Houston Astros "Flashback Fridays" Throwback Lineup

So what's going on in Texas?

As has been announced, the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros are doing some extreme throwbacks for the 2012 season in celebration of their 40th and 50th birthdays respectively. Although the Texas Rangers have yet to really reveal their full uniforms, caps are excluded in pictures, the Houston Astros are definitely ready to roll with the throwbacks and are prepared to celebrate 50 years with style.

For the Houston Astros, we have been given almost no secrets in regards to the caps, which we are going to assume are New Era, but even if not they will still be reported on. The Houston Astros are picking 6 new throwbacks, one for each of the five decades of the Houston Astros and one representing the original team which were named the Colts.

The jerseys and caps seen above are in a nice time line, Colts are on the left and the decades increase as the jerseys move to the left.

About the moment that the Flashback Fridays were announced there immediately became concerns with the Houston Colt .45's and the pistol which would be represented on the jersey. When this was reported, MLB originally announced that the Houston Astros would not be permitted to wear the jerseys if the pistol was present, but ultimately left the decision up to the team which allowed sanity to dominate over political correctness, leaving the pistol on the jersey.

Regardless of the jersey tops, the 1962-1964 Colt .45s New Era cap appears to be a base blue with what would most likely be raised embroidery on the front panels of the cap reading ".45s" in orange, adorned with an orange button on the top of the crown.

Moving on just 3 years after their formation, the team became the Houston Astros which caused their uniforms to move to the "Shooting Star" which brought about new caps. These new caps for the brand new Astros are a simple navy blue cap much like the .45s, but the cap will be assumed to feature flat embroidery for the orange star that rests in the middle, and a raised "H" in white stitching for the script covering it, and much like the .45s cap the button on top will be orange.

Come the 1971 season, uniforms changed again to the infamous rainbow effect as seen above, but the caps are pretty much unchanged except for the colour inversion. This cap here features the base orange cap which would make this the only other full orange cap On-Field other than the Miami Marlins' home alternate. The logo features the regular star, but stitched in the dark blue and is also covered by the white raised embroidered "H".

Come 1980 the team moved its rainbow scheme from a horizontal stripe along the abdomen to going horizontal down the shoulders, this cap moves back a bit in years to the first Astros incarnation, but the only difference we will see in this New Era cap is the button on top, which is the same base navy blue rather than orange as seen in prior years.

By 1994 the team changed uniform schemes again, the new ones are a pure white with a new stylized and sci-fi like script on the front with a new shooting star logo in gold. The caps are once again a base navy blue and will feature a raised embroidered shooting star in gold on the front panels, but we do not get to see the gold brimmed caps that were also present in this era.

2012 Baltimore Orioles Road

The 2012 Baltimore Orioles will have a brand new pair of caps to wear On-Field and they will be worn home and away respectively, these new caps will take a look back into the Orioles' history in which the team experienced its richest history which included six World Series appearances and three victories. The Baltimore Orioles recently have not been a very fortunate team as of late which began after the 1998 season where they failed to reach the post-season after two consecutive ALCS berths.

The Baltimore Orioles new New Era cap focuses mainly on the bird, this animated bird takes a blend of the caps worn by the team between the 1966 and 1988 seasons, and this 22 year run was a rich one for the city and team of Baltimore. The cap is a base black with a mandarin orange brim and button on top, being that this is the Away cap the crown is a solid black and does not include the two front white panels as the Home cap has. The bird on the front of this cap originated in the 1966 season which proved to be the Orioles' first World Series berth since moving to Baltimore and the first Championship in franchise history. The bird was highly animated in a cartoonish style which featured the bird wearing a ball cap and smirking back at the viewer, this cap replaced the original pictorial image of a crudely drawn bird worn on base black caps.

The logo on the front of this cap attempts to take the original style from as early as 1966 and blend it with styles of cap logos that the Orioles wore through the 1988 season. This logo seems to borrow more elements from the original 1966 logo being that it is wider and more round, but the beak and cap elements are substituted in from the 1975 logo. The only apparent new part of the cap is the brim and the logo on the front of it, the cap's brim is much more round and doens't curve upwards in an awkward way that the original caps did, and the logo utilizes the current Alternate logo.

