The Fitted Cap Fiend: 5/18-5/20 Angels vs. Brown Padres, Blue Padres, Camo Padres

The San Diego Padres are boring. There, I said it. They have no offense. They have no offense because they play in a stadium that would be better suited for cricket than baseball. They have no stars. Hitting 30 HRs as a member of the San Diego Padres is a Ruthian feat. To top it all off, the uniforms that this team wears are just as boring as the brand of baseball that they play. They are baseball's vanilla.

Now that I've got the disparaging remarks about the Friars out of the way, time to shower them with admiration and fascination. During their weekend series with the Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim. I'm not trying to get sued by that city.), they injected a bit of personality and quirkiness into their look on that particular weekend. Don't believe me? Then please sir, please ma'am, allow yourself to fall deeper into this well of reading.

FRIDAY: 70s FUNKY DISCO JOHN TRAVOLTA AFRO PADRES

On this particular Friday night, deep in the heart of Southern California, the Padres decided to break out their 1978 home uniforms. The Angels, who had their fill of throwback-mania last season, decided not to comply. This led to a pretty odd-looking game from an aesthetic point of view. The Angels' current uniforms aren't exactly the Miami Marlins when it comes to modern baseball uniforms, but they're still pretty futuristic looking compared to the art-deco look that the Padres have going on. I mean, seriously, look at this uniform, and more importantly, the hats.

Everything about that hat just screams "Oh wow, it's 1978. Let me pop in my Willie Hutch 8-track while I drive my Pinto to the disco so I can whisper sweet nothings into the ear of the honey with the biggest afro in that club. Out of sight. While I'm at it, let me put on this brown-&-yellow hat because nothing screams out the 70s like weird-looking baseball hats. Far out!" In all seriousness, though, it's definitely a hat & uniform look of it's time. Funky color combination? Check. Pullover? Check. Waistband instead of belt? Check. Only things that were missing were the weird mustaches and the stirrups. Would've been an extremely cool-looking game had the Angels decided to play along w/ Turn Back the Clock night. But this was just awkward-looking. Ah well.

SATURDAY: BLUE "meh" PADRES

I covered these unis way back in November when they unveiled the changes, and now that I've actually covered it in action, my opinion on them is solidified: It is the most "meh" alternate uniform in all of baseball. It's really hard to believe that the Padres went from looking as quirky as they did on Friday to looking like baseball's version of Ambien in the span of 24 hours. Nothing about the uniform is really all that unique, and the hat falls in line with the multitude of navy crown-navy bill-white lettered hats that are all over baseball right now. Not to say that it's a bad uniform...but it's definitely a boring one. If you haven't fallen asleep by this point, then you're about to be rewarded for staving off your slumber with:

SUNDAY: CAMO PADRES

This is the regular Sunday home uniform for the Padres. San Diego is a city with strong military ties, so it's only right that they pay tribute to those military ties with a uniform like this. They've worn camo-heavy uniforms since 2006, and they made the switch to the digital camo in 2011.

When it comes to the jersey, the digital camo looks much better in my opinion than the 2006-2010 jersey, which looked like they slapped a green Padres script on top of a camo shirt that they bought from Dick's Sporting Goods. The digital camo falls in line with what you see our beloved U.S. Troops wear. However, the green hat that went with the 06-10 uniforms trumps the brown monochrome hat that goes with the digital camo. So, while I prefer the digital camo as a uniform, I still wish that they could've found a way to keep that awesome green hat.

However, the reason why this particular series was the subject of this blog was due to the fact that the Padres literally looked like 3 different teams during this weekend. I can't remember another series where a team wore 3 wildly different uniforms over a 3 game series. It's fascinating, and only a team with the scattered uniform history of the San Diego Padres (those words are all 13 links, not just one, btw) could pull off something like this.

However, the Padres looking like 3 different teams over 3 different days wasn't the funniest part of this thing, oh no. Take a look at the 3 pictures below: