One day you’re in, the next you’re out – Auf Wiedersehen

The Defensive Specialist is the rare male who combines ridiculous athletic prowess, near-rocket scientist intelligence and impeccable taste - its no wonder the Defensive Specialist is popular! There are only rare occasions during a baseball season when the Defensive Specialist gets to put all 3 traits together and boy-oh-boy when that happens, it’s a sight to behold. Unfortunately, today is not one of those occasions.

No, today, the Defensive Specialist only gets to put his impeccable taste to good use as he runs a serious fashion eye over the latest uniform offerings of the new ABL. The official ABL launch took place last week (the Defensive Specialist is yet to receive his invite) and the occasion was the opportune time to unveil each team’s uniform for the upcoming season. Deep in the Hole would not be your one stop shop for comprehensive baseball insight if the Defensive Specialist didn’t provide honest and open feedback on each team’s efforts.

Initial thoughts? Colour is in in 2010 obviously. 5 of the 6 teams have opted to move away from the traditional all-white at home, all-grey on the road uniforms and decided to go with the softball approach by adding solid coloured jerseys. The Baseball Gods aren’t going to be impressed with that fashion faux pas but we’re trying to jump start a league here folks and the kids love a bit of colour so we’ll just have to buck baseball tradition and make it work. Much to the Defensive Specialist’s surprise (after some of the less than stellar looking hats), the uniforms look pretty damn good.

Unfortunately the Defensive Specialist has limited access to photos of the uniforms so we’re going to have to work off the launch photo and any other random shots that can be found floating around the internet. Lets stop screwing around and get right into it.

Melbourne Aces

Ok, right off the bat, the Defensive Specialist has to make mention of those sleeve stripes because they can only be described as…..FREAKING AWESOME! The Defensive Specialist admits that he derided some of the efforts by Major League Baseball’s crack design team, but whoever came up with the sleeve stripe concept gets a Deep in the Hole Player of the Week award right there. Just a totally different look that works!

Also great to see that teams will have home whites and road greys as Australian Baseball has been known to do away with that little tradition from time to time. The downside? The logo across the chest looks a little amateurish and could probably have done with the plane logo zipping across it above the E and the S.

For a team that was rumoured to have the worst uniform by an aeronautical mile during the offseason, the Defensive Specialist has been extremely pleased with the Aces effort.

Rating: 8.5/10

Sydney Blue Sox

The Defensive Specialist was an unashamed admirer of the hat and the uniform isn’t too bad either. The biggest fear that the Defensive Specialist has is that some kid is going to decide to go ‘pants up’ which will result in him running around with light blue socks on which will look terrible. The uniform colours work really well but the script is a little non traditional and it doesn’t sit too well with the Defensive Specialists classical eye.

Rating: 8/10

Perth Heat

You know the Defensive Specialist has been particularly tough on the very basic and boring Perth Heat logo over the year. That’s not about to change. It’s horrendous. However, the Heat score a big point for going the traditional route and wearing an all white home uniform. Here’s hoping they do the same on the road with grey. The piping down the front of the jersey looks fantastic and the Heat wording across the front works well. In the above picture, the uniform just looks crisp and clean and separates itself from the pack as a baseball uni.

The Defensive Specialist now needs to go and scrub himself like the scene from the Crying Game after complimenting the Heat’s look like that!

Rating: 8/10

Canberra Multiculturalists Cavalry

The hat logo is an abomination, seriously who came up with the idea of 2 C’s humping?….oh never mind, they do play in the porn capital of Australia. Anyway, the Cavalry probably have the most softball styled uniform with the bright orange tops but they do work reasonably well. Black and orange just look good on a baseball diamond. The font of Cavalry across the chest is non traditional but does work. The biggest disappointment for the Defensive Specialist is that the uni designers couldn’t manage to get any of the peach (the colour of the C doing the humping) on the hat into the uni.

Rating: 7/10

Adelaide Bite

The Defensive Specialist really wavered on this one. It’s like the huge script of the Bite on the chest is designed to take a bite out of your face it’s that big. Seriously, the team name could be a jersey of its own. Are people in Adelaide short sighted and need some assistance picking their home team? The Adelaide uniform colours work quite well, but it’s a bit too busy for the Defensive Specialist. You have the weird teeth chomping bat on the hat and then a gigantic BITE on the top. All over the show.

Rating: 6.5/10

Brisbane Bandits

The Defensive Specialist is already on record as stating that maroon should never feature in sporting uniforms and when combined with black it gets even worse. Having said that, the uniform designers have done a semi decent job making this look work. The uniform top does have a bit of a “Metallica” concert t-shirt feel about it but they just toured Australia so at least things are contemporary. It’s a little tough to read the script and yellow piping on a black top make sit look like one of those tuxedo t-shirts that your bogan cousin wears to weddings because he’s too cheap to buy a suit.

Rating: 6.5/10

So there you have it. The Defensive Specialist is sitting back, loosening the bow tie after another exhaustive insight into baseball fashion. Fear not however, the Defensive Specialist wont be resting for any longer than 18 hours as a season opening preview needs to be on your screen by Friday morning. Hit the poll on the top left of the screen to vote for your favourite uniform.