The real problem with the Blue Jays decision to bring back those (ugly) powder blue uniforms

From their inception in 1977 through the 1988 season, the Toronto Blue Jays played road games wearing powder blue pullovers with identically-coloured pants. They were awful.

I know, I know. Taste is a subjective thing, so it’s absurd that I would think I could say a thing like that. I’m right though. And that’s not just my opinion, either.

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In December 2007, when the moribund Jays unveiled a new “retro” version of that uniform, which they would wear intermittently over the next three seasons, ’80s Blue Jays legend Lloyd Moseby unloaded on the getup he was required to wear for the first 10 years of his career.

“When you came up and put it on, you looked in the mirror 1,000 times and it still don’t look right,” he told the Canadian Press. “When you start winning it doesn’t matter. You stop looking in the mirror. But when you’re losing, you’ve got to look in the mirror and, I’ll tell you, the powder blue wasn’t in.

“And the ones we were in, they were polyester, dog. Polyester! Come on!”

In those days the team was merely following a league-wide trend. By the mid-80s there were 11 clubs in Major League Baseball, more than a third of the league at the time, wearing some form of baby blues: the Expos, Royals, Cubs, Rangers, Mariners, Cardinals, Brewers, Twins, Braves and Phillies, in addition to the Jays. We can perhaps then forgive them for their sartorial sins.

Their move to reintroduce powder blue for the 2008 season was part of a mini-trend as well. The Royals had also resurrected a powder blue jersey for 2008, smartly opting to pair it with white pants instead of blue ones. Moreover, they were a welcome respite for fans from the horrors of the Jays’ black and silver “Angry Bird” and “Toothpaste T” era.

We can certainly forgive fans in the awful aughts for falling into such a tempting nostalgia trap.

In 2020, however, the Blue Jays’ uniforms are time-tested and basically perfect. Yes, the updated logo still — pardon the pun — ruffles feathers among fans of the original, but their 2011 redesign basically knocked it out of the park. Among their current group of clothing choices, it’s only the red monstrosities trotted out every Canada Day that fail Moseby’s mirror test.

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But that, it seems, is about to change.

On Monday morning packages apparently began arriving at the homes of local media members, which notified them of an announcement scheduled for January 18 (the first day of the club’s Winter Fest event at Rogers Centre), and included a baseball stamped with the words, “New threads coming soon #NewBlue.”

An online hype video soon followed:

Let's get it on at Winter Fest! #NEWBLUE

👉 https://t.co/IplTZ8NXtn pic.twitter.com/nOWokTsvIi

— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) January 13, 2020

Despite the “#NewBlue” hashtag, the colour we see there, and the leaning hard into the ’70s-era soundtrack suggests that these likely won’t be tasteful updates with a blend of modern and retro features. That’s unfortunate, because something like these would, I think, be real winners:

For y'all dreamers. pic.twitter.com/V99qGdkrz5

— James G (@james_in_to) January 13, 2020

On the other hand, choosing a song from 1973 — not only before the Jays existed, but even before the city tried to pry the Giants out of San Francisco — at least tells us that historical accuracy on this campaign was not necessarily paramount. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. can probably breathe easy that he won’t be asked to perform in Moesby’s ’80s-era polyester.

Still, it seems rather clear that the return of a powder blue alternate is on the horizon. Also pointing in that direction is a small note from Paul Lucas of Uni-Watch.com, who wrote back in November about the Minnesota Twins’ reveal of their “new” powder blues.

“By my count there are now five MLB teams with powder blue uniforms in their wardrobes: the Twins, Cardinals, Phillies, Royals (jersey only), and Rays (jersey only),” he explained. “And that number will get higher before the start of the 2020 season — stay tuned.”

The Texas Rangers announced a powder blue option a few days later, and it’s possible that was all that Lucas was referring to. But in all likelihood, the Blue Jays were another team whose announcement was supposed to be “staying tuned” for. And as of the 18th, they will officially be part of a trend once again.

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Fingers crossed that they get the execution right this time. Or that they at least aren’t planning to wear them very often, if they don’t.

Fingers crossed even harder that it doesn’t end in the same kind of mess that their hopping on the black uniform trend did in the early 2000s, which is now such a huge reason the ugly powder blues are so weirdly beloved.

All that said, it’s at least possible that they might have come up with something in this shade that isn’t terrible. If not something like the ideas above, there are examples of how to do this right, or at least as close to right as can be hoped. In fact, one excellent example lies just down the road from Toronto, and down just one level in the Blue Jays’ very own farm system.

My #Bisons column today: In what could be his only outing here, Nate Pearson shows Buffalo fans what all the fuss is about over #Bluejays top young arm. https://t.co/MVS0rZzvIq

— Mike Harrington (@ByMHarrington) August 25, 2019

The Buffalo Bisons have a powder uniform that actually looks somewhat close to good. Like the Royals, they’ve chosen to go with white pants instead of subjecting fans to the pajama-like effect that comes with powder blue ones (especially when players wear them baggy, or with low socks). They’ve also opted for a retro-style hat, which incorporates the powder blue, rather than the jarring contrast of the royal blue of the Jays’ classic caps. They’ve also gone with a slightly different font style than the Blue Jays have used, putting royal blue piping on the outside of white letters — a place where the contrast between the shades of blue vastly helps readability compared to other iterations.

Dark lettering, as opposed to the white lettering used from 2008-11, fits with the tones used in the package sent to reporters, as well as the ’70s theme of the song. The earliest versions of these Jays uniforms used dark lettering.

Maybe it won’t be so bad?

Still, a better idea would be to simply not do this. After all, fans already have plenty of choice when it comes to purchasing a jersey. But this is big-league baseball in the year 2020. And if there is money being left on the table because a certain segment of fans still love the powder blues, or have already bought the other ones, you’d best believe that the club is going to find a way to get people to hand it over. They’ve already done a very good job building excitement with their somewhat cryptic roll-out, and they’re sure to move a whole lot of units at Winter Fest.

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In that way — the most cynical way — it’s already a win for the club. Whether they’ll actually produce a win, aesthetically, remains to be seen.

Of course, if I had my choice, whatever they may look like, these new powder blues wouldn’t be seen at all.

(Top photo: Dave Sandford/Getty Images)

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