Because football uniforms were “workin’ clothes,” Royal replied. True enough: team uniforms are glorified sweats destined to get dirty, smelly and torn. But they’re obviously more than that.
The aggregate colors, numbers, letters, pants, shorts, jerseys, caps or helmets of your favorite team serve to a) distinguish them visually and in character from their rivals, b) make the players feel proud to wear them, c) look good on television and, these days, d) sell piles of overpriced, licensed replicas. Oh, and tradition-uniforms are animated reminders of the glory days. Unless, of course, we’re talking about the L.A. Clippers.
Some uniforms accomplish all this with considerably more elan and design savoir-faire than others. Like all sports fans, I have passionate opinions about the best and the worst. In fact, I have them (restricted, for maximum familiarity, to professional teams) right here:
THE BEST
New York Yankees. Coming from a confirmed Yankee-hater, this top ranking must mean the Bronx Bombers’ get-ups are the Balenciaga gowns of jockdom. They are. From the symbiosis of the “NY” logo and those revered pinstripes to that mysterious indigo, the Yankees’ uniforms have rightly remained unchanged for decades. They say “class” and “dignity” as convincingly as they say “winner.” And since every new Yankee seems to tell the press how awed he is to be donning the pinstripes, there’s never been the slightest reason to stick those redundant last names on the backs of the jerseys.
Indianapolis Colts. Like the Yankees, the Colts get by with a single color (bright blue) plus white because the graphics are so tight: that instantly recognizable horseshoe emblem on the helmet, the graceful over-the-shoulder double stripe (deftly repeated on the pants), and old-fashioned block numerals. Perhaps forced-to-resign head coach Jim Mora, who practically begged to stay on, just couldn’t bear the thought of leading a more tackily dressed troop someplace else.
Los Angeles Lakers. NBA uniforms change more often than the lead in overtime. When your starters all have $100 million contracts, what’s a few bucks for new tank tops and shorts? Well, there’s all that material. Nowadays basketball clothes are so roomy and flowing that games look like wild toga parties. With culottes apparently here to stay, the Lakers have done their bit to bring a little decorum back to a league in which … well, see “Houston Rockets,” below. They’ve started a hoops version of baseball’s returning from clownish double-knit pullovers back to buttons and belt loops: just the familiar LAKERS lettering, some contrasting side panels, and a little piping, that’s all. Those wide shoulder straps and that peculiar purple rear collar aren’t my favorites, but all that gold just glows on the court.
Los Angeles Dodgers. Yep, two in a row from Tinseltown. Dem Bums haven’t changed their couture all that much since leaving Brooklyn-the red front number on an otherwise all-blue-trim uniform is too tasty a touch to tweak-but the whites seem so much brighter in California. Is it the surfy sun, or do they wash ’em in Tide Fluorescent?
St. Louis Rams. Of all the new-look football uniforms (more ornate numerals, basketball-like side panels on jerseys, cartoon logos everywhere), the Rams wear the best. The subtle color changes, from bright to dark blue and from yellow-gold to old-gold, have been adroit. But the Rams could be wearing plaid pants and polka-dot jerseys and still make my list simply for retaining the most beautiful, and symbolically appropriate uniform item in all of sport: the horned helmet. It was originally designed in 1947, incidentally, by L.A. Rams defensive back Fred Gehrke, who had been an art major at the University of Utah.
THE WORST
Houston Rockets. How are their uniforms bad? Let us count the ways: terrible colors (a somehow leaden red-and-blue), stupid spinoffs from pinstripes (interrupted, with wispy ends), faceted numbers that were all the typeface rage back in 1983, and a fadeout side panel on the shorts that looks like it was taken directly from a Grateful Dead poster. The Rockets also happen to play on the biggest, ugliest floor emblem in the NBA. To paraphrase the old joke, they’ve got a great look for radio.
All hockey uniforms. That’s right, all of them. First, shorts for an ice sport are weird. (Whatever happened to those sensible pants the Philadelphia Flyers tried out in the 1980s?) Second, hockey jerseys seem to want to be both cuddly college sweatshirts and Mardi Gras costumes. They end up resembling carwash signs. Finally, why can’t somebody design a decent-looking hockey helmet? These bumpy things look like helmet liners, for gosh sakes. Even skateboarders have more attractive headgear.
New York Mets. This team is simply another fashion victim, in particular of the rush to get a whole lot of irrelevant-but menacingly gangbanger-black onto the uniform. In the immortal words of then-Knick forward Charles Oakley when his team’s new garb went down the same road, “Orange and black and blue just don’t go together.” Amen, especially when you challenge folks in the cheap seats to perceive a blue logo-separated by a little orange piping-on a black cap. The Mets also have more “alternate” combinations of bottoms, tops and hats than “La Cage aux Folles” in dinner theater.
Boston Celtics. The case against tradition. Such an underwearlike wardrobe may have looked good on Bill Russell when he was winning 11 titles in 13 seasons in the 1950s and ’60s, but these plain-Jane outfits now strike me as barely a half-step up from the old Soviet Union unis, with the sewn-by-mother CCCP on the shirts. If you’re going to stick with a single color, make it a better one than a drab green. Or spring for two, and borrow a little buttery yellow from the Green Bay Packers (like the Colts, the case for tradition).
University of Miami. What’s that funny split “U” on the helmet supposed to mean, anyway? That the university team isn’t a professional franchise? As Donna Shalala probably wouldn’t say, “Right.” To be on the safe side, I let Miami into the this category, and the Hurricanes nudged out the San Francisco 49ers in the circus-wagon lookalike division. You could play Parcheesi on their jerseys. The motto in Coral Gables football fashion is apparently, “When you encounter a seam, change colors.”
Most of you will disagree with one or more items above. As NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue has said on many occasions, “De gustibus non est disputandem [you can’t argue about taste], except in the last two minutes of each half, when officials in the video booth will automatically review every garment.” Some readers will wonder why I’ve not mentioned women’s sports or soccer uniforms. Women’s sports must first overcome team nicknames like “Mystics” and “Starzz” before they’re eligible to compete on the athletic runway. As for soccer uniforms, I’m merely waiting to see who’ll pay me more-Sony or Parmalat-to endorse the teams wearing their patches.
