Fashion Week at Deep in the Hole

Being the biggest baseball brain in the country brings with it a certain amount of responsibility and innumerable requests and demands for one’s time. If its not in-depth analysis of rosters or in-game performance, it’s designing and implementing advanced analytics to gain an edge in competition. As you, the loyal readers know, the Defensive Specialist does not back away from these challenges and in fact embraces them.

The latest burden that the Defensive Specialist must shoulder is actually one of his favourite topics (so that doesn’t really make it a burden does it?)  No, its not the follies involved with the sacrifice bunt (that’s an entirely different post). It’s baseball fashion. Many Australian baseball fans will know that each franchise is holding a competition to “name their franchise” which may or may not be a good thing since people are often easily influenced by current social trends (see the Toronto Raptors – foolishly named during the Jurassic Park heyday and forever stuck with a stupid team name). If we’re unlucky we may end up with the ACT Vampires or Sydney Inflation

Anyway, there have been a number of emails and phone calls into Deep in the Hole headquarters seeking the Defensive Specialists input and advice on how each team should outfit their squads for the upcoming ABL season. Ordinarily the Defensive Specialist offers a reasonable daily consulting rate but since the inquiries have been coming in from around the county, the Defensive Specialist decided to offer up some overarching advice for gratis. It’s a little tough to come up with fashion guidance without team names in place since this information may influence colour schemes and whatnot, so the Defensive Specialist has decided to take a look at each teams uniform and colour combinations from last year as a means to guide franchises next year.

There are a couple of principles that are guiding fashion forces in the Defensive Specialist’s life so it is prudent to cover these immediately since every franchise had the Defensive Specialist vomiting in his mouth with their couture choices last year.

Principle 1 – The home team wears white

Principle 2 – The visiting team wears grey

These principles have been in place since Jesus was a lad and all baseball teams should have two sets of uniforms for home and away games.

Principle 3 – Solid colour jerseys are gimmicky

Principle 4 – Vests (jerseys with no sleeves) are also gimmicky but can be pulled off if done in white or grey. When done in solid colour they look like a rodeo clowns outfit

Principle 5 – Teams should have a primary colour and a secondary colour. It is also beneficial if these two colours actually work together.

Principle 6 – uniforms should be timeless. The Yankees have had the same home uniform forever and it works. Pick a look that wont need to be changed in 3 years because you used a font that people will gag over in the near future. The Defensive Specialist is a minimalist and leans heavily towards simple and elegant designs.

Principle 7 – The primary colour should align. Hat, belt and shoes should all be the primary colour (although the majority of teams wear black spikes which is acceptable)

Ok, so that’s a lot of principles but the Defensive Specialist is a fairly disciplined guy and can operate under such constraints.

Lets kick it off with the Victorian Aces who do it up reasonably well on the uniform front.

Right, so the Aces violate Principles 2 & 3 right off the bat. They wear white pants both at home and on the road and a solid colour jersey all season. The Defensive Specialist likes navy blue as a primary colour and doesn’t mind the ‘throwback’ look of the jersey. The hats have a simple ‘V’, which is inoffensive.

So what would the Defensive Specialist recommend? Well for starters, a home and away uniform featuring white and grey jerseys. The solid navy jersey could be mixed in from time to time to break things up or after a loss to get the mojo going again. The problem the Aces have is that the navy jersey has white piping, which would be a fashion faux pas if worn with grey pants. The old-school look definitely works however and could likely be reciprocated onto a white or grey jersey.

The Ace’s look and colour scheme works reasonably well although mixing some pinstripes into either the home or away uniform would add a little something different to the fold. The solid jersey would work well with white pinstripe pants but as mentioned above should never be seen with grey pants (pinstripe or not).

South Australia’s uniform choice upsets the Defensive Specialist on a number of levels. They do the right thing by wearing white at home and grey on the road but choose to wear solid coloured jerseys that also happen to be sleeveless. On top of that they go with two colours (red & navy) in equal proportion with yellow trim – it’s like the Defensive Specialist’s primary school teacher designed the colour scheme “you must work with the primary colours young man!”

Once again, the Defensive Specialist would like to see white and grey home and away jerseys with the red jersey mixed in for something different. A key issue is their colour scheme. They must decide on a primary colour and work off that. If it’s red then they need to embrace red sleeves, belts and socks. Having said that, the Boston Red Sox work around the navy / red issue by going with dark hats and dark belts with red sleeves and red socks. Not the optimal look but definitely workable.

The red vests with navy sleeves have to go – the Defensive Specialist will not bend on that topic, they just look amateurish. The Washington Nationals work with a similar colour palette and their white and grey ensembles don’t look too bad so the Defensive Specialist would recommend that as a starting point in any redesign that may take place.

The Perth Heat is another club that chooses to wear their home white on the road, which is poor form. Additionally they have decided to channel the spirit of 1990 by wearing almost the same uni they sported back in the day. An all grey road uni is definitely the first order of business for the Heat on a uniform front. They do a good job of working off their primary colour – black and then using red, orange and yellow as their secondary colours. In years past the Heat had relied heavily on a solid black jersey but that seems to have been mothballed. If the Defensive Specialist’s memory serves him correctly, the Heat also broke out a sleeveless black jersey and occasionally wore red sleeves underneath that is a totally brutal look and would have been savaged in this space if it made an appearance last season.

The Heat logo leaves a little to be desired the Defensive Specialist must admit. Once again, it’s a retread from the Heats halcyon days. Fortunately graphic design has improved since the 1990’s and something a little less rudimentary could definitely be created. In fact, the Defensive Specialist would actually prefer to see an initial on the cap rather than a logo – gives the look more credibility.

The Defensive Specialist suggests an away grey uni for the Heat with access to an all black jersey for the odd attempt at something different. The red, orange, yellow shoulder stripes are a little much and remind the Defensive Specialist of the Houston Astros and the softball uniforms they sported way back when. Perhaps they could be simplified or removed all together. Finally the logo on the hat needs to go and be replaced with either some design featuring P, H or PH (but not pH unless the naming competition results in a name like Perth Acid, Perth Neutral or Perth Base).

Stay tuned for part 2