Milwaukee is currently awash in blue and gold, as the city celebrates the Brewers’ first World Series championship. As you probably know, the Brew Crew got those colors from their franchise forebears, the Seattle Pilots, who played their first and only season in 1969 and were then sold to a Milwaukee-based ownership group fronted by future MLB commish Bud Selig about a week before the start of the 1970 season. There wasn’t enough time to manufacture new uniforms for the renamed and relocated team, so the Brewers wore old Pilots uniforms with the insignia removed and new “Brewers” and “Milwaukee” lettering hastily added. That’s why you can see the Brewers wearing the Pilots’ unusual sleeve trim in the photo shown above, which is from the first game in Brewers history.
But what if the sale of the team had been finalized a bit earlier, allowing enough time for the Brewers to wear new uniforms instead of repurposed hand-me-downs? What would those uniforms have looked like? Photos of early Brewers prototype designs have been circulating for years, although it’s never been clear which of them (if any) would have been in line to become the team’s inaugural uniform. Now a fascinating new piece of evidence has emerged — although, if anything, it makes the situation more confusing than ever.