Earlier this week I wrote about six MLB teams that have changed their uniforms for the World Series. Shortly after that piece was published, reader Patrick Manion posted a comment about a team he thought I’d neglected to include: “Didn’t the Orioles also make a fall classic change in 71 to double knits or similar?”
The answer is yes — sort of. And the more I looked into the particulars, the more I realized that the Orioles’ uniforms were quite a jumble during the early 1970s. Granted, this was a complicated period for MLB unis overall, because teams were transitioning from flannels to polyester doubleknits, but the Orioles appear to have been in a greater state of flux than most other teams. The situation is further muddled because one of the primary uniform reference guides has done a poor job of documenting it (although another guide, thankfully, has been much better).
Here’s a year-by-year look at what the Orioles were wearing at the dawn of the polyester era: