WHAT HAPPENED to big elaborate sleeve/neck cuffs?

[LostExpo]

Ok so the giants and pirates for example they have the nice braided sleeve and neck cuffs on their jereys.......... some teams like the royals have little stripe braides that are sewn on the sleeve....... and only a few teams like the phillies have the full thick seperatly attached cuffs......... whatever happened to the elaborate BIG neck and sleeve cuffs like the ones the royals used to have around the George Brett era, the royals went from having elaborate seperate attached-like cuffs to a tiny little sewn on braid that is really small and just draws a line across the sleeve

back to the giants and pirates 2011 jerseys, they do NOT have the old style cuffs like the phillies road greys sleeves do..... they just have a braid sewn on top of the material.......... i mean dont get me wrong i would much rather have cuffs over no cuffs........BUT i like the big elaborate "all one cuff" style cuff.........

btw.... if anyone would like to talk about cuffs, braids, and V necks braids, i'd love to hear

[John in KY]

Ok so the giants and pirates for example they have the nice braided sleeve and neck cuffs on their jereys.......... some teams like the royals have little stripe braides that are sewn on the sleeve....... and only a few teams like the phillies have the full thick seperatly attached cuffs......... whatever happened to the elaborate BIG neck and sleeve cuffs like the ones the royals used to have around the George Brett era, the royals went from having elaborate seperate attached-like cuffs to a tiny little sewn on braid that is really small and just draws a line across the sleeve

back to the giants and pirates 2011 jerseys, they do NOT have the old style cuffs like the phillies road greys sleeves do..... they just have a braid sewn on top of the material.......... i mean dont get me wrong i would much rather have cuffs over no cuffs........BUT i like the big elaborate "all one cuff" style cuff.........

btw.... if anyone would like to talk about cuffs, braids, and V necks braids, i'd love to hear

Times change, styles change, etc. Look at the Pirates current jerseys - that thin braid is a throwback to the style of trim the team used in 1950s and 1960s - up through 1970 (they still wore the old uniforms until they moved into Three Rivers in mid-season). A lot of teams have just decided to to back to earlier styles. Same with the Royals - they did use blue braid/piping on their original uniforms until they switched to pullovers.

The wide striped cuffs, v-necks, etc. were all part of the moved from old lightweight flannel uniforms to polyester double-knits in the 1970s. But baseball is perhaps the most traditional of all the team sports in terms of uniforms so in the mid-late 1980s it began to swing back to traditional styles and away from the bright colors, wide stripes, pullovers, and the infamous "tequila sunrise" Astros and beach-towl White Sox. I don't think these will make a full comeback, but it wouldn't surprise me to see some teams move back from the braid designs to say small cuff stripes like the Yankees roads. Of course, while it doesn't bother me some Yankees purists still think it was an abomination to add the white trim to the letters and numbers and add those cuff stripes.

[LostExpo]

what also happened to the "verticle" braids on the sides and sleeves, like on the old phillies jerseys, the 80-91 era expos jerseys, and those indians jerseys around 1990, etc? not 1 team in the mlb has that style, its sad

[John in KY]

what also happened to the "verticle" braids on the sides and sleeves, like on the old phillies jerseys, the 80-91 era expos jerseys, and those indians jerseys around 1990, etc? not 1 team in the mlb has that style, its sad

A lot of folks on other uniform/logo sites like UniWatch like to call those the "racing stripes" uniforms. Again, it seems like they were a passing thing; not that many teams adopted the uniforms - I only remember the Phillies, Expos, Indians, and Mets as having the "true" racing stripe uniforms (verticle stripes on the sleeves, jersey sides, and pants) although the Mets used pullover jerseys (but never the waistband pants) for all but the last year or two of the uniform.

The Astros "rainbow shoulder" uniforms were sort of like this - the "racing stripe" part was just navy and was on the sides of the jersey and the pants; the shoulders had the full red/orange/yellow rainbow stripes - these were first just road uniforms during the "tequila sunrise" era, then they added a white version as a home alternate. Eventually the white ones took over as the primary and the "tequila sunrise" was dropped. These even made the transition from pullover/waistband to button-down/belted pants for the Astros.

The Mariners used a modified "racing stripe" uniform for quite a while - they had the stripes on the sleeves and pants but not the jersey sides.

As I said in my first post, it seems to me that baseball is the most willing to embrace tradition for their uniforms; we've been in a cycle of teams drawing from their past for at least 20 years in terms of uniform design; even some of the newer teams that tried to have unique uniforms have gone to very plain uniforms like the Rays. We've also seen teams that had colorful uniforms go completely traditional, perhaps even boring, since the 1980s - I'm thinking of the A's going from the gold, green and white jerseys to very plain white and grey; the White Sox also going from the odd navy/white "old timer" set to the early 80s "beach towl" stripes to also having very plain white and grey (until they switched to their current set); etc.