Brown: 19th-century uniform database: 1879 Washington Nationals

From SABR member Craig Brown at Threads of Our Game on March 10, 2018:

Researcher Carson Lorey recently submitted to the “Threads Of Our Game” project a great photo of the 1879 National team from Washington. The Nationals of 1879 played in the loosely organized National Association, a minor league that descended from the International Association of 1878. But, click on the link and look closely at the photo. See anything odd? One might guess that the tailor working on these uniforms was not an educated one—as 6 of the 10 uniforms had the letter “N” sewn backwards onto the shirt bib. Backwards! How did this happen? Or more importantly, why was it not corrected? Were details like this so unimportant? Such was life in the lower ranks of 19th-century baseball, I guess. 

Click on the link and scroll to see detail views of the uniform errors:

http://www.threadsofourgame.com/1879-national-washington-dc/



Originally published: March 15, 2018. Last Updated: March 15, 2018.