By Ian Harrison
SPORTSNET.CA
The Blue Jays are about to freshen up their feathers, with a new look set to be unveiled Friday. And if the rumour mill is to be believed, the 2012 Jays will sport a stylized version of their original logo, complete with updated colour scheme and enlarged maple leaf. But before they open their wardrobe of the future, The List looks back at Blue Jays uniforms from years past.

Way back on that first snowy game at Exhibition Stadium in 1977, Toronto’s brand new ball club wore the V-neck pullover jerseys and white-panel caps that were popular around baseball at the time. The home whites had the team name across the front, while the powder blue road shirts said ‘Toronto’ for the first two seasons, with Blue Jays replacing the city name in 1979.

The most memorable thing about those 1970’s Blue Jays uniforms was the double line style used for the lettering on the front and the jersey number on the back. Player names were printed in a block script, probably because they’d be too difficult to read otherwise. Some traditionalists loathed the soccer-style font, which was unlike anything else in baseball, but the Jays stuck with the look, in one form or another, for their first 27 seasons.

The Jays didn’t really change anything at all until 1989, when the pullover was turned into a more fashionable button-up shirt. The powder blues were put into hibernation in favour of grey road jerseys with all-blue caps, and the city name returned to the away uniform. The introduction of buttons meant the logo shifted from the centre of the shirt to the left hand side, just below the heart. One more change: the Jays finally got proper belts, instead of the old elasticized waist.

The Blue Jays made two more minor tweaks to their uniforms in 1993 and 1994. Midway through their run to consecutive World Series titles in ’93, the Jays tossed their white-paneled caps into the trash and wore the full blue cap exclusively. And in ’94, Toronto joined the growing trend of teams with third jerseys, adding an all-blue top to their stable.

In their 20th anniversary season of 1996, the Blue Jays introduced another uniform first: special red jerseys for Canada Day. In a July 1 tradition that has continued ever since, Toronto took the player names off the backs of their jersey and replaced them with the word ‘Canada,’ a special birthday treat for fans north of the 49th parallel.

Canada Day isn’t the only holiday Toronto has marked with special uniforms. The Blue Jays have brought their inner Irishman out by going green for spring training games on St. Patrick’s Day on more than one occasion. No word on whether the kelly green kit contained a special holder to pack your pint of Guinness.

Toronto’s first big uniform changes took place before the 1997 season, with the logo and lettering undergoing a major redesign. The maple leaf was beefed up and placed behind the restyled logo, which was moved off the front of the jersey to the left shoulder and replaced by the number. The Jays stuck with their double-line letters and numbers, but filled in the gap between the lines with powder blue on the home jerseys and red on the road greys. Also, the Jays added red piping to their pant legs, and a red bill to the road caps for the 1999 and 2000 seasons.

In 2001 and 2002, the Jays also wore the uniform of an entirely different team for a pair of games, paying tribute to the Negro Leagues by putting on the pinstriped uniforms of the Chatham All-Stars, a barnstorming Ontario team that once boasted pitcher Ferguson Jenkins on its staff. Toronto wore Chatham’s home whites during a 2001 game against Boston, and the All-Stars’ road greys during a 2002 interleague game against the Mets at Shea Stadium.

More changes were in store in 2000, when the Blue Jays adopted an alternate vest-style home jersey with dark blue sleeves setting off the rest of the shirt. The vest became Toronto’s regular road look in 2001, and was altered again in 2003 when the Blue Jays made their primary logo a muscular bird hugging a red T, holding a bat and tossing a ball in the air. But the beefy bird didn’t last more than a season before the Blue Jays underwent their biggest makeover yet.

Before the 2004 season, Toronto switched its logo to a more aggressive bird head bordered by a silver letter J. And, for the first time, the Blue Jays weren’t blue anymore. Only the word Jays appeared on the home jerseys, and the only blue in sight was a touch of trim on the lettering. Toronto wore silvery grey home caps during the first two seasons with the new look, but the black road cap became standard in 2006.

The old powder blues returned when Toronto introduced Flashback Fridays in 2008. At every Friday homegame for three seasons, the Jays were blue again, sporting the v-neck pullovers and white panel caps they first wore way back in the 1970’s. Fans loved the look, but current players weren’t crazy about all the attention being paid to the past, and the promotion was shelved at the end of 2010.