Brown: Can a baseball uniform be black-balled?
From SABR member Craig Brown at Threads of our Game on February 7, 2020:
With their uniforms, Boston was the most inventive team of the 19th century. They were first to put their city name on the shirt in 1871, first to have a true road uniform in 1886, first to reject the pillbox cap in 1891, and first to sew a letter onto their cap in 1894. But then, there was the Boston road uniform of 1897, described by some writers as “a marvel of ugliness.” Frank Selee designed it with a big, black baseball on the shirt, and after a 1-6-2 start in April, the superstitious Boston players voted to black-ball the black ball. There are no known photos of this unique uniform, so its Threads to the rescue.
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Originally published: February 12, 2020. Last Updated: February 12, 2020.