On July 20, 1999. the Dodgers were at Three Rivers Stadium for a Tuesday afternoon getaway-day game. (This was right after the All-Star break, so the L.A. series started Sunday.) Kevin Brown, who had signed baseball's first $100 million dollar contract, pitched for the Dodgers, and I was one of the 16,921 who came out to see him.
The game itself wasn't bad. Los Angeles scored four runs off Jason Schmidt to take a 4-0 lead into the bottom of the fifth. Brant Brown hit a two-run homer to cut the lead to 4-2, and Warren Morris' seventh-inning double tied the score, 4-4. Todd Hundley hit a two-run home run off Brad Clontz in the eighth, and the Dodgers scored two more in the ninth to win, 8-4, raising Kevin Brown's record to 10-6 and lowering the Pirates' record to 46-47. (Browns fans will be happy to know that Adrian Brown also pinch-hit for the Pirates.)
But what always stuck with me about that game was that the Dodgers wore blue jerseys. The next day, neither the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette nor the Los Angeles Times mentioned it. At that point, the Internet wasn't quite ready to cater to every obscure group, so I had no idea that seeing the Dodgers in those jerseys was historic. Over the years, I've gotten to know Ross Yoshida, who is now the Dodgers' Director, Design Services, in the uni watching corners of the net, and we did an email interview about an event that's never been documented.
Jerry Wolper: Why did the Dodgers wear their batting practice jerseys that day?
Ross Yoshida: Clubhouse manager at the time, Mitch Poole, tells me that it was basically a Kevin Brown-led insurrection. Brown was the starting pitcher that day and basically asked his teammates to wear the road BP jersey. I would guess that, since it was fairly hot and the game was played on the old artificial turf, he wanted a more breathable top to pitch in? Whatever the case, it never happened again.
JW: Is it possible that Brown wanted a different jersey to change his luck? (He was 0-2 with a 7.27 ERA in his last four starts.)
RY: Sure. But no one besides Brown himself could say. On a side note, he started a revolt earlier in the season against the club-issued white BP caps. They were all burned in a bonfire and never worn again.
JW: The team had worn different blue jerseys before that, right? For Think Blue week?
RY: Yes. In early June, the Dodgers wore blue jersey tops specifically designed for Think Blue Week. These were designated as the Dodgers’ official home alternate jersey and were made out of the conventional (at the time) double-knit material. Previously, in 1998, the team wore regular home BP jerseys for Think Blue Week with a “Think Blue Week” patch affixed to the left sleeve. These were a mesh material and were the exact same as the regular home batting jersey with the exception of the sleeve patch.
JW: How unique were these as Dodger jerseys?
RY: As far as I know, July 20, 1999 was the only time the Dodgers have ever worn a Dodger blue jersey on the road in a regular-season game. It’s also the only time a mesh batting practice jersey was worn on the road. The road BP jersey was unique in a few other ways… it was the first road-specific BP jersey the club ever wore, it was the first official Dodger jersey with a left-chest insignia since 1931 and was the first official Dodger jersey to utilize gray lettering.
JW: Was this the first time the Los Angeles Dodgers wore jerseys without script?
RY: Yes.
JW: Have the Dodgers worn jerseys without script since?
RY: Never on the field of play. Some of those LA jerseys were repurposed in Minor League Spring Training games for years.
JW: Do we know of any occasions where the Brooklyn Dodgers went away from the script after adopting it in 1938?
RY: I’m 99.99% sure the Dodgers have never worn any non-script jerseys on the field since 1938.
So there we have it. Barring something really obscure in Brooklyn in an era where such things didn't happen, the only time in more than 80 years that the Dodgers haven't worn script on their chests was in a Tuesday afternoon game in Pittsburgh. It may not be the Immaculate Reception, or even the Pirates coming out in beltless uniforms when Three Rivers opened, but this was another historic moment at the stadium.
(Many thanks to Ross Yoshida.)