The embroidery on the front seems extremely clean especially for such a complicated cap, the reason I call this complicated and clean is because the quality of embroidery has taken a huge step back recently and correct stitching and raising is something I have been learning to appreciate recently. This cap includes the simple cartoon bird but there are some differences that it has with the original logos, most notably the cap. The cap on this bird is curiously the Orioles' current Alternate cap with the “O's” logo scripted on the front, the embroidery once again did a fantastic job in revealing the details in such a relatively small portion of the cap. The embroidery overall is very well done and I suspect that this is because a majority of the logo is flat embroidery, the only raised portion is the beak and its slight outline which is very short; not much room for disaster here. The thick orange outline also differs from its predecessors being that it is nearly twice as thick as them, the reason it is stitched this way is because it helps to make the bird's logo beam off of the front two panels.

The rear batterman logo of this cap is extremely predictable, but what else could one expect with the Baltimore Orioles? Teams like this only have two predominant colours, and much like the San Francisco Giants there is little they can do with the colour selection for the accents of the batterman. The black accented with the orange could possibly be switched in order to put more of an emphasis on the more tropical colour to help it stand out more, but that may or may not be necessary since the purpose of the batterman is to be subtle in its own respect. I am not satisfied with the raised embroidery on the rear batterman however, but I can say this about 90% of the raised batterman logos I see on the Polyester caps, quality has gone down extremely and the fact that so much of the raised foam material sticks out from between threads lays testament to the fact that the rear batterman should go back to being flat embroidery.

Being that the biggest thing the Orioles are known for currently is their fantastic part of Camden Yards, ownership most likely wanted to help spark interest in the team again through the process of changing caps to those worn by the teams that took the city of Baltimore to the Championship Series and beyond. The cap seen here might very well be an attempt to help remind the fans and the ownership that the uniforms worn on the field can help put more of a sense of tradition into the club and its fans, but although the encyclopedia diagram style bird is retired (for now), don't rule out seeing it return as an alternate in the near future.

2004-2005 Toronto Blue Jays Home Cap

The Toronto Blue Jays have been a team with an identity crisis ever since the infamous 1994 Players Strike which effectively canceled the remainder of the season. The two-time defending World Champion Blue Jays had lost a lot of community support much as the rest of the teams in the sport had seen, and the team went in a drastic direction and decided to mix up their uniform and logo scheme in order to attempt to bring interest back into the team and the game as a whole. Their identity crisis was evidently capped by four main uniform and logo reformations before finally settling on their 2012 designs, but the uniforms that made the most drastic change began in 2004 with the “J-Bird” logo.

The J-Bird logo was introduced in the 2004 season and two new caps were introduced, shown here is the Home Cap which was worn from 2004-2005, this cap is only available in the 100% Wool style and utilizes a graphite base for both the crown and the brim of the cap. This cap was quickly retired however and replaced with the black version of the cap which was previously worn as the Away Cap. The bright logo on the front of the cap beams out quite well and doesn't clash that much with the base colour of the cap, something that can't be said about the former Away now Home Cap.

This new Toronto Blue Jays “J-Bird” logo is seemingly one of the more popular caps in regards to cap sales or style, regardless of the team's actual fanbase or following. This logo includes a stylized slanted “J” which is of flat embroidery and is stitched in a manner to attempt to give it depth without raising by using white accented with silver stitching. The script on the logo is shelled with a black outline which allows the the blue jay's “action post” beak and head beaming out of it the curve of the slanted script. The bird's embroidery is rather unimpressive due to its lack of real depth through the motion of stitching, it only takes advantage of better stitching when looking at the top of the bird's head in order to create different levels of feathers through angling the stitching one way and then conflicting it in another. The entire pictorial and script logo is surrounded with a thick blue outline which is seemingly the same colour choice as the bird itself and this outline is itself surrounded by a thin white outline of its own.

The use of the multiple outlines upon outlines is an interesting design choice, but the colour choices are extremely unimpressive since their colour palette appeared to be extremely limited. The Toronto Blue Jays made a bold move by removing the “Blue” from Blue Jays, but attempting to slide it in anywhere they can really doesn't justify the fact that they dismantled 27 years of team history which involved around the Blue Jay and the Canadian Maple Leaf.

The rear batterman logo on the cap implores the use silver stitching accompanied by the blue stitching, the colour choices work seemingly well for the cap due to the base colour now being grey it reflects the silver stitching quite nicely. The accented blue stitching is an unfortunate last-ditch effort to attempt to keep the colour blue into the Blue Jays logo and colour scheme which can be said for the entire tenure of the 2004-2011 Blue Jays uniforms as a whole.

I purchased this cap in Toronto while visiting in 2005 so I was really excited to pick up this cap since this was my first time out of the United States and I thought that this cap would be a great souvenir to take back to the United States with me. This cap was really fresh when it came out but it didn't exactly age too well when true Blue Jays fans were put into the equation, but the real eye opener to the organization was when the throwbacks were worn and the reception they received because of it, and it was then these caps were thought of as having a limited lifetime. The fact that this grey cap has been retired since 2005 will make it difficult to find for anyone, especially since it was such a popular cap with the popular culture, but reproductions are not that hard to find especially when companies like HatClub and MyFitteds strive to supply accurate reproductions. Any fans of the Black version of this cap may have a little luck finding it currently due to its recent retirement, but if you want these caps you better get them before they're gone.

2012 Toronto Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays have been one of my favourite teams in baseball and I've been following them fairly closely since the late 90's, but unfortunately for the team that's when things started to get weird. Although people are familiar with the team's most recent uniforms, most people just can't help but think of their original logos and uniforms when they look at the team, and this is how people assume they should be and fulfills the comfort level for the fanbase. Much like the San Diego Padres, the fanbase in Toronto would in a majority wear the old logos, jerseys, and caps over the current uniforms, so by the 2012 season the team gave the fans what they have been asking for.

The Toronto Blue Jays have had a rich history in Toronto and after going back-to-back in World Championships in 1992 and 1993 the team was hurt fairly badly due to the 1994 MLBPA strike that struck the sport causing the last 6 weeks of the season and the cancellation of the World Series. The Toronto Blue Jays are one of the more well known and more successful expansion teams that have come about in Baseball, and they continue to fall into the shadows of the American League East.

Following the strike attendance was down and the team felt that they needed to change the uniforms slightly to get more people interested in the team and a few slight changes were made to over emphasize the Canadian Maple Leaf, but unfortunately the uniform changes weren't enough to take the bad taste of baseball greed out of their mouths and the team continued to stumble. The team was more than less thought of as a failure which didn't allow them to finish anywhere better than 3rd place in the American League Eastern Division, and much like the previous late decade there was little interest in the team.

Following the 2003 season, the uniforms were such a failure that they were changed immediately, the fanbase felt disconnected and the ownership wasn't doing much to keep them interested in the team. Following roaring Steroid Era in baseball it seemed like the Toronto Blue Jays needed to change their image to a juicing bird holding a bat with the Canadian Maple Leaf tattooed on his arm; by the way, since when did birds have arms? The general consensus in Toronto and it's fanbase hated the uniforms but they looked at them with a blind eye because they just felt that the uniforms weren't that far off, but weren't so drastic to get truly upset about them although the uniforms were not what they were used to or what they wanted. With a new year in place the team attempted to change the uniforms once again, but this was a complete uniform reconstruction that removed all history of the original uniforms and created a more stylish and modern look. The fans were no longer interested, the team had a difficult time getting people into the stadium and the Blue Jays were hurting more than a large majority of the MLB teams.

For the first time the Blue Jays walked onto the field without the Canadian Maple Leaf on their uniform at all on Opening Day for the 2004 season, this was extremely disturbing to the Toronto Fan Base, especially since the Expos left the nation two years later; by 2009 the team began wearing a Maple Leaf patch on their jersey shoulder. These new uniform logos consisted of a sharp Blue Jay's bird head coming out of the stylized “J” which led many of the old time fans to call them the J-Birds, which hints at what they thought of the team. The original hats that were worn for home were a base grey and the away were a base black, but this only lasted for two seasons in which the grey was retired and the black was made their home and away cap, and a stylized “T” logo was made as an away alternative cap.

During the later part of the decade the team began to wear throwbacks to the uniforms prior to 1997 and they were a huge hit for the team, the fanbase loved them and for the first time in Toronto history the stadium began to fill up once again. Following the 2011 season the team promised to put Blue back into Blue Jays, and that's exactly what they had done. No longer were the dominant colours Grey and Black, but were once again Blue and White. The uniform scheme borrowed heavily from their original roots and modernized them creating one of the freshest caps in the MLB and many consider this to be the best On-Field cap that is currently on the market. The cap is a base Navy Blue and utilizes a familiar logo on the front, which is a modernized version of the original team logo.

The front embroidery of the cap is one of the freshest currently in baseball, it utilizes many different levels to create multiple details that would have been previously ignored in earlier years. The bird's blue jay is outlined with a white boarder which flows into the head of the bird, which creates three different layers of stylized feathers that are held in place between the raised embroidery of the black beak and neck area along with the blue crest. The Canadian Maple Leaf is also raised embroidery and tits itself right behind the bird's head, this portion of the cap also utilizes its own white outline much like the logo all together, but it's outline is layered higher than the original and overlaps rather than blends. This style of embroidery permits the Canadian Maple Leaf to subtly emit its dominance in the logo without over-sizing it or giving it strange placements much like the past few uniform changes.

The 2012 Toronto Blue Jays cap quickly became one of my favourite MLB On-Field Caps and I hunted for the cap up until I finally was able to pre-order it on the website Minor Leagues Major Dreams (item #9432512). Being a Toronto Blue Jays fan it is extremely refreshing to see the logo, especially because the previous uniform incarnations were either downright stupid and/or embarrassing. Being in Las Vegas and a current season ticket holder of the Triple-A Affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, the Las Vegas 51s, the upcoming season should be extremely exciting to see the new logo take over the current team and hopefully spark interest in changing Las Vegas' current team and uniform.

Miami Marlins Road

I apologize for not posting in a few days, but I have been doing finals at school and whatnot, now that they are all done I'll have more time to put towards my blog.

As we all know the Florida Marlins are a thing of the past and the Miami Marlins have become the new force to be reckoned with in the National League East. With the change we saw some pretty drastic uniform alterations which completely changed their colour scheme from a Black and Teal oriented scheme to something much more “Miami.”

When the caps came out I looked everywhere for them in stores and online, but unfortunately only the flagship stores and local Florida locations were able to get them, and slowly they trickled out to stores such as Lids by November but hit the online MLB Shop stores by October, and through the internet I was able to acquire the Away Cap.

The Away Cap for the Miami Marlins is a base Orange which New Era describes as “Mandarin,” and the logo on the front is one of the few MLB logos to cover quite a large portion of the front two panels. The “M” is in an art deco style which is a solid white raised embroidered “M” outlined with yellow, blue, and orange which is then outlined with a thin later of black and a similar layer of silver. Coming out of the side of the script and raising above it is the Marlin's new incarnation of the fish that is completed with the same silver and black embroidery, but only inverted.

When the Marlins had announced that they were changing uniforms and displayed a few teaser images I can say that I wasn't impressed, but when the final result was leaked I thought it was quite interesting and looked great on a New Era Cap. The Road Cap differs from the home by the base colour only, and personally I think that this cap is just too orange and will be used as either an alternative or retired in a few years; black will be the dominant colour in South Florida.

Casper Ghosts

When it comes to Minor League Baseball, teams generally have absolutely no fear in the way they name their teams, design their logos, insane mascots, or submit their fans to the wackiest promotions, for that I salute them. For if it were not for Minor League Baseball's inability to feel shame, we would not have such great logos on New Era caps that we currently have, instead we could possibly have just the same blend that we see in Major League Baseball, even though they are always respectable.

One of my favourite Minor League Baseball logos is the city of Casper, which decided to take the play on words and emulate the name of that old cartoon that we've all probably seen at least once in our lifetimes, Casper the Friendly Ghost. Casper, Wyoming didn't think their logo needed to be all that friendly though, and through the process of taking the city's name and putting it through the mind of an eight year old we are submitted to the magic embroidered below.

