St. Louis Post Dispatch, April 5th 1992

 Last fall, the Cardinals unveiled their new uniforms for the coming season. Fans will get their first official peek on Monday. But they might look familiar.

Peter Cappalino knows why. "Fans want the nostalgia back in baseball," he says.

Capolino is president of Mitchell & Ness Nostalgia Co. in Philadelphia, which holds the license from Major League Baseball to market official replica jerseys.

Today's fan has a desire to look back, he said, "because they've developed a romantic image of the players of the past, the ones who played for the love of the game. Some fans want to distance themselves from today's players, who seem to think only of money, money, money."

So in honor of the Cardinals' 100th anniversary, a new uniform, nostalgic fans and the fact that the Cardinals' logo of the birds on the bat is, in Cappalino's words, "so beautiful and so easily recognizable," here's a look back at the clothes that made the men.

The Early Years: Teams originally were known only by the city from which they hailed. They took their original nicknames from the color of the socks they were assigned to wear. Originally the Browns, the team name was changed to Cardinals in 1899 because of the socks.

Nicknames didn't appear on uniforms until 1905, according to Marc Okkonen's "Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century" ($35, Sterling Publishing). The Cardinals were only the fourth team to adopt them, in 1918.

Other features of uniforms at the turn of the century includes construction of 8-ounce flannel and a variety of shirt styles: first lace-up, then pointed-collar, then cadet collars, then collarless.

The '20s: The major breakthrough for the Cardinals began in 1921, according to a story that originally appeared in a 1943 edition of The Sporting News.

Cappalino includes the tale in his catalog of vintage clothing because "it's so schmaltzy, it's priceless."

The logo was conceived by Allie May Schmidt in 1921. She was decorating for a dinner at which Branch Rickey, then vice president of the Cardinals, was to speak. Searching for ideas she stared out the window and spied two redbirds perched on a bare tree branch. She made cardboard cutouts of them for centerpieces.

Rickey was so enamored of the idea that he adopted the emblem for the uniforms the next season.

It was a hit with the fans, Okkonen writes. "It helped offset the routine dullness and conformity of baseball uniforms in the '20s."

But they were hardly a tradition. The birds on the bat were dropped from the home uniform in 1926, when the Cardinals won their first World Series, and were replaced the following year by a single bird circled by the words WORLD CHAMPIONS.

Numbers made their first appearance. Players received the number of their position in the batting order. The system quickly grew impractical.

The Gas House Gang: The birds returned in 1928 but in 1930, ST. LOUIS temporarily replaced CARDINALS on the front of the uniform. CARDINALS returned in 1933, with extra piping along the button front.

Zippered shirts first appeared in 1939. The Cardinals adopted it, but not without misgivings.

"They were tricky," said former equipment manager Butch Yatkeman, who began his Cardinals career as a batboy in 1931 and retired in 1982. "They weren't the same quality as you'd find today. They ran clear to the bottom of the shirt, so it was easy for them to fall off the track and come undone."

Yatkeman's solution was "to have the shirt bottoms sewn together, so the players would have to put them on over their head. No more broken zippers."

Throughout the decade, the team wore a white had with red bill.

The '40s: In 1940, the team adopted a cap with solid navy blue crown with STL monogram and red bill. On the road they wore the same hat with a bird logo in place of STL.

Because of the popularity of night games, some teams in the '40s and '50s donned satin jerseys in hopes of being seen better. The Cardinals did not.

Major and minor changes to uniforms abounded in the '40s. Striping on socks varied for home and road uniforms, patches on the sleeve appeared and disappeared, piping on the sleeves was added, the "C" in Cardinals was elongated, position of the birds was changed.

"There was not tradition then," said Dave Eshelman, plant manager of the Liebe Co., which has sewn the birds on the bat on the Cardinals uniforms for more than a half-century. "The fans didn't seem to have a longing for tradition. They could change styles more often without worrying about tradition."

Bill Smith started with Rawlings Sporting Goods Co. 49 years ago as a designer, so he made his share of changes. Rawlings for years was the official supplier of uniforms to all major league teams.

"Sometimes you have to deal with the club owner's wife," said Smith, now head of pro sales. "Maybe she drew a sketch. Sometimes an artist would have a concept.

"Often enough, artists wouldn't know what would work. There had to be a lot of compromises, and that often meant a lot of minor changes."

The 1950s: More minor changes: The amount of piping down the front diminished; the zipper disappeared in 1956; fusable plastic lettering replaced felt, notorious for fading, shrinking and bleeding.

But one major change, in 1956, demanded not to go unnoticed.

Frank Lane was general manager that season and was told to revamp the team. He replaced three starters in the pitching rotation, traded Red Schoendienst to the Giants for Alvin Dark, then wiped the birds on the bat off the uniform.

"He was told to remake the team," said Jerry Vickery, curator of the Hall of Fame Museum at Busch Stadium. "He took them literally."

"I think it was a whim," Smith said. "People reacted pretty quickly."

And negatively. Fans disliked the new look, which was clean, modern, sterile. The club finished second. The birds returned.

Perhaps ironically, players didn't have much to say about their uniforms.

"It's a good thing," Yatkeman said. "The uniform they were handed is the one they wore."

Yatkeman noted, however, that players from the '30s through the '60s were much more superstitious that latter-day players about their numbers. Often, when a player was traded to the Cardinals, Yatkeman would have to work fast to get a new players' old number sewn on in time for his first game.

"Once we were in Philadelphia when a player came to us and I needed the job done in a hurry. I went to a tailor who was closing up shop. He was going to the race track. I twisted his arm to get the job done."

His argument?

"I told him he would have lost in the first race, anyway."

The '60s: Subtle tailoring became noticeable. The pants began to taper slightly and were less roomy in the hips, thighs and knees.

The solid red cap replaced navy in 1964, and a wool/orlon blend replaced flannel. Numbers appeared on the front of the Cardinals uniform for the first time in 1962.

Some teams tried to capitalize on color TV. The A's, in gold and green, and later the Astros with their rainbow shirts tried some snappy color combinations that didn't last.

The '70s: The Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates broke ground when they introduced the pullover, double-knit uniform in 1971. The advantage was the fabric's light weight, comfort and durability.

Its biggest effect was to make players more body - and image - conscious.

"Players tend to think those uniforms make them look good," Smith said. "I don't think some of them look in the mirror."

Yatkeman, though, preferred double knits to their predecessors.

"Some of the players had silly reasons for disliking the pullovers," he said. "Maybe because they had to their caps off and that would muss their hair."

Also popular in the '70s were blue road uniforms, which gradually died out. "The lettering won't pop - it's harder to see," Smith said. "Gray is easier to read."

As a player's image became more important, so did personal style in uniforms. Yatkeman's favorite story is about George Hendrick, who came to the Cardinals from San Diego in 1978. He found out from the Padres' equipment manager that Hendrick liked his pants long. He has to special order the pants, which took a while.

"In the meantime, I got the biggest pair of trousers I could find, ripped out the seams and made them as long as they could be.

"George was practicing in right field when he was spotted by general manager Bing Devine, an impeccable dresser.

"Bing pulled me aside, kind of upset, and said, 'Can't you find a pair of pants that fit that man?'

"I said, 'You told me to keep the players happy. Why get a new player upset? If that's what he wants, make him feel at home."

Through To Today: The uniform remained essentially unchanged through the '80s, except for the change from blue to gray road uniforms in 1985 and red shoes replacing black in 1973.

This season's uniform is still tight and double-knit, but the shirt is a spitting image of the one used by the Cards in 1968.

"I know it's part of the good old days, but you'll never get players in flannel again," Smith said. "Anyone who ever had to wear them wouldn't want to."

"At least their hair won't get mussed," Yatkeman added.

Yatkeman had just one piece of advice for his predecessor, Buddy Bates, when he found out that the new Cardinals uniform had buttons.

"He better know how to sew them back on."
Illustration

Caption: PHOTO (COLOR) by Kevin Manning/Post-Dispatch ... ABOVE: Busch Stadium's refurbished Hall of Fame Museum features a new display of vintage uniforms that includes, from left: one of the first with the birds on the bat from the early '20s; a jacket and cap worn by members of the 1927 team, the year after the Cards won their first World Series; a Gas House Gang uniform of the '30s; a zippered uniform and jacket from the '40s; a Ken Boyer uniform from the '50s; Lou Brock and Bob Gibson's from the '60s; Ted Simmons' from the '70s; and Ozzie Smith's from the '80s. PHOTO (COLOR) by Brian Baer/St. Petersburg Times ... Rex Hudler models the latest in baseball fashion, a throwback to the button- down days of the '60s. The team will don these for opening day on Monday. PHOTO (COLOR) by Post-Dispatch ... ABOVE: No one was more noted for the tight, stretchy uniforms and personal style of the '70s and '80s than George Hendrick, who started a fad for extremely long pants. PHOTO (COLOR) by Post-Dispatch ... LEFT: Stan Musial dons a uniform from the late '50s. PHOTO by UPI ... Fred Hutchinson, center, was hired as manager in 1956 as part of the Cardinals facelift along with players Charles Peete, left, and Bob Blaylock, all in the unpopular birdless uniforms.