "day of the week" alternate (Sunday camo);

2) Majestic displayed any sort of effort toward replicating the name and number fonts originally used by the Padres;

3) Majestic stopped making their pullover jerseys two sizes larger than the standard button-ups; and

4) New Era figured out how to properly replicate the front panel of the Padres' caps.

Given that these four conditions still likely exist, however, Thursdays at Petco are likely to be a whole heap of ugly.

[hormone]

I sort of wish the Padres would take the brown/yellow and make it their own again. It's unique. The other thing I don't understand is (other than making merch $) what is the point? Why is Thurs afternoon retro day? Does it mean something in their history? Are they celebrating a significant event?

[powersurge]

I sort of wish the Padres would take the brown/yellow and make it their own again. It's unique.

I agree.

The current colors just don't do it for me. I think they would see a tremendous increase in merchandise sales if they went back to those classic colors just because of the unique colors.

[epper]

(white or brown)

or

(white)

[BBTV]

Howabout sand and brown, instead of yellow and brown?

I agree that their current colors are uninspiring and unremarkable, but I don't think that the old colors look very professional. Maybe they could keep the sand that they've been using for their road uniform, and simply use brown instead of navy? I'm also not a fan of the home script (or the wave motif), but I don't advocate going backwards for a change. Maybe something brand new should be developed.

[Bouj]

I'd be all for this, if:

1) The Padres didn't already have a "day of the week" alternate (Sunday camo);

2) Majestic displayed any sort of effort toward replicating the name and number fonts originally used by the Padres;

3) Majestic stopped making their pullover jerseys two sizes larger than the standard button-ups; and

4) New Era figured out how to properly replicate the front panel of the Padres' caps.

Given that these four conditions still likely exist, however, Thursdays at Petco are likely to be a whole heap of ugly.

Thursdays at Petco will be a whole heap of ugly either way. The Padres uniforms and colors of that era were brutal. Doesn't matter if they authentically reproduce it or not.

[CZzyzx41]

I'm still a little shocked as to why they shun the great 1969 uniforms or the uniforms of my own youth (1985-1990) but SHRUG. The team will likely play more like their 1969 selves than 78 or 84 anyways so it really doesn't matter. Now they'll just have as many uniforms as the University of Oregon. Nice.

[TFoA]

I'd be all for this, if:

1) The Padres didn't already have a "day of the week" alternate (Sunday camo);

2) Majestic displayed any sort of effort toward replicating the name and number fonts originally used by the Padres;

3) Majestic stopped making their pullover jerseys two sizes larger than the standard button-ups; and

4) New Era figured out how to properly replicate the front panel of the Padres' caps.

#2 makes me mad, especially. I can understand them making baggy jerseys & uniforms for the uniforms that were pre-1950s because that's how they were worn then. But making a baggy pullover jersey makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. How many people wore their uniforms baggy back then? Hell, if anything, they need to make them 2 sizes smaller.

(white or brown)

or

(white)

They picked the wrong brown uniform.

[The_Admiral]

The first Padres jerseys are the only ones that made brown and yellow look good. Not seeing what you guys are seeing in the later stuff. They're dressed like '70s basements.

The current Padres stuff is pretty good.

[jimbojohnny56]

84 unis are their best by far

[The_Admiral]

That lowercase script would never fly today. They're not even on an arc or an arch. It looks terrible!

[ManCalledAmp]

84 unis are their best by far

Completely, but respectfully disagree. While the lack of wonky shoulder panels and addition of traditional striping cleans up the look, the color-on-color wordmark muddies the look, and I personally think the lack of front numbers makes the '84 look seem like it's missing something.

I'd rank the 3 prospects as:

'78 whites (home scheme, the letters/numbers pop with the brown (or black?) trim on a simple yellow print, and I can handle the crazy shoulders...adds more brown to the look)

'78 browns (unique look, and contrasts with most of the road unis in the league anyway. Good to get some color out there. The plain (or gold outlined) gold front numbers/letters are unmuddled, but not as clean as the whites' look. Still, solid #2.)

'84 whites (make the wordmark either like the 78's, or make it solid red-orange or yellow, lightly outlined in the other color or brown/black, and add front numbers and this may jump to the front of the list.)

I know the current look is uninspired...but it's very clean, and to me it's very professional, and screams baseball. I'm not a fan of a major return to these looks, or a major color shift...but I do love me some throwbacks.

[DJSpeedy]

They picked the wrong brown uniform.

They picked the wrong uniform, period.

And did they actually wear WHITE pants on the road?!?

[oldschoolvikings]

That lowercase script would never fly today. They're not even on an arc or an arch. It looks terrible!

Really? Folks lost the ability to read lower case letters? When was that, like 1998?

[oldschoolvikings]

They picked the wrong brown uniform.

They picked the wrong uniform, period.

And did they actually wear WHITE pants on the road?!?

Back in the 70's / early 80's lots of teams wore white pants on the road... Giants, Cubs, Astros... I'm sure I'm forgeting some. That's because, unlike now, almost no one wore a dark jersey at home. The dark jersey was pretty much understood as a sub for an all-gray road uni. In that way, at least, those were the good old days. Dark alts in MLB suck.

[Tygers09]

Why would they be ugly? Because they're not like every team in the MLB, using Black or Navy as their team colors??

[The_Admiral]

That lowercase script would never fly today. They're not even on an arc or an arch. It looks terrible!

Really? Folks lost the ability to read lower case letters? When was that, like 1998?

I didn't say they can't read all-lowercase. I said it looks crappy. (See also, the old and new "washington capilals" logo.) It looks really dated, and unconventional in a bad way. I'm more hung up on the lack of a path, though. Whereas vertical arches look very nice (Angels, Mariners) and radial arches look nice as well (Yankees road, countless others), the letters in "padres" look like they're just randomly stitched into place, or designed by someone who doesn't know who to put letters on a path and types them out by hitting "return" a lot,

____e t

___k__h

__i____i

l_______s.

[OnWis97]

I wish they'd go brown and orange, ala 1985 to early 1990s. I loved that scheme and thought it looked great on the gray roads.

But the retro winds definitely blow toward the yellow.

Either way, this is a franchise that needs to pick a color scheme and stick with it.

[Jungle Jim]

I'd be all for this, if:

4) New Era figured out how to properly replicate the front panel of the Padres' caps.

They're all very good points, but #4 may be the most unforgivable.

Does no one at Majestic have Internet access? Or how about a set of Topps baseball cards from that era? Because it would only take one simple Web search or browsing through some old baseball cards to realize that they're missing the mark altogether.