On November 19th 1961, Ray Gatto, a sports cartoonist, designed the New York Mets logo. The logo was created with hope of representing all facets of what makes New York so unique and so great. The logo has a sky line in the background, but the creator points out all the fantastic nuances of that skyline; a church spire symbolic of Brooklyn, the Williamsburg Bank, at the time the tallest building in Brooklyn, the Empire State Building and the Whitestone Bridge. The Mets choose the colors blue and orange as a symbolic return of national league baseball to New York, the blue for the departed Brooklyn Dodgers and the orange for the former New York Giants. Both teams have obviously exited to the left coast, but this form of tribute has gone by the boards and this is what pisses me off.  Sometimes I wonder how I even tolerate remaining a Mets fan. One day I woke and the Mets were not the Mets anymore, they were wearing uniforms that belong in the MLB version of Any Given Sunday -  black hats, black shirts, pinstripes, home whites, road grays, and now a fucking batting helmet that looks like it should be worn by someone in a roller-ball game. Who the hell is in charge of "tradition" on this baseball team? I understand the alternate black uniform makes more money for these teams, but tell that to the Yankees (who I despise by the way). They have been wearing pretty much the same exact uniforms since they stepped on the playing field, and still sell more shirts, hats, and Yankee logo thongs than any team in any sport. I'm going to a Mets game tonight and, when I get there, I'll look around and there will be a sea of different uniform shirts and five versions of their hats. Why? Because the Mets have no respect for tradition anymore. A few years ago they agreed to host "Turn Ahead the Clock" night at Shea Stadium, and all I need to say is it was seriously almost my last Mets game.

The date was July 27, 1999.  The temperature hit 93 degrees in the parking lot at Shea as I stood out there pounding Bud cans in the center field parking lot. The pre game conversation is normal yet excellent knowing that I have a full 4 hours ahead where I could be a complete mental jackass and walk away unscathed. I turn to Gumby and get the feeling he wants to see the first pitch, so after back to back Marlboro lights, we head into the pathetic circle known as Shea Stadium.

The 90 year old man at the gate rips my ticket without a greeting and we all move though the turn style. Two steps in and we're accosted by some poor bastard with a gigantic box.  He is frantically handing out dark blue baseball caps emblazoned with silver emblems - they looked demonic and fit like a yarmulke.  Accordingly, our hats and many others are quickly and methodically hurled off the escalator into the bowels of Shea.  So far it's really is no different from any other random Met game. I have five beers in me before the first pitch and am checking my cigarettes to make sure I have enough to smoke 2 an inning.  I spend $54 dollars on a round of buds, and my change is handed to me soaking wet. Nothing new there... but then we head to our seats.

On our way to the seats I glance at the field. I turn to Denis and demand to know "who the fuck is playing before the Mets".   As we arrive at our seats, we again glance at the field and wonder why the two teams warming up are unrecognizable.  Well, on that hot summer night in 1999, the New York Mets had welcomed us to "Turn Ahead the Clock Night".
 
The Mets had transformed into the Mercury Mets for the evening. My initial reaction to this horrific PR debacle was to punch Gumby in the face, I'm not exactly sure why, but my level of disgust was so out of control that violence seemed to be my only outlet. Wait, this gets much, much worse. As the teams take the field (by the way, the Mets were playing the Pirates that night and I'm not sure what their "future night' name was, but who really gives a shit - this whole thing is a disaster), the Shea announcer starts introducing the players and this is where this experiment goes completely off the rails. Rickey Henderson steps into the batter's box. This is a first-ballot Hall of Famer who has played for 22 years and is now being presented to this MLB crowd as a green alien with 3 eyes on the NY Mets Diamond Vision. All you could say was "Holy F*ck". This went on forever, with players stationed at positions like "left sector" and Oral Hershiser on the "center pod."  

I'm sure you get the picture, tonight was "future night" so of course that means that the Mets are wearing bowling shirts.  Also there were green men on the diamond vision - In the future, there are green men.  Also, in the future we no longer say yes, we say affirmative.  I'm sweating my ass off trying not to throw up from that last sip of warm grog at the end of every bud that I am pounding to ease the pain of this experience.  This night was a travesty to rival any version of American Gladiators. 
 
In 1999 there were a few teams that were guilty of this sort of blasphemy and variations of this sort continue today with uniform changes and other similar garbage that tarnishes the dignity of baseball.  I'm not sure what Major League Baseball was thinking, but it leads me to my next thought. Where the hell has tradition gone when it comes to these teams and their uniforms? Why must the Celtics have a black alternate jersey?  Can you imagine Bird hitting his 350th foul shot in a row wearing black?  Or Tony Gwynn making a run at .400 wearing camouflage; perhaps Larry Csonka busting into the end zone with a bloody nose and a Tangerine jersey?  When people tell me that these teams have to keep up with the times, I say bullshit. Bottom line, stop fucking with the uniforms, unless you're the Tampa Bay Bucs (thank God someone finally noticed that they were wearing a helmet with a picture of a flamingly gay and disturbingly satisfied looking pirate).  We root for the colors and when you take that away all hell breaks loose.  Everything else may change; the players come and go, the stadiums get bigger and smaller, the hot dogs get replaced by sushi, but the colors should stay with us forever. When you start fucking with the colors of your team you are destroying the most fundamental premise of any sport. At the end of the day, we root for the colors above all else.