Hopefully you have read the great fantastic super awesome must-read Uni Watch on ESPN about how the black Mets uniforms came to be as well as my initial reaction.
I’m fascinated by this article. We need to savor it. Dissect it. Discuss it.
So that’s what we’re gonna do until we’re done. A little at a time.
Today let’s look at this…
UW: So that explains all the black shadow elements. But how did the solid-black jersey come about?
BH: I remember getting a yell from the office: “Come here, Charlie wants to talk to you for a minute.” So I got on the phone and he says, “I want a black jersey — what should I do, what colors should I use?” And I say, “Blue and white with an orange shadow.” And he says, “Right, OK.” It was that arbitrary. Honest to goodness, Paul, that’s how it was back then — there was no league approval needed …
But then what? Charlie runs upstairs and says, “Hey Fred, got an idea…” and suddenly a softball team takes the field? Someone in marketing must have weighed in. The owner? Someone?
Did Charlie just have 25 uniforms made and hoped nobody would notice?
Do equipment managers have this much influence? If they usually don’t, how did this particular equipment manager get this much influence?
Was there research that made Charlie say to Halfacre that he wants a black jersey? Was he working on someone else’s behalf?
None of my questions are meant to question the article or the interview. I think it’s the greatest thing ever, and this Halfacre fellow is such a fascinating story. Hero? Villain?
But the box has been opened and now I have 8 zillion questions. As I said at the top, we’ll poke at this a little at a time.
my best guess is marketing said: “we need an alternate jersey. everyone is getting one. it’ll let us sell more merchandise.” so charlie logically made the black leap, based on the headwear conclusions they came to.
“UW: Because of Charlie? Or was it a marketing thing?
BH: It was a marketing thing. Marketing wanted black. Remember, this was when the black trend was just starting to gain momentum. Lots of hockey teams were wearing it, all sorts of teams. And one thing the Mets were convinced about was that the Yankees were killing them at retail, especially with the hats, because people didn’t like royal blue. So they wanted a darker color, a black element. I know they paid a couple of designers to mess around with it, but nothing worked out.”
What I get out of the article is that marketing convinced management to go “black”. Charlie got tasked as the “project” guy. Seems kind of old-school to me, equipment manager in charge of getting equipment for the team. Instead of the “Assistant Junior Vice President for Branding/Uniform Acquisition”
I agree with FDD…it’s a shame that Halfacre is a bit contradictory…don’t know if Paul will cross examine him.
My guess is somebody in marketing had the idea to try to add black to make some money for the team, cash in on Men in Black and try to make a name for themself in the organization…they got some designs done but they all looked like crap. I doubt very much it was Charlie’s idea. Why would an equipment manager want the hassle of all those combinations? Up until then, Met uniforms were pretty easy to manage. They did have a beautiful blue road alt in 1982 and a slightly different one in 1983-1985, but that was it.
Charlie didn’t seem to have any idea how to make a black jersey based on the interview. He was just a guy who pushed people to get things done.
It seems to me that it was something ownership tasked Samuels with as dirt dart says and unfortunatly as we have learned not just in this instance but in others gave him a great deal of latitude to do what he wanted. From there he got crazy. He obviously Samuels wanted those uniforms pushed as wha was supposed to be an alternate jersey worn on weekends became there main jersey.