What happened to the Marlins road grey uniforms?

After the Seattle Mariners revealed their gorgeous new Sunday alternates, which feature an appealing fusion of old and new design elements, I got to thinking about the Marlins on-field look.

For my money, and I’m sure plenty of Mariner fans will disagree with me, I would say the new blue and yellow digs are Seattle’s best current look.

So I thought about what the Marlins look best in, and I remembered the grey road uniforms. How many of you didn’t know the Marlins even had a grey jersey? Grey jerseys and pants have long been the traditional road getup for baseball teams; it’s been that way for over 150 years. But the Marlins, a team that doesn’t exactly adhere to baseball tradition, almost never wear their grey road uniforms.

They actually haven’t worn them since 2012, their first season in the red-orange color scheme.

What the team does instead is break out the black uniform tops with the grey pants on the road. They do this way too often. Thanks to Chris Creamer’s excellent SportsLogos.net MLB uniform tracker, we know that the Marlins wore black on the road 59 times last year. That’s way too much black for a team featuring a vibrant, energetic color scheme and that plays in a place like Miami. It’s also a very outdated look that the team jumped on in the mid-2000’s when seemingly every team in sports had a black alternate. It was “trendy” back then, but the Marlins should have moved on long ago.

In 2013, Jose Fernandez broke the mold in his first MLB start, when he decided the team would wear the alternate orange jersey with the grey pants at Citi Field. That was the first time the team did that. I think the orange jersey is a great look, — I actually think it goes better with the grey pants than the home white pants.

The Marlins utilized the orange/grey combo 18 times in 2013, and 20 times last year. They actually haven’t had much success in that look, going 5-15 on the road last year and 9-9 in 2013.

On the road in the black jerseys, the Fish went 28-31 in 2014 and 17-44 in 2013. Maybe the road greys would bring them some better fortune?

The last time the Marlins wore grey (besides the throwback games from the last two years; those don’t count), Nathan Eovaldi was on the mound for a game at Turner Field against the Atlanta Braves. That was September, 2012. That means the Marlins left the beautiful grey jerseys on the shelf for two full seasons. It’s a shame, because maybe aside from the sharp all-white home uniform, in my opinion the Marlins road greys are their best look. The colorful “Miami” script really pops against the grey, rendering a unique and attractive aesthetic. If only the Marlins realized this.

Does anyone else miss the Marlins road grey uniforms? Am I in the minority with this opinion? Can you tell it’s the offseason and news is slow around here?

Don’t worry, pitchers and catchers report in just 25 days.

Update: Apparently Loria is not a fan of the uniforms. Of course he doesn’t.

@Ehsan_Kassim Loria doesn't like the uniform. NY reporter got that info Stanton at last year's All Star Game
— Fish@Bat (@fishatbat) January 26, 2015

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