Tuesday, November 22, 2011

But the White Sox still wear black socks

Following the Baltimore Orioles' lead of going back to the future and changing back to an old-style uniform, the Toronto Blue Jays have done something really radical and gone back to a BLUE color scheme.


Imagine that! The BLUE Jays wearing blue!  What a concept.

In the past few years, sports teams have gone crazy over black, teal and purple in their uniforms.   Silver and black fits the Oakland Raiders just fine, what with their pirate image.  Teal fits the Miami (formerly Florida Marlins) well, but they used to have an all-teal hat, then a teal hat with a black brim, and then an all-black hat, which must have really done a nice job soakin' up the heat of a Miami afternoon in July.  They just changed their name and their uniform (above).

Peggy loves her Ravens and her assorted Ravens clothing, all purple.  It's her favorite color.

Mine are brown and orange, which makes me the one and only person in this great nation of ours who thinks the Cleveland Browns' togs are downright groovy.
Another thing about sports:  when you move a team, even when you're a devil on earth as Robert Irsay's mom said he was,  think a little about the team name.  The Minneapolis Lakers basketball team took their name from the many lakes that dot the Minnesota landscape, like silly comments that Michelle Bachmann makes there.  When the team  moved to Los Angeles, it might have been a good idea to think of a new name, out there in a land so arid they have to bring in water.  The New Orleans Jazz played in the NBA too, but when the turnstiles stopped clicking for them down on the bayou, they moved to the Mormon (i.e. non-jazz) state of Utah.


The Brooklyn Dodgers took their name from the crazy steps that pedestrians in that borough used to do to avoid being run over by trolleys - the "trolley dodgers."  They moved to Los Angeles and found about as many trolleys as bagels in their new town.

Finally, the Cincinnati Reds, oldest of the major league teams, changed their name to the Redlegs from 1956 - 1960 to avoid being labeled Communist sympathizers.





Why was this necessary?  You'd have had to be there.



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