Tonight, the Padres will where the uniform you see above. 80’s night, baby. Padres President Tom Garfinkel tweeted out that photo and I smiled. As a huge supporter of the the Padres brown, I have been searched on eBay for years for a nice authentic Padres jersey from the 1985-1989 era. Old school Padres fans know that era as the ‘brown stripe era’. You see the blue stripes all over the place when you hit up a game at Petco Park. The brown stripes? Not so much. Aside from the pre-1980 jerseys, I’d say they are the most rare. I had one rule: I would not spend over $100 for this brown stripe jersey. Literally, 3 years periodically checked eBay, and I found nothing that looked legitimate.
So, when I saw another fan tailgating awhile back outside of Petco Park wearing an incredibly stitched Roberto Alomar jersey, I was impressed. I walked up to him and saw that it was a Mitchell and Ness jersey, the gold standard in MLB replica jerseys, and said, “Hey, nice jersey.” “Thanks, man.” he replied. I said, “Don’t mean to be rude or anything, but I like it a lot… I’ll give you $50 right now for it.”
He looked at me like I was nuts… or kidding, or something. “Seriously?” “Yeah, man… seriously, 50 bucks cash…as long as it fits me.” “Here, man…try it on.” I did… it fit well enough… slightly big, but after 3 years of searching, for half the price I was willing to pay… I jumped on it. I yelled, “Hey Caster, gimme $50, I’ll get you back later” because I had exactly $6 on me. He gave me the cash. Here is my prize…
Great looking jersey, right? Then I realized something…after I bought the jersey and was already in Petco. My jersey was closer to ‘home’ colors, but with the ‘away’ SD on the front. It should look more like these…
(AP Photo/Doug Pizac, File)
It should have been that darker grayish color of the ‘away’ jersey, right? Weird. I had checked the jersey and it seemed pretty legit. I remembered seeing the standard “Rawlings” logo on the side when I bought it… you know the one.
Then I looked down at the sleeve. That’s when I saw how “authentic” my jersey was.
Sing it with me now. LET’S GO RADRES!!!! clap-clap…clap-clap-clap LET’S GO RADRES!!!! Sunuva… it was half Rawlings, half Padres…and there ya have it.
Radres it is.
-bp