Brewers Concept Uniform - Matt Malinoski

More Uni Watch goodness from the weekend, this time a concept uniform for the National League Brewers that builds on the legacy of our Brews.

Concepts are a regular feature on Uni Watch, and Weekend Editor Phil Hecken had a great one for us yesterday, introducing us to the work of Matt Malinoski and his concept uniforms for Major League clubs. Yesterday, we saw his designs for the Red Sox and the NL Central.

Here's his proposal for the Brew Crew:

He describes the concept this way:

This concept is derived from the 1943 AA Brewers home uniforms. The colors are reversed, based on what I have read about its color scheme. I got the idea from the uniform that "Owgust" is wearing in the illustration from one of their program covers. I used the "M" from their 1942 set because the 1943 caps had a very plain sans-serif "M" and I added a white outline to it. These have a button front instead of a zipper because the zipper breaks up the "w". Made a barrel man patch on sleeve. Road uniform is a gray version of the home uniform, instead of the red-and-white one they wore. Included 1940s jacket. This was my entry for the Youniform contest.

Outstanding.

The uniform, as he notes, is a color-flipped version of the Brewers uniforms introduced by Bill Veeck, with its elegant "Brewers" script and piping at the neck and cuffs. The blue is also darkened a bit to the 1947-52 navy rather than the royal of the early 1940s.

I'm afraid that his dates are a bit confused, no doubt because the Brewers of that period wore two entirely different uniform sets at Borchert Field.

The other was a holdover from the pre-Veeck era; white jerseys and pants with thick blue piping and a red block "M" on the chest.

Introduced in 1938 or '39, it appears to have persisted as an alternate of sorts after the introduction of Veeck's uniform. Photo cards of the players, produced by Grand Studio and sold at Borchert Field, featured the block-M uniforms in 1943.

Why two different uniform sets? Why hang on to the old one at all? I'm afraid that I don't know. And in any case, the Brewers appear to have dropped that one entirely by 1944.

This will all hopefully be a little clearer when we start to roll out our Brewer uniform history later this year.

So let's look at the details. The block "M" comes from the pre-Veeck uniform, the rest from Veeck's uniform.

It's a little too heavy on red for our True Blue Brew Crew to wear, but looks good on its own. And I'll never get tired of seeing that script.

We've discussed the early-1950s jacket before; it's fantastic. This particular version of Owgust comes from 1952; it's a solid image of the character (one we use for our iOS homescreen icon), and setting him in a roundel is a good choice. I like the deco-ish font, too.

Excellent work, Matt!

Phil notes that we can expect to see Matt's take on the NL East next. Can't wait to see it.