Welcome to this website’s off-season sports sartorial content. We are counting down the world’s top 50 most iconic sports uniforms. Only current uniforms apply, we are not including one-off or alternate uniforms. Let’s stick to the basics.
#26
St. Louis Cardinals
I would argue that the St. Louis Cardinals uniforms shouldn’t work. And yet, they work so very well. Two birds!? A full baseball bat? Plus script? The audacity to think about this and actually pull it off has been among the best uniform ideas in MLB history.
If we’re speaking strictly from a point of view of uniform options as a Major League player, I’m not sure the Cardinals can be beat.
For hats, they have their traditional all-red cap, or an all-blue version, or a blue version with red bill featuring a bird and bat. They have their traditional white jersey and road gray, plus a cream alternate with “St. Louis” across the chest and an identical baby blue version. Which other franchise can beat that?
When the franchise began as the St. Louis Browns they rotated through brown, red, light blue, dark blue, and maroon colors. When they were re-named the Cardinals for the 1900 season they were entering their second year with white and red colors.
The iconic birds on a bat jersey first made its debut on the 1922 road uniform, making it over 100 years old! Most of the St. Louis uniforms have featured this layout with some notable exceptions through the years, although it’s been on every standard team baseball uniform since the 1957 season.
The inter-locking “STL” logo made its first appearance on the 1901 ballcap. The club rotated through red, white, and blue hats over the years including a long stretch in navy blue hats at home from 1940 through 1963. From 1964-1991 the team wore exclusively red hats for all uniforms and in 1992 brought back the navy blue hats on the road.
The blue hats with red brims have been a tradition at home on Sunday’s for many years.
Lastly, I wanted to point out the socks for St. Louis because they have continued to have the best sock game in all of baseball. It must be preserved.
25 spots too low IMHO, but appreciate the love. Spot on write up
How do we not have the powder blues in a picture? The only thing missing from this picture is that nobody is smoking…So many teams had so many bad unis in the1970s, and St. Louis got a timeless classic.
Also of note, it’s the Cardinals’ home opener today.
I do appreciate you putting Wainwright in the picture. Lifetime Cardinal (unlike Pujols), respected and LIKED by everyone (unlike Yadier Molina). All around stand up dude, and funny. Very much missed.
He’s no So Taguchi, but yeah, he’s good, too.
Modern blues:
There’s the top tier sock game, from our favorite Hawai’ian player.
Ah, So Taguchi. Everybody remembers Adam Wainwright freezing Carlos Beltran with the mother of all Uncle Charlies to finish out the epic 2006 NLCS, and most fans remember Wainwright had that lead because of an unlikely Yadier Molina home run in the top of the 9th.
But real fans remember we only got to game 7 because of so clutch So Taguchi in game 2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfkr19WnK4M
Cardinals won’t have these jerseys “until June, at the latest” due to production delays – https://www.newsweek.com/sports/mlb/mlb-news-nike-testing-jersey-options-response-negative-feedback-1887064 – it will also impact the Mariners and Twins cream uniforms
A wise and erudite choice. The classic red and whites are the best, but I do love the 80s baby blues.
Fredbird’s a little freak
imvho
so braves fans can throw it onto the field or
well with the new fanatics uniforms i don’t think any baseball uniforms should be here!
Great uniforms. I hate literally everything else about the franchise, but great uniforms.
Exactly, the Cardinals and their fans are the worst, but the uniforms are nice. I’m not a Cubs fan, but I always liked the Cubs home uniforms better in that division. Cubs fans are also an “interesting” group of people.
This might be the me getting put on their team in Little League for multiple years talking, but I hope the writer has the courage to rate the 90’s Devil Rays black uniforms.
C’mon, boom-boom.
It’s current to me, dammit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvd3aEsThbc
Great uniforms — this might be ranked too low