The Best: They’ve stayed quite steady over the course of their 56-year existence, but they’ve changed little details more than you might remember. They’ve switched between various cartoon and various realistic birds a number of times and they’ve messed with the orange/black/white ratio on the hats too. They’ve always looked pretty sharp, though, never running away from the orange the way teams in other sports do from time to time. Of many good looks, I’m going with the cartoon bird-on-the- black-hat-with-orange-bill look they wore from 1966-70.
And let’s not forget the St. Louis Brown portion of their franchise’s history. They were like a reverse-Yankees or reverse-Red Sox: they had a steady classic look until the late 30s, and then they changed to some weird options. With their obvious use of brown, however, perhaps they can show the Padres the way into a tasteful brown future.
The Worst: The famous all-orange alternates were not a regular look -- I believe they only wore them on a handful of occasions -- but it wasn’t good. Like so many other teams, the Orioles looked bad when they chased the black uniform trend as well.
Assessment: They’ve always kept things coherent and have never strayed too far from a core look and color scheme. And they’ve never done anything truly terrible. The most animated I’ve ever heard an Orioles fan get about their uniforms has involved returning the word “Baltimore” to the front of the roadies, which they did this past season. As far as uniforms go, the Orioles have always had a handle on things, and that’s pretty admirable.
