Pics: Brewers and Pirates Throw Back to the 1990s

The Milwaukee Brewers and Pittsburgh Pirates turned the clock back to a range of years sometime in the mid-to-late 1990s for their game yesterday at Miller Park in Milwaukee. The promotion included the throwback uniforms, music of the era, and a gnarly “Fresh Prince” t-shirt in honour of Brewers pitcher Will Smith.

Milwaukee wore a jersey-cap combo that was originally worn from 1994 through 1996, during their days in the American League (and before Interleague Play, therefore the Pirates had never faced this Brewers look before). The logo and uniform set, designed by Todd Radom his first-ever major MLB re-brand, before the 1994 season was altered slightly in 1997 when the “MB” cap logo was changed to a simple “M” and the wordmark on the jersey was tweaked.

First a look back to how this set appeared originally in 1994:

And now, how they looked yesterday, a very faithful reproduction, even omitting the MLB logo on the back of the jersey and the proper helmet decal.

The Pirates wore a jersey which was first worn in 1997 but with a cap that wasn’t worn on the road with the jersey until 1999. In 1997 and 1998 the Pirates wore a grey cap on the road with this top and stuck with the combo for just one more season in 2000 before making changes to the wordmark and dropping the pinstripes. This makes the Brewers-Pirates matchup last night a battle of 1994-96 versus 1999-2000.

Let’s take a look at the Pittsburgh Pirates in this uniform in 1999:

And now the Pirates last night:

Kudos for dropping the MLB logo above the name/number on both sides, the Majestic logo was present on the sleeve which would have been inaccurate but I won’t be *that* picky… just give me proper helmets and drop the MLB logo (as well as the proper jersey design, of course) and I’m pretty happy, I’m easy to please.

Here’s a look at those “Fresh Prince” inspired Will Smith Brewers t-shirts we mentioned earlier: