A couple of years ago I wrote a couple posts at my old Shysterball blog running down what -- in my opinion anyway -- were the best and worst all-time looks for each team. It was pretty popular as far as my old Blogspot posts were concerned, so I figure that, in the absence of any fun news, it was worth dusting off the idea and doing it again.
The only difference: attention spans have gotten way shorter since the ancient days of 2008, so I’ll be taking it team by team, rolling this baby out over the next few days. First up: the NL East, starting with the World Series champion -- er, what’s that? Wait, they had Hallday, Hamels and Oswalt! What happened? Wow, you just never know in this game, do ya! -- N.L. East Champion Philadelphia Phillies!
The Best: Thanks to recent success, their current look -- or the Whiz Kid look -- is probably considered the classic. I like it, but I like it when they mix in the blue on Sundays too. I may even like it better and if you put a gun to my head I’d say that the current alternates are their best look, even if it’s somewhat jarring, historically speaking. Along those lines, my mind hasn’t changed on these underrated 1930-40s numbers with the blue accents. It helps that Philly lost a hundred games year-in, year-out back when they wore those numbers, as everything is better about the Phillies when they’re losing.
The Worst: I never liked the big-P stuff they wore in the 1970s and 80s. The 1979 numbers -- with the alternate all reds -- were pretty terrible themselves.
Assessment: The Phillies have landed on a good, classic look and will likely stick with it for a good long time. To the extent they’ve gotten crazy over the years it’s just because they’ve had a really spotted history and, hey, why not experiment? And at least their unfortunate 70s look -- which almost every team had -- was accompanied by a lot of good play on the field, and that takes the edge off of such things.
