The Best: As if there was any question. It looks good in any decade, and on any body type. Well, almost any body type. The whites seem brighter than any other team’s whites. The English D is perfection. It’s the perfect shade of blue. A hair darker than navy, it seems, even if it’s called navy. Aside from one crazy “what in the hell were they thinking?” year in1960, the Tigers have stuck with that look since 1934 (though the English D was in use as early as 1904). With apologies to the Yankees and the Dodgers, this is the best uniform in baseball history.
The Worst: Putting an actual tiger on the back is a bit audacious. Pinstripes are just not right on the Tigers, but they do at least help show why I like their current look better than the Yankees. And I don’t care if it was 1903 and they were still trying to figure things out: a block D on Red was a sartorial dead end. But the all time worst, however, has to be the mid-90s orange-bill cap numbers. They looked like a USFL team in them.
Assessment: I already called them the best, so let’s dispose of an assessment here and talk about road uniforms for a minute. Personally speaking I like their doubleknit roadies of the 70s and 80s, probably because I grew up with them. Hardly anyone agrees with me on this, even Tigers fans who are my age. Even when I point out that they improved them at the very end, getting rid of the pullover, elastic waistband version, slapping a belt and buttons on them and taking them out of that 70s look. Downright sharp if you ask me. But still, people disagree with me. They like the current roadies the best, almost unanimously. They’re nice enough, but bah! Bah, I say! I put them third, behind both the Alan Trammell-era grays and the 1960s number-on-the-sleeve jobbies, which I find totally cool for some reason.
