The Athletics are Oakland’s team, and this year they celebrate their 50th anniversary of moving to the Bay Area city with a uniform which puts their civic pride front and center.
Introduced this afternoon at a “fashion show” in Oakland, the A’s new anniversary alternate jersey focuses on the City of Oakland, where they’ve called home now for half-a-century. The city name is scripted across the front of the kelly green jersey similar in style to the “Oakland” used on their existing road uniform but instead in white with yellow trim. Each sleeve has a yellow/white/yellow striping pattern and the 50th anniversary patch will be worn on the right sleeve.
The jersey will be worn every home Friday game in 2018.
The base colour of the jersey and cap are “kelly green”, much lighter than what the team currently wears — the team wore Kelly green back when they won three straight World titles before darkening it in the 1980s and again in the 90s.
“It’s already become my favourite jersey”, Athletics third baseman Matt Chapman told us. “I could be biased because I’m wearing it right now but I love the colours, I love everything about it, it’s got that old school look to it.”
The cap is green all-over – no yellow brim, making it the only cap scheduled to be worn without any yellow on it; the logo on the cap is the same as what the club usually wears on their caps.
While the team didn’t consult with the players about the new look during the design process it didn’t damper their enthusiasm about the new look. “We’re all excited to show them off”, A’s shortstop Marcus Semien said, “everyone really likes them.”
Players aren’t the only ones who will be wearing Kelly green, A’s employees will be wearing the shade for the Friday home games and of course fans are being encouraged to join in on the Kelly green fun when attending games on those dates.
Overall the jersey resembles an alternate uniform listed on the Baseball Hall of Fame’s “Dressed to the Nines” site from 1987-1988, however I can find no evidence that this uniform actually existed. A mystery for sure but we at least know the design now exists and will be worn several times here in 2018.
The Athletics started out in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1901 playing in the debut season of the American League; the club won five World Series championships with Connie Mack at the helm for over 50 seasons before moving to Kansas City in 1955. The A’s time in Kansas City is largely forgettable except for one important change the team made while in Missouri, switching to a green and yellow colour scheme, which they did because it looked better on that new colour tv technology in 1963. The A’s time in K.C. was relatively brief, after just 13 seasons the team moved to Oakland where they’ve played ever since.
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