The consensus among Mets players is that the black uniforms the team wore from 1998 to 2011 are awesome. And those on the current roster -- including Pete Alonso and Marcus Stroman -- have been pushing for the team to bring them back.
Alonso renewed that call on Saturday night.
"The black unis are the dopest! No cap. It would be a mentality and attitude," Alonso tweeted in response to a graphic of him in the black uniform. "The orange and blue accents are like the city lights in the night sky. So many Mets greats wore the black. My only question is: why not?"
SNY's Andy Martino is firmly in the "why not" camp, though SNY's Todd Zeile -- who played with the Mets when the black uniforms were in the rotation -- is on Alonso's side.
On a recent episode of SNY's The Cookie Club presented by Insomnia Cookies, Dominic Smith and J.D. Davis also voiced support for the return of the black uniforms while discussing the team's current uniform rotation.
"I mean, the old-school black, that's obvious, like that should already be in the rotation," Smith said. "I say we need to bring back maybe the Los Mets ones, the all-orange. I like the orange unis, those were pretty sick, or even the old school 1986 team, the pinstripes, I mean I like that one too. We need a rotation of like five unis so we can swag out. We need the orange. I even like the camo every Sunday for military appreciation night. We gotta swag it out!"
"My least favorite ones are the grey ones," Davis said. "I love the white pinstripes. I love the blue ones, home or away it doesn't matter, but we need to get those black jerseys back, that's for fact. I wish we didn't ever have to wear the grey jerseys because I would just rock the blue ones all the time."
This writer grew up around the time the Mets introduced the black jerseys and caps, thought they were cool at the time, but hated when the black infiltrated their classic orange and blue uniforms (with the names and numbers outlined in black and the team often wearing the black or black and blue caps). That wasn't cool.
But there is definitely a place for the return of the black uniforms, if done right.
Alonso has pushed for the Mets to wear black each Friday night, and that would be perfect -- have the black flavor return to the rotation only sporadically, while keeping the other jersey/cap combos (white pinstripe, road grey, alternate blue home and away) untouched.
While they're at it, they can wear the 1986 unis each Sunday.
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