Over the weekend the St. Louis Cardinals tweeted the famous photo of Ozzie Smith doing a back flip and said “A big announcement is coming soon… you’re gonna flip!”
That was interesting in and of itself, but the most interesting part of it was probably, that, in the photo, The Wizard of Oz was not wearing the white Cards jersey from the famous photo. Rather, Cardinal GIFS, Travis Janik and the account Cardinals Rant noticed, Smith was portrayed wearing the old blue Cardinals road uniforms from 1976 through 1984. Which, by the way, were NOT called “powder blue.” The Cardinals’ then-owner Gussie Busch did not like that name, so he called them “Victory Blue.”
Which, fine. But look:
👀 A big announcement is coming soon… you’re gonna flip! pic.twitter.com/DUKnOmbzTB
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) November 9, 2018
The original picture vs. the one the Cardinals tweeted out regarding the “big announcement”.
— worst team in nl (@CardinalsRant_) November 10, 2018
They photoshopped it to make the uniform powder blue.
The powder blues are back, folks. pic.twitter.com/L5SjjmfmVy
Same photo, clearly Photoshopped.
As they, and later St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Derrick Goold, observed, this is almost certainly a case of the Cardinals teasing an impeding announcement -- to be made on November 19 -- that the team is going to bring back the old Victory Blues, most likely as an alternate. They have, on a few occasions over the years, broke them out on turn-back-the-clock days or as tributes to the 1982 World Series winning team, but never for very long. These will, presumably, be Friday or Sunday home alternates, perhaps, as a lot of teams have done with older or bolder styles.
Personally I think it would be cooler if they used them as true road jerseys as almost all of the blue uniforms were used for by the teams that adopted them back in their 1960s-80s heyday, but let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good here and enjoy them for what they were. And are.
