1971 Dodgers road uniform stripe

I guess, this is a great example of the old adage: You learn something new every day.

Yesterday, like I do most every day, I was surfing around the internet with no purpose. I discovered a dozen or so previously unseen by me Dick Allen images on the ever expanding Getty Images database. It is moments like this that inspire me to keep surfing, because you really never know what you will find.

One of the images I found is a great capture of Dick Allen, at bat for the 1971 Los Angeles Dodgers. There really are not that many available images from that single season in LA. Over the years I have grabbed and saved every DA Dodgers picture I could find. With a single exception, every image I have seen was taken with DA wearing the Dodgers home whites. The thing that makes this newly discovered image special to me, is the fact it was taken on the road, and DA is wearing the Dodgers road greys.

I've never been a huge fan of the Dodgers, but I will admit their uniforms have always been one of the best and most enduring in baseball. I was very surprised when I discovered the the 1971 Dodgers wore a vertical shoulder stripe on their road uniforms. I am someone that pays attention to that kind of stuff -- and I honestly never noticed it before.

My curiosity spiked, so I looked it up on the Baseball Hall of Fame uniform database... and sure enough, if you look close enough, the stripe is there. I find it interesting and telling the Dodgers did this only for one season, returning to what appears to be a lighter shade of grey for the 1972 season.

Not willing to let a dead horse just sit there and be dead, I pulled a couple of 1972 baseball cards (images assumed to be made during the 1971 season). How I missed the existence of this stripe, I have no idea.

One last thing... based on this picture (taken on February 28th, 1972) featuring Frank Robinson, Larry Hisle, and Tommy John... the change to the "no stripe" design did not happen until after the 1972 spring training had already started.