On the Throwbacks

A badass in any era.

I think this was the first time the Mariners have worn Mariners throwbacks.  Not the first time they've worn throwbacks, period; they've run out as the Seattle Rainiers at least twice, and by cosmic providence I was in attendance both times.  The first was a game at the Kingdome against the "Oakland Oaks".  The M's sported red Rainiers home unis, and the coolest thing I remember about that day was that Griffey Jr. and Rickey Henderson shared the same glove throughout the game.  Rickey left it on the rug for Junior between innings, and vice versa.  The second time was in San Diego two years ago, when the M's wore Rainiers 1938 road jerseys against the Padres in their 1936 PCL gear.  Hargrove hated them but they were easily the coolest throwbacks a Seattle team has ever worn.  

The first thought I had today was, "Those don't look quite right."  Not just the belts, instead of the elastic striped waistband in the original gear, the blue just looked too... BLUE.  Then I realized: they've never worn this gear outside!  Literally.  We never saw the sun hit these unis, only the lights in the dome, so they looked too new and vibrant, and kind of contrived, like they were right off the shelf from the pro shop. It's frustrating that Ebbetts Field Flannels, literally walking distance from the ballpark, doesn't get the nod for these things. God forbid the local team would support a local company, but Majestic has the big MLB contract so wtf.  Aside from the belts (out of consideration for the players' comfort, I guess) M's management did a decent job with the theme.  They made batting helmets with the trident logo.  The on-deck circle was the trident logo on a blue background.  The logo on the hand-operated scoreboard in left was a too-skinny trident on a green background, which made it look like an M in A's colors.  Even that dumb moose wore the old uni, apropos of nothing.

Ballgame prepares to pull Sexson off the bag to set up Brouss's heroics.

And they did all the predictable stupid crap - disco on the PA, afros and glasses photoshopped on players photos, and worst of all, Poncherelli on a cop bike jacking up the warning track and throwing the first pitch.  Diego Segui is still waiting for his plane ticket.

You cheap motherfuckers...

The A's looked f-ing great. Like they had stepped out of a time machine (except for the belts), right down to the Charlie Finley white-and-green ballcaps the coaches wore.  Pretty cool.  They were also nice enough to pitch and play defense like the '77 A's what finished last in the division behind the expansion M's, and who apparently considered a 162nd game pointless.  

Curse of the Reggino (signed with NYY Nov. '76)

West Division
Team           W   L   WL%  GB
Kansas City   102 60  .630  --  
Texas            94  68  .580  8.0
Chicago        90  72  .556 12.0
Minnesota       84  77  .522 17.5
California       74  88  .457 28.0
Seattle          64  98  .395 38.0
Oakland         63  98  .391 38.5

The fuck I got left...

Adjust throwback sleeve, collect 1,500th hit, pretend I still don't speak English.  Hai!

Konichiwa, bitches.

Failure to wear even fake stirrups on retro day warrants ejection.

You hang 'em, Brouss bangs 'em.

You in row 10!  How you like me now!!

Don't trade him, Bill, you punkass.

Putz in, throwbacks shelved.