The Casper Ghosts originated as the Butte Copper Kings in Butte, Montana, but the team ended up in its current location of Casper, Wyoming until 2001 when they became the Single-A Affiliate of the Colorado Rockies, but the team was then known as the Casper Rockies. After 7 solid seasons as the Casper Rockies the creativity set in and come opening day of 2008 the Casper Ghosts hit the field.

The embroidered on the front of the cap for the Casper Ghosts is a fierce skull-like face which represents the ghoul, along with this is a simple baseball stitching on the top which makes it appear as if it's a baseball. The background and outline of the logo is embroidered with a shading technique that creates a haze giving the cap an eerie look to it.

One of the most simple and unique aspects of the cap that won't be appreciated until it dawns upon the viewer is the fact that when viewed in the dark a “G” appears due to the glow-in-the-dark threading used for the certain area. The hidden “G” in the hat is what really takes this cap up a notch, and really adds to the cool factor.

As of the end of the 2011 season, the Casper Ghosts will be moving out of their ballpark of Mike Lansing Field and will relocate to Suplizio Field in Grand Junction, Colorado. This move will effectively kill the team name and the brief history the team had, and the team will revert back to the name Rockies. The team called the Casper Ghosts were short lived, and I'm sure they will be missed.

Is that the Pizza Hut symbol in purple and grey?

Milwaukee Brewers

The Milwaukee Brewers, like the Toronto Blue Jays, went through a 90's with a lack of identify, and saw a pair of logo changes before they finally settled on something that they found fitting for their group. However unlike the Toronto Blue Jays, the Milwaukee Brewers most recent uniform and logo change were very classy and respectable, and didn't require “finding one's self” re-haul a decade later.

The most famous of the Milwaukee Brewers classic logo consisted of a modest blue and yellow colour mixture, the logo itself was a personal mystery to myself up until a few months ago, much like the Montréal Expos, I couldn't read between the lines to learn the true meaning behind the logo, and I know many people have been the same way regarding the two. The logo appears to be just a baseball glove, but it in actuality is an “m” and a “b” making the letters corresponding to the team *m*ilwaukee *b*rewers. From a design standpoint, this is extremely sophisticated, but it's unfortunate that the logo was a mystery to so many, and most likely still is.

In 1994, Major League Baseball adopted a new expanded playoff system which forced the original playoff format to change thus creating two new divisions, which forced the Milwaukee Brewers to switch from the old American League East Division to the newly formed American League Central Division. During this transition, the Brewers made a move to rebrand their team which completely changed their uniform scheme and base team colours, the changes moved from the pale blue and yellow to a gold, green, and navy blue scheme. The caps that came with the new team consisted of the M and B which were stylized to interlock within each other which were abruptly retired in 1996 and replaced with just a taller version of the “M”. The new logo was utilized briefly while still in the American League, but with the expansion of baseball to create the Arizona and Tampa Bay franchises, the Brewers voluntarily moved to the National League Central.

Following the 1999 season, the Milwaukee Brewers had become excited with anticipation of the completion of the construction of Miller Park, and a brand new rebranding of the team had formed. The team kept the current colour scheme to a point, but dropped green completely from their uniforms, hats, and logos.

These are the caps that the team still wears to this day, and they are one of the classiest and most unique caps in all of baseball. The caps are a base Heather Grey with a white stylized “M” which is outlined with gold, and underlined with a gold embroidered stalk of wheat which echos the team name with its symbolism. These caps are worn both home and away by the team and is mimicked on their batting helmets extremely accurately.

In my personal opinion, these are some of the best On-Field Fitteds that are currently being worn in Major League Baseball, they are some of the most intriguing caps that exist and show boldness with modesty all in one with their colour and design choices which click so well. Since the Milwaukee Brewers are one of the hottest and most up and coming teams in baseball, you better pick this up before people hop off of the Phillies Bandwagon and onto the Brewers!

2012 Toronto Blue Jays

At long last, the Toronto Blue Jays have finally returned "Blue" to Toronto. By putting the word "Blue" back into the Blue Jays, this will usher in a new era for Toronto and all of their fans. The Blue Jays got a complete makeover which involved brand new uniforms and brand new New Era caps that will be worn starting in the 2012 season. The changes basically take the shape of familiarity of a compilation of the Blue Jays uniforms from the 70s up until the 90s, and blending them with a style of old and modernity.

The New Era cap that will be worn by the Toronto Blue Jays starting next season will feature a solid blue base cap which covers the crown and bill, and is featured with the traditional Blue Jay bird complimented by the red Canadian Maple Leaf. The cap will break Toronto's current tradition of having multiple caps for home and away use, and that is because this cap will be used in and outside of Toronto exclusively all season long.

The uniforms for the 2012 season and on will include 3 new jerseys, a traditional white jersey which lists the team name and a grey jersey for away games framing the city name of Toronto on the front. There will also be a solid blue alternate jersey which was all ready announced which will be used for both home and away use.

Home

Road

Home/Road Alternate

The cap and jerseys for batting practice/spring training have also been completely changed, the cap will be a 39Thirty model of the On-Field 59Fifty, and the jersey shows the regular Warm-Up adaptation of most jerseys.

The changes to the Toronto Blue Jays this off season are momentous in the history of this ballclub, and most likely will be unchanged for decades to come. The changes bring their team's history back from obscurity and will help to reunite the fans of old with the identity crisis that has plagued the city and team of Toronto the past decade.

2012 New York Mets Alterations

As of yesterday morning, the New York Mets announced that they will be slightly altering their uniform scheme, and part of the alterations is that they are dropping their black motif completely from their caps and perhaps will drop their black jersey all together. The Mets have introduced two new logos which will be placed on their caps and jerseys respectively. The new patches are a simple alteration of the traditional Mets logo but are completed with a banner that omits the anniversary, a gold outline is also present.

Jersey Patch

Cap Patch

As expected, the 50th anniversary cap will contain a patch, but unlike traditional patches which are located on the left side of the cap it will be placed on the back; much like the 2009 New York Yankees cap. The difference with this cap is not only the movement of the patch to the back, but the traditional MLB logo is absent from the cap due to the placement of the patch. Other than the alterations with the patch and rear of the cap, the front has not been altered what so ever.

The Mets are the MLB's most recent team which are moving back to their roots of their uniforms, but their idea of getting rid of black as a colour scheme seems to work extremely well for them. One idea of mine that probably wouldn't go over well with the rest of baseball would be for them to utilise orange more in their colour scheme, but not to the extent of the Giants, Marlins, or Orioles. In my personal opinion, the Mets could at least wear orange undershirts and whatnot; it wouldn't hurt too much.

2012 New York Mets

The 2012 New York Mets are slightly changing their uniforms, but these minor changes will be extremely noticeable when it comes to any Mets fan. The changes of uniform appear to be going back to their 1980's roots, much like the Orioles when their team was successful. So what are your thoughts on the new changes for the New York Mets?

2012 Baltimore Orioles Fitteds and Jerseys

As of the morning of November 15th, 2011 the Baltimore Orioles announced that they will be changing their caps for the 2012 season, and along with the change of caps the team announced that they will be adding a brand new Orange alternate jersey. The image located below was leaked on Twitter by the Orioles official page, and when it was released it became evident that it was everyone's assumption that the team would be reverting back to its roots; the ever popular cartoon bird which was prominent in the Cal Ripken era of the team.

Image leaked by @Orioles on Twitter

The Orioles two new caps will pretty much be the exact same all except for the front two panels of the New Era cap, the home cap will feature a pair of white panels on the front of the cap above the brim and the away cap will feature an all black crown; the logos and brim colour are the exact same on both of the caps.

Home

Road

Outside of the caps, the Orioles have announced a brand new Home Alternate that will be introduced for the 2012 season, and much like the brand new Marlins uniforms the Orioles Home Alternate is a solid orange. This orange jersey includes black lettering on the front and will most likely include the same black lettering on the back. The jersey not only features the traditional Maryland patch on the left shoulder, but it also has a brand new 20th Anniversary patch for the Orioles' own Camden Yards; one of the most beautiful parks in the Major Leagues.

With all of the new uniform changes coming with the 2012 season the Orioles have made changes of their own reverting back to their roots of a brighter day. What are your thoughts on the changes? Personally I think they look nice, but they are rather predictable.