Astros Uniform History

[DarthBrett]

Wow! Awesome job you have done here. I love it! I have been wanting to do something like this for years now and just don't have the time to.

I have some comments/observations to make, two of which are in regards to the 1994-1999 Astros unis. First, I think the blue should be slightly darker as it was more of an Oxford blue (i.e. very dark. I use Photoshop when I do my uniform database and I used color #070a35 if that helps). Second, you have the ALT jersey from 1997 as a road uni, but they actually only wore their ALT at home in the Astrodome. Also, the font on this era of uniforms should be a bit bigger. The Star on the '97 road uni was huge and started from the top button all the way down to the third. (REF PICS)

('94-'96 PIC)

In regards to the 1980 and 1982 sets. The red you used has too much pink in it, it should be more of a true red, or at least have a little more orange and less pink in it. I also think they wore the orange hats in 1980 and 1981 with for practice.

About the 1971 uniform, the belt should definitely be orange not black.

The Astros uniforms also changed from the pull-over style to regular jersey tops with normal belts & pant bottoms from 1989 and on.

Also, I have found various pics of the earlier unis and still can't tell for sure if they wore dark blue belts and cleats or black. Do you have conclusive pics that definitely show which was used? I have a lot of color pics from that era and most look like the cleats were definitely black, but I still can't tell for sure if the belts were or not.

Keep up the good work! The world of baseball uniforms is a fascinating one. I find more and more uniform combos every time I start digging. Most of my research on uniforms only dates back to the mid-90's. Very much looking forward to seeing more!

One final constructive comment, maybe you should consider re-positioning the bodies so they are not head-on. Little details such as the late 70's Astros pant leg stripes can not be fully seen. The head-on position only makes it look like they only had one red stripe, when in fact there was an orange and yellow behind it.

Again, I love what you have done. But being a stickler for 100% accuracy myself, I figured I'd point out some details that might need to be changed.

[DarthBrett]

2. The Mets-tweaking-little-things-every-season-for-a-decade will be running a close 2nd.

Add the 1998-2006 Arizona Diamondbacks and 2000-2008 Colorado Rockies and probably the 1970's-1980's Oakland Athletics. Between the 3 teams mentioned they probably had at least one uniform change in each and every season, no matter how minor or major they may have been.

I think the Colorado Rockies actually had a whopping 12 uniforms in 2005, which I think might be a record! It went down to 11 for '06 & '07 and thankfully since '08 it's now down to "only" a mere 8 uniforms! Rockies had 9 & 8 in 2003 and 2004 respectively. The '98 Mets had 9 total uniforms. I think the '98 D-Backs had 8 as well.

[JayJaxon]

Great observations. I knew it was a good idea to post this up. I knew about the orange belt but just overlooked it for some reason.

[rbripley]

Easily, my favorite look for the Astros:

Agreed. Clean, unique, interesting and classy.

[IceCap]

The best Astros uniform set, by far.

[The_Admiral]

The backs were hideous. No Astros uniform is very good. Nice renderings, though!

[machpost]

They should replace their primary home and away with these:

And use these as alts:

[oldschoolvikings]

They should replace their primary home and away with these:

And use these as alts:

Not bad. But I'd go with your alt home as the primary. Mmmmm, tasty orange goodness.

[JY5000]

I like your stuff you should redo the dressed to the nines

[JY5000]

What if the Astros used this for their away jerseys

[Jungle Jim]

VERY impressive effort, and I look forward to seeing how this evolves. That being said, I have to say that the disproportionately large calves and feet are very distracting, and detract from an otherwise outstanding job. This has the potential to be THE definitive baseball uniform database, and I can't imagine investing hundreds of hours perfecting a project while ignoring a detail like that.

[TruColor]

I'm putting together all of the official Astros colors for Jay...it should clear up any questions about what colors were used when.

(Check your email later tonight Jay!)

[udubs03]

This is a cool idea, but if you're showcasing uniform design, I might consider using a template in 3/4 profile. This way you can show off all aspects of the uniform that might otherwise get lost in a head-on template, most notably pant striping. I know you're pretty far along, but I feel like that could make a big difference.

Best of luck on this project!

