Red reigns when it comes to uniform sales

Baseball wants to paint the town red.

Way back when, major league teams nearly always wore white jerseys at home and gray on the road. Now, some teams have so many kinds of uniforms that players can hardly keep track.

In their search for sartorial splendor, not to mention dollars from extra sales, Colorado, Houston and the New York Mets each will use five sets of uniforms this year. That makes for some confusion.

The Mets have white pinstripes, plain white, home black, road black and road gray. Last June 27, Mets catcher Tom Wilson and reliever Jose Parra wore the wrong jerseys for the second game of a doubleheader against the Yankees -- home black shirts with "Mets" in script instead of visiting shirts with a fancy type "New York" -- because the team forgot to bring the correct ones to Yankee Stadium.

On April 10, second baseman Craig Biggio wore a red jersey that read "Houston" instead of the red one with "Astros," mistakenly grabbing a 2003 road shirt from his locker instead of the 2005 home version.

"Nobody noticed," Biggio said. "I had a good game. Maybe I'll wear it again."

In their bid to make baseball's best-dressed list, Houston, Atlanta, Boston and Cincinnati all have red jerseys in their wardrobes this season.

Not coincidentally, all four are among the most trendy threads, topping sales among the 30 teams, according to Steve Armus, vice president for licensing at Major League Baseball Properties.

"Red is an extremely hot color right now, also for batting practice jerseys and for outerwear," he said.

With Majestic Athletic supplying uniforms for all 30 teams for the first time this year, Armus said baseball is on pace to set a record for shirt sales. In all, there are 98 jerseys in use in the major leagues for games, and that doesn't include batting practice shirts.

Just seven teams go with the traditional set of two game outfits: Detroit, the New York Yankees, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Philadelphia, St. Louis, San Francisco and Washington.

"I will not go to alternate uniforms," Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said through spokesman Howard Rubenstein. "The pinstripes represent a great Yankee tradition, and we will maintain that."

The pinstripes are so well known that when the Yankees opened the 2004 season in Tokyo against Tampa Bay, they wore their home uniforms even though they were the visiting team in both games and batted first.

In addition to the regular jerseys, which sell for up to $249.99 on mlb.com, teams occasionally use throwback old-style uniforms for some games. The Boston Red Sox wore special gold-trimmed jerseys ($169.99 on mlb.com) during ceremonies earlier this year in which they received their rings for winning last year's World Series, the team's first title since 1918.

The San Diego Padres break out camouflage jerseys, including sand-colored pants and hunter green batting helmets, once each year for Military Opening Night to honor the troops stationed in their area.

Jack Ensch, a retired Navy captain who is the team's director of military marketing, said more than 1,500 of the jerseys, which sell for $100, have been sold since they were introduced in 2000. The Padres store is out of stock and awaiting a fresh delivery.

"Everybody loves it," Padres outfielder Ryan Klesko said. "Everybody's pumped up about having that day. I think everybody has family in the military and respects those people and what they do."

According to the Hall of Fame database, alternate uniforms have been around for more than a century, with the Boston Braves using three sets in 1900. John McGraw's New York Giants had an all-black alternate uniform they wore for the 1905 World Series. In 1906, after winning their first Series title, the Giants wore shirts that said "World's Champions" on the front, with no reference to city or nickname.

Atlanta's new red jersey, used for Sunday home games, is its first uniform change since 1987.

When the Mets added their black shirts, sales increased immediately. Arizona, Baltimore, the White Sox, Colorado, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Toronto also have black in their closets.

"A lot of people look at black as a cool color, and perhaps not a color of one of the traditional teams," Armus said.

Washington Nationals manager Frank Robinson, more Brooks Brothers than Dolce and Gabbana, prefers the more traditional look.

"To me, it's looking like too much red is coming into the game," Robinson said. "I've always been partial to the interlocking letters. There's nothing more classic than the Yankees' 'NY.'"