If you’ve ever tuned into a World Series game, you’ve surely noticed that the players have long worn a World Series logo on their jerseys and caps. But when did this practice start? And have any oddities happened along the way?
Well, it’s important to note that before teams began to wear commemorative World Series patches, they would occasionally wear entirely new uniforms just for the Fall Classic.
In 1905, New York Giants player-manager John McGraw dressed his team in a new all-black uniform specifically for the Series — this was just one year after McGraw infamously boycotted the then-new baseball championship, leading to its cancellation in 1904. The Giants’ all-black set must have worked some kinda magic as the Giants topped the Philadelphia Athletics in five games. McGraw would try his luck with new uniforms again when the Giants made the World Series six years later in 1911, again going all-black; this time, the Giants lost as the A’s took the series in six.
The Chicago Cubs met the cross-town White Sox in the 1906 World Series, but unfortunately for the Cubs, they couldn’t win a single game in their home park. One year later, the Cubs were back, taking on the Detroit Tigers. Remembering their poor play at home against the Sox, they decided to shake things up and took to the field in a road grey version of their home whites for Game One. According to Marc Okkonen’s book Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century, the league was none too pleased with the home side wearing grey and, following a Game 1 tie, that was that. It must’ve been enough to break the bad luck as the Cubs took the next four games, winning the series 4-0-1.
For their 1917 World Series appearance against the Giants, the Chicago White Sox shed their usual blue and white home uniform for one with a bright red and blue, star-spangled “S” with an “OX” inside. An American flag was stitched onto the sleeve, and they even changed their famously all-white socks, adding red and blue stripes. The White Sox won the series in six, scrapped the uniforms, and didn’t win another championship for 88 years. Along the way, the uniforms temporarily returned as a one-year-only alternate option worn during their 100th anniversary season in 2001, just four years before their World Series drought ended. Hmm.
When did teams start wearing World Series logos on their jerseys?
The first team to wear a World Series logo was the St. Louis Cardinals, who added the then-recently redesigned 1987 World Series logo to their jersey sleeve for their meeting with the Minnesota Twins. The Twins did not join in, leaving the Cardinals as the very first club to start this tradition. When the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics took to the field one year later, in 1988, both clubs wore the patch on their sleeves.
A rivalry matchup was set for the 1989 World Series between the Oakland A’s and the neighbouring San Francisco Giants (Yes, another uniform-noteworthy A’s vs. Giants World Series). There was much speculation as to how the marketing of the series would be handled, “The Bay Bridge Series” seemed a natural choice, but the Giants and A’s already played an annual exhibition series using that name. Instead, MLB went with “The Battle of the Bay” as the official slogan for the Series for use on merchandise, even going so far as to have the teams wear special “Battle of the Bay” World Series patches, the first and only time teams wore a World Series patch that referenced the rivalry of the teams.
In 1995, following a devasting, World Series-cancelling player strike, the league returned to play with a new slogan, “Welcome to the Show.” One unnamed player called it “lame” and added a suggestion: “How about, ‘we promise not to strike — at least until August’?” The always-colourful Ozzie Guillen offered, “My slogan is: ‘Come back — and bring your money.'”
Despite the criticism, the league doubled down, adding it to the black-and-gold 1995 World Series logo patch worn on the uniforms of the Atlanta Braves and Cleveland Indians that fall. Once the Series was over, so was the slogan. The league quickly dropped its “Welcome to the Show” campaign in favour of the new “What A Game” for 1996 and never again added a marketing slogan to a World Series patch.
When did the World Series logo patch move from the sleeve to the chest?
Following the league’s approval of advertisements on jersey sleeves, fans feared it would be the end of the line for the World Series patch. However, when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers met for the 2023 World Series, we learned that the tradition would live on, with the patch now much smaller than before and shifted from the sleeve to the upper left corner of the chest. Previously, the Colorado Rockies had worn a regularly-sized World Series logo on the front of their sleeveless vest jerseys for a game during the 2007 Series against Boston.
On two occasions since 1988, teams wore no jersey patch at all.
In 1997, the Cleveland Indians and Florida Marlins both went without patches. Cleveland kept wearing their 1997 All-Star Game host patch (with Chief Wahoo on the other sleeve), while the Marlins kept wearing the Jackie Robinson 50th anniversary patch and a Marlins team logo. A quarter-century later, in 2021, the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros went without jersey patches due to global supply chain issues caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. During the 1997 and 2021 World Series, all four teams wore that season’s World Series logo on their caps.
When did teams start wearing World Series patches on their caps?
The first World Series to feature the logo on player caps happened in 1996 between the Atlanta Braves and New York Yankees. A quick and easy way to entice fans to buy a second cap of their favourite team each time they made it to the World Series. For two decades, the World Series logo appeared on the left side of the caps; the logo was shifted to the right in 2016 to accommodate the logo of New Era, the cap manufacturer.
The World Series logo isn’t the only patch to have been added to a uniform during a Fall Classic.
In 1990, the United Services Organization (USO) requested that the league allow players to wear an American flag patch on their uniforms during the Series to support the U.S. Armed Forces stationed in the Persian Gulf. The Players Association endorsed the idea, and the league approved, adding the patch to the jerseys of all Cincinnati Reds and Oakland Athletics players and coaches.
“We checked out our uniforms [in the clubhouse] and saw the World Series patch on the sleeve, and we all got pretty pumped up,” Reds outfielder Glenn Braggs wrote in a special “World Series diary” newspaper feature. “They also put a patch of the American flag on the chests. It’s for the guys overseas. We all agreed to wear them, but we thought it was going to be on the sleeve.”
Reds owner Marge Schott took to the field at Riverfront Stadium before Game One and let the crowd of 55,830 know that the World Series that year was being dedicated to “our Armed Forces in the Far East,” we can only assume she meant to say the Middle East. Still, with Schott saying it, truly nobody knows.
An American flag was also worn on the uniforms, both on the back of the jersey and the side of the cap, during the 2001 World Series. Still, these were not exclusive to the Series as they had been added to all team uniforms during the regular season following the September 11th attacks.
When the World Series patch was first introduced in 1987, it was typical for the league to use the same logo for multiple seasons with only the year changing. The first style was used from 1987 to 1991, with the 1989 Series instead opting for a special “Battle of the Bay” version of the patch. In 1992, the design changed to one featuring a globe and gold scripted “World Series” lettering, which remained in use until the end of the 1997 World Series, with a few slight changes to the colours. The final multi-year World Series logo was used for 1998 and 1999, since then we’ve gotten twenty-five completely new designs and patches, one for each World Series held since 2000.
While uniforms may be getting increasingly cluttered with advertisements and patches that identify the company currently holding on-field uniform rights, there’s still something special about seeing that patch that reads “WORLD SERIES” on your team’s jersey for the first time. Here’s hoping they find a way to keep this tradition going as long as they can (and that we can somehow get it back on the sleeve because, c’mon, that was a great place for it).
Be sure to also check out our complete history of World Series logos
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