Texas Rangers Go Back To The Future With Anniversary Jerseys

That celebration will include new alternate uniforms, detailed by Paul Lukas at Uni-Watch. (Better to celebrate this way, I think, than to honor the 1972 Rangers, an awful 100-loss squad that was the worst in baseball that year.)

The throwback uniforms will resemble those worn by the handsome fellow pictured in this post, Adrian Devine, who pitched for the Rangers in 1977, the year this photo was taken. The Rangers wore uniforms like these, or variations thereof, from 1972 through 1982, before changing their uniforms seemingly every couple of years. Even today, the Rangers don’t seem to have figured out a single style; sometimes they wear red tops, sometimes blue ones, sometimes sleeveless ones.

They wear white jerseys with red lettering at home. Except when they wear white shirts with blue lettering. The cap color matches the color of the jersey lettering. Except when it doesn’t.

The new/old alternates won’t completely resemble the 1972-82 style; Rangers road uniforms in those days were powder blue; the new alts will be gray.

Truth be told, the throwback alts at least say “Texas” to me; they come complete with a little Ranger badge that you can see on the bottom of the “R”. They’ll also include a 40th anniversary patch which, although a bit cluttered, also seems very “Texas”. If the team would go back to using those full-time, they’d have much more of a local identity than they do now with the bazillion combinations they’re using.

Just promise us one thing: that with the throwback alternate uniforms, they don’t also bring back these sideburns:

Ouch. Careful, Toby. You could cut yourself on those.