[JayJaxon]

I'm putting together all of the official Astros colors for Jay...it should clear up any questions about what colors were used when.

(Check your email later tonight Jay!)

Thanks for the help with the colors.

I know the template has a few issues and you guys are right about most of them. Having a 3/4 profile would help to show off the pants piping. But I would have to sacrifice whatever is on the right sleeve (like Dresses to the Nines does) I had to pick which part I was willing to leave out and in the end it was pants piping. One reason is because I didn't want those patches to get ignored any longer. The second reason is because I can incorporate pants design later in the process without using the actual template. The same will be the case when I start posting hats with side panels and patches on the sides. I have been advised that I needed to include as much information in as little space as possible. It's one reason I haven't included a back of the template and why I don't use the batter as an alternate template.

Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century was a little less than 300 pages. I could make that just by doing uniforms of the last 30 years. I'm going 50 years back so I have a lot of ground to cover.

Jungle Jim, I totally get what you are saying and it has been brought up before. I have set this up where I can transfer the work I have done so far to a different template and it would save me some time. I did the initial drawing. Another artist digitally converted it for me then I refined it once before giving it back to him for finalization. That process alone took nearly two weeks. Throw another two weeks in to create every possible uniform scenario and the finished product is what you see here. Because of the complexity of it all, this is actually broken up into about 4 different templates. It's not that I won't go back and fix the visual issues that you guys have pointed out with the actual template. It's just that I don't have that kind of time to go through the process again. I will be meeting with a publisher in a few weeks and I need to have something to pitch.

I just don't want you guys to think that I am ignoring your critiques because I'm not. It's just that until I have the time to commit to building another template, this is what I have to work with. For all of the flaws this thing has, it's not half bad in my humble opinion. I know the the crown jewel of my work should shine a little brighter. But believe me I am making a note of all the problems and they will be corrected at some point.

As far and the Astros uniform issues that have been spotted, I am working to correct them and I want to thank everyone that has commented and looked so far. It's great that you guys care as much about getting it right as I do. I also want to thank you for understanding that this is not an easy thing to do and although I have made some errors, nobody has branded me an idiot for missing something obvious yet. Thanks and I will keep everyone updated on this.

[DarthBrett]

The pants 3/4 view isn't a huge deal really, but I just wanted to make the observation. I think your template is pretty much perfect the way it is now. The lack of eyes do not bother me in the slightest since it just looks like mannequins in a department store anyways. The calves aren't as big and out of proportion as some are making them out to be, either.

I forgot to make one more comment before and that is in regards to batting helmets. It would be cool to have pics of a batter wearing the batting helmet. Although I do realize that this would be slightly redundant and end up taking up even more space. Perhaps a window in the corner showcasing just the batting helmets? Most teams only have 1 or 2 being used in 1 season at the most anyways.

[TruColor]

I just posted an Astros team colors retrospective on my blog:

http://colorwerx.blogspot.com/2010/11/houston-astros-mlbnl-team-colors.html

Hopefully, that will clear up any questions on the exact colors used.

[Jungle Jim]

I just posted an Astros team colors retrospective on my blog:

http://colorwerx.blo...eam-colors.html

Hopefully, that will clear up any questions on the exact colors used.

Thanks for doing that. Not sure if this has been brought up or not, but why do the photos of the 1971-74 uniforms make the orange look more like red? Just about any Topps baseball card from this era looks that way, but when the switch was made to the rainbow jersey, the orange looked obviously lighter. Was this just a result of poor photography and/or printing technology?

To take this a step further, I could swear that I read online that the color was actually red from 1971 to 1974, and I think I even saw a red astros cap for sale online, but the colors posted above dispute that. Can anyone shed some light? Has the shade of orange always been identical?

[JayJaxon]

All of the old caps from before the 70's are in fact orange. Some of the photos do look more reddish than others. But when in doubt, trust ColorWerx ;-)

[JayJaxon]

The one on the left is the first 1997 road uniform I posted. The one on the right is a revision of that same uniform. Is that one more in touch with what the actual uniform looked like?

[DarthBrett]

Size looks perfect, but I think it might be a smudge too high still.

Looking at this pic, it looks like the top of the star started at the first button and the very bottom extended just past the third button.