Worst Jerseys In History

White Sox ace Chris Sale was suspended without pay by the team on Saturday for destroying the mid-70s throwback jerseys they were going to wear that night.  He claimed that they were "uncomfortable" and that the White Sox should be more concerned with winning games than selling jerseys.  They were 100 percent right to suspend him, but he did have a point about the uniforms.  They're possibly the ugliest things that were ever worn on a baseball field!

The White Sox have a long history of terrible uniforms, but those ones from the mid-70s definitely take the cake.  Untucked shirts with giant collars and shorts.  Why they've been revived I have no idea.  At least they've ditched the shorts on the throwbacks.  These are easily some of the worst uniforms not just in baseball history, but in the history of all of sports.

Who joins the White Sox on this list?  Well, the Houston Astros and their "Tequila Sunrise" motif have to be there.  Of course, a lot of people would argue that these are the classic Astros jerseys, and they lasted a while.  In fact, they're so popular that Adidas made it one of their uniform templates, and there are a number of college baseball/softball teams that have their own version of the design.

I've got to say the original Tampa Bay Devil Rays uniforms from their expansion season rank right up there among the most awful ever to grace a baseball field.  The team was just as bad as their uniforms.  Is it a coincidence that they finally get good and make the World Series the same year they drop the "Devil" from their name?  I think not.

But this is by no means baseball's exclusive domain.  Have you seen some of the uniforms the Philadelphia 76ers have trotted out there in?  The worst have to be the ones Shawn Bradley was subjected to during his career.

Another tall guy who got stuck wearing a terrible uniform was Bryant "Big Country" Reeves.  The Grizzlies have definitely improved on the uniform front since moving to Memphis, but their expansion getup in Vancouver was awful on so many levels.  From the 3D lettering to the gigantic grizzly bear on the shorts to the overuse of teal that ran rampant in the mid-90s.

These New Jersey Nets jerseys from the same era took ugly to another level, though.  Modeled by the late, great Drazen Petrovic, I can't even begin to describe what we're looking at here.  It's like somebody played with the gradient feature on Photoshop a little too long.

Hockey is by no means immune to terrible jerseys, either.  Case in point, the New York Islanders' infamous fish sticks monstrosity.  What was it about the mid-90s?  These uniforms were so terrible on so many levels that the Islanders abandoned them after just two seasons!

And if you thought the Grizzlies were alone in giving the people of Vancouver terrible uniforms to look at, you'd be wrong.  The Canucks have definitely contributed their share of fashion mistakes, as well.  I think you know which one was the worst, though.  I can't decide which was worse, so I'm putting the yellow and brown side-by-side and letting you decide.

Most people don't remember this about the LA Kings, but when they first started, they had the same purple and gold color scheme as the Lakers.  And it lasted a lot longer than it should have.  Fortunately they changed to Raiders black and silver just as Wayne Gretzky arrived.  The yellow ones have actually been revived as throwbacks in recent years, too, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them again if the Kings play in a Stadium Series/Winter Classic.

In the NFL, we get the weekly privilege of the Thursday night "color rush," which the league thinks is a good idea, but isn't.  Last season, we had the "color blind" game between the Bills and Jets, and the "ketchup vs. mustard" matchup between the Bucs and Rams.

There are plenty of full-time current NFL uniforms that are horrible, though.  In fact, with the exception of the Vikings, any uniform that's been changed in the last five years is terrible.  From the Browns looking like a college team (and often playing like one) to the Seahawks with their giant numbers and monochrome to the Bucs with their alarm-clock font.  But it's the Jaguars that take the cake as the worst of the worst in the modern NFL.  Why are the helmets two different colors?

For the most part, I love it when NFL teams wear throwbacks.  If only to see how uniforms that looked great with leather helmets look so stupid now.  Like that game every year when the Steelers bust out the bumblebees for all of our enjoyment.

Meanwhile, if you go way back to the inaugural season of the AFL, you've got the Broncos and their wonderfully awful brown and yellow vertically-striped socks.  Most definitely a far cry from the beautiful orange jerseys that the franchise has since become known for.

This is just a small sampling of the terrible uniforms we've seen over the years.  Some teams (San Diego Padres, Atlanta Hawks, Cleveland Cavaliers) have repeatedly had trouble getting it right, and others just made some terrible miscalculations on redesigns (remember the Sabres' "buffaslug?"), while the NBA made all of its teams wear sleeves on Christmas a few years ago (I think LeBron James called them "pajamas").  And we'll soon get the joy of NBA jerseys with advertising patches on them, since this is apparently European soccer.