Fun with uniforms

We here at The Big Picture recognize that Uni Watch is the premier place on the internet to obsess about uniforms. Uni Watch, we are humbled by you, however, we would like to take a stab at posting about uniforms as well. That being said, get your clicking fingers ready, and away we go.

We've always admired the city of Pittsburgh for having three professional sports teams with the same color scheme. We're not sure how this got started over in the steel city, but we imagine some forward thinker saw the benefits of being able to wear gear from one team to the others' games and still blend in. A little internet research led us to this gem of a website that attempts to answer the question (scroll to the bottom of the page). Continuing our trek through google land, we find that the Wikipedia entry doesn't offer any enlightenment, but does reveal some lesser Pittsburgh sports teams that also use black and gold. Women playing football, who knew? We recall reading something, somewhere, sometime about why all the teams wear black and gold, but our memory is clouded. We're pretty sure that the reasoning behind it all has to do with the colors on the city flag, which kinda makes sense. Indeed, Uni Watch confirms with a terse explanation on this page.

Now for the fun part. We got to thinking, what would happen if OTHER cities all used the same colors? What we should have done is looked at the flags of other cities, and used those colors. Instead, we chose the team with the worst colors and went nuts.

Oakland: Home of the Warriors, A's, and Raiders. These teams currently have no Uni continuity, even though two play in the same stadium (until the A's move to Fremont), and the other is in the arena right next door. We mostly chose Oakland because the Raiders have such simple, classic uniforms that would be ruined by the addition of any color other than silver. The A's meanwhile, have a fairly awful color scheme of green and bright yellow. What would happen if the A's spread their Uni colors to all the teams in Oakland? The Warriors would go from this to this. We'll call this an improvement, there's been something wrong with those duds ever since they stopped wearing these. The Raiders are another story. As stated, the Raiders current Unis are some of the best, and they would go from this to this. Not as bad as first imagined, but still a huge step backwards. They look a little too much like the Packers, and that's never a good thing. Overall: A bad idea. The Warriors get a little better (up for debate), but the Raiders lose everything that makes them great. Put the A's and Warriors in silver and black, and then we might make a deal.

Miami: There's just something about Orange and Teal that really makes us wonder, couldn't the Dolphins have done better? We've thought for about 10 years that this team would be the next to get a full Uni makeover, and it still hasn't happened. They even realize how terrible their own Unis are, and elect to wear white at home. Smart choice. So what would happen in the Dolphins infected the other Miami teams with their colors? The Marlins would go from this to this. The Marlins don't have Unis that are anything to write home about to begin with, but a black jersey is way more classy than teal. The truth is, the Marlins already have a similar teal color in their Uni, and they've been smart enough to not make a solid jersey with it. If they did, it would be a disaster. What about the Heat? The NBA champs would go from this to this. Shaq would probably be unhappy. Overall: Another bad idea. Two black jerseys become teal, and Dwayne Wade demands a trade. Ooh that rhymes.


Minneapolis: For some reason all the teams that play here go with Minnesota, instead of using the city name. They both sound sorta silly. Anyway, things could really get ugly if the Minnesota teams took a cue from the Vikings. The good people over at Uni Watch hate nothing more than the color purple, which we sort of understand but have a little problem buying into, being Huskies and all. For the most part though, we agree, and believe that purple must be done right, and in only small doses. So what would happen if all the teams in Minneapolis switched to purple and yellow? The T'wolves would go from this to this. Eek. The Twins would go from this to this. The colors didn't come out quite right on that one, but you can imagine the horror. Overall: Trouble, big trouble for all parties. However, they could be worse. Which brings us to...

Denver. The people of the mile high city would have to be, well, about a mile high to think this is a good idea. The Nuggets, Rockies, and Broncos all play here, and all have very different color schemes. The Rockies might have the worst Unis in all of sports, at least, on the days they wear black vests with purple sleeves. The Broncos do fine with orange and blue. And then there's the Nuggets. We normally like powder blue, especially in baseball, and although we like the idea of using powder blue for the Nuggets, it's just not quite right. Though they are certainly a step up from these days. So what would happen in all the teams in Denver went to powder blue? The Broncos would go from this to this. Whoa. It actually, kind of, works. It reminds us of the old Chargers Unis, which they've brought back recently as a throwback. We think they should make that change permanent. As for the Broncos, it wouldn't be bad, but having two powder blue teams in the same division could be overwhelming. The orange and blue is working, might as well stick with it. How about the Rockies? They would go from this (shudder) to this. DANGER DANGER, ABORT!!! This would truly be a disaster. The blue vest with yellow sleeves, it gives us the jibblies. The verdict: run for the hills. The Broncos would be acceptable, but they would look like copycats, the Rockies would go from bad to unspeakable.

The lesson we've learned today is this: Pittsburgh is cool, but probably the only city that could pull off the multi-team, single-color-scheme feat.

Thanks a million to Chris Creamer's Sports Logos Page, Dressed To The Nines, and of course, Uni Watch. Without your websites this column would not be. An extra special shout out to Photoshop, which can be used to put faces of hot celebrities on naked bodies, and can turn any uniform powder blue.

-Jamie Costello

Jamie is a graduate student at the University of Washington, and Zach's unofficial editor. His favorite exclamation is Oo-de-lally. He is aware that he left out some hockey teams.