The White Sox Aesthetic

[Lip Man 1]

In 2008 I had the chance to interview Brooks Boyer on a number of things including uniforms and "Throwback Day's / Night's". Really enjoyed the time with him. Since this thread deals with uniforms I thought some may be interested in Brooks' response:

ML: “Throwback’ games and weekends are very popular around Major League baseball. Last year the Sox had the chance to honor the 1967, 1972 and 1977 clubs on their 40^th, 35^th and 30^th anniversaries respectively, yet you chose to go in a different direction. This isn’t a criticism but I’m wondering why you didn’t? 

BB: “That’s a very fair question. With no disrespect to those teams, some of the best loved in Sox history, they didn’t get to the World Series. To some fans, 1977 for example, just isn’t relevant. We honored the 1959 team with a weekend because they got to the World Series. A few years ago we honored the 20^th anniversary of the 1983 team because they were special to a large number of our fans. We’re going to do something again this season on the 25^th anniversary but it won’t be as involved. We’ll have a game where we wear the 1983 style uniforms. We’ll also have our “Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day,” where we wear the green uniforms and we’ve got the camouflage jerseys on July 4^th. We don’t want this to become gimmicky; we want to do things that are relevant to our current fans. (Author’s Note: It was at this point that I tried to sell Brooks on the idea of the red pinstriped era, aka Dick Allen and how special that was to my generation!)

 

[pcq]

On 8/9/2018 at 11:04 PM, Tannerfan said:

So I’m mostly a reader, not much of a poster. I’ve been reading the debates about Moncada and Rick Hahn. I check in on the game threads almost every game, and I read a lot about the prospects in the minors. 

But tonight I’d like to post a topic that I think should be discussed even though for many fans I think it’s probably a trivial matter. 

And that is the look of the team, especially as we enter into hopefully a new faze of being one of the better teams in baseball by 2020.

My first puzzlement is why does a team named the White Sox wear black socks? While most players wear their pants down to their shoes and sock color doesn’t matter, a number do go with the more traditional old school look of pants at the knees with high socks, and ours are the wrong color. Check out the Red Sox, they wear red ones! I think we should go with white so our next contending team has a look that supports our name.

I love the look of the home pinstripe whites, and the traditional road grades and find it frustrating that the team chooses to wear the black so called alternative jersey for so many games. Obviously I’m a traditionalist and I look at the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Dodgers and love the classic look they wear.  I’d love to see the White Sox go down that path and have an aesthetic that respects the long tradition of the game of baseball. 

I’m probably in the minority. Most here are younger and probably love the black jerseys. But I grew up with the late 60’s team looking traditional and classy and then had to live through all of the uniform nightmares of the 70’s and 80’s that includes some pretty awful teams.

So in conclusion it’s an off day, no game to watch and I thought I’d weigh in on my uniform obsession and see what other Sox Talkers think. 

Oh, I’d also love to see some changes to the park but I’ll save that for another day. 

They should wear white socks absolutely. I am beyond tired of the boring drab black jerseys and would love to see navy along with the Sox batter logo. More retros would also be cool. 

[Quin]

3 hours ago, pcq said:

They should wear white socks absolutely. I am beyond tired of the boring drab black jerseys and would love to see navy along with the Sox batter logo. More retros would also be cool. 

The black are anything but drab.

[Tannerfan]

8 hours ago, Fan O'Faust said:

I think most of the flaws of the original design of “New Comiskey Park” were corrected with the renovations made in the early-to-mid 2000s.  The upper deck still isn’t great, given the steep pitch and the entrance being at the base of the deck rather than somewhere in the middle.  Outside of that, though, and somehow magically picking the park up and turning it around to face the city skyline, not sure what’s left to do outside of the typical updates each year.  

I’d love to see them move the fences back. I was really impressed with the dimensions at Camelback Ranch. I think a major league park should have power alleys around 380 feet not in the low to mid 370’s.

I think a bigger outfield would help the type of team we are building and you’d still see a lot of home runs. 

[Thad Bosley]

27 minutes ago, Tannerfan said:

I’d love to see them move the fences back. I was really impressed with the dimensions at Camelback Ranch. I think a major league park should have power alleys around 380 feet not in the low to mid 370’s.

I think a bigger outfield would help the type of team we are building and you’d still see a lot of home runs. 

I’m with you on this thought process.  It would also bring the current ballpark in line with its esteemed predecessor.   😊

[TheBlackSox8]

Are black pants allowed?  Make an inverse of the home pinstripes but make them the road jersey.  Wearing all black during the day would be brutal certain times so they could go grey for those games, but all night games, and dome games could work.  The white socks would pop more I think.  Kinda like th '17 or the '25 road jerseys, but a more modern shape to them instead of a classic baggy look.  Go with a full black hat.