1895 Detroit (Detroits, Tigers)
Left: This rendering is based on written documentation for uniform style and color. No visual documentation is known and an artist’s conceptualization is used to create the renderings.
Rendering accuracy:Year: documented Team: documented
Right: This rendering is based on partial visual documentation for uniform style and partial written documentation for color. Important details may be undocumented or difficult to determine. An educated guess is made to complete the rendering.
Rendering accuracy:Year: documented Team: documented
Visual documentation on these uniforms:
Photo A
Dated May 3, 1895. This sketch, generated from a Detroit-Toledo game played May 2, 1895, was published in the Detroit Free Press on May 3, 1895. The drawing depicted a player wearing a pillbox cap with horizontal bands and a shirt with the city name spelled out across the chest. Image scan and publish date from Peter Reitan, esnpc.blogspot.com, retrieved on August 8, 2015.
Written documentation on these uniforms:
April 1895: “On Monday, April 10, the club will play with the Athletics [a Detroit amateur team], and on Wednesday the Grand Rapids team [of the Western League] will report here for four games, Detroit then going to Grand Rapids for as many. The team will wear the old uniforms throughout the exhibition series, and on May 1, when the Toledos open the championship series here, will appear in new uniforms. The new suits will be of dark blue with black trimmings and red letters.” From the Detroit Free Press, April 7, 1895. Research from Peter Reitan.
May 1, 1895, Detroit v. Toledo, at Detroit: “When the bell sounded three times the Detroits entered the field and were loudly cheered, while the band gave a welcome. The Tigers were out in their new uniforms of dark blue, with black caps and stockings, and red belts and letters on their shirt fronts.” From the Detroit Free Press, May 2, 1895. Research from Peter Reitan. Note that this report called the team “Tigers.” Researcher Richard Bak wrote in A Place For Summer: A Narrative History of Tiger Stadium (1998) that “the first mention of the [Tigers] name appeared in the April 16, 1895 edition of the Detroit Free Press, where editor Philip Reid wrote the headline, ‘Strouthers’ Tigers Showed Up Very Nicely.'” Strouthers was Con Strouthers, the 1895 Detroit manager. Bak also noted that within this same issue “a column of statistics was labeled, ‘Notes of the Detroit Tigers of 1895.'” There are many theories regarding the origin of the “Tigers” nickname, see these outlined below. Some of these theories are uniform-related, however none can be definitively pointed to as the single inspiration for the name.
—-1) Detroit Light Guard theory: Researcher Richard Bak has surmised that “Tigers” may have come from the same nickname used by the Detroit Light Guard, a local military formation which fought in the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. In A Place For Summer (1998), Bak wrote that around 1882 “the militia formally adopted a tiger’s head as its crest” and that throughout Detroit during the late 19th century the “renowned Light Guard band frequently performed.” The earliest hard evidence connecting the two entities came from the Decatur (Illinois) Daily Review, which wrote on May 16, 1954 that “in 1900 when Ban Johnson organized the American League, the Detroit club owners applied to the [military] regiment to use the Light Guard tiger as their insignia.” Daily Review research from Peter Reitan.
—-2) Connection to Manager theory: In addition to the April 16, 1895 mention of “Strouthers’ Tigers” cited above, researcher Peter Reitan has confirmed that the Detroit newspaper used this specific phrase several other times during the season including April 18, 1895 and April 23, 1895. Reitan speculated that the Tigers nickname could have been “more closely associated with the new manager and not the team.” Further connection of Strouthers to the Tigers nickname have been inconclusive.
—-3) Striped Stockings theory: Researcher Richard Bak has written that Detroit manager George Stallings took credit for the nickname. Stallings managed Detroit in 1896 and from 1899-1901. Bak wrote that Stallings “maintained years later that [the Tigers nickname originated] because he had dressed his troops in black-and-brown striped stockings that resembled tiger paws.” However as Bak had noted, Stallings joined the team in 1896, one year after the Detroit Free Press had first attached the nickname to the team. No contemporary reports have been found to confirm the Detroit team wore striped stockings in 1895 or 1896. Researcher Ed Morton found that a decade later the Detroit Free Press on August 6, 1907 wrote that “the Detroit baseball team were nicknamed Tigers when [manager] Stallings bought striped stockings in the days of the old Western League.” The New York Evening Post wrote on August 23, 1910 that the team “was named the Tigers by Philip J. Reid, city editor of a Detroit newspaper. The reasons were—they were the first team to wear striped stockings, had a achieved a reputation as fighters, and the other names by which they were known, Detroits and Wolverines, did not fit well in a newspaper headline.” Other newspapers in the late 1930s, including the New York Post on February 6, 1939, repeated the striped-stocking story but added a date, saying that the nickname was created in 1899. Over the years, the striped-stocking story has been recirculated and reprinted. Historian Marc Okkonen wrote in Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century (1991) that the name “was inspired by yellow and black striped stockings.” A recent written history on Detroit’s Bennett Park by Scott Ferkovich, and published at sabr.org, included the following: “Manager George Stallings outfitted the team in spiffy new black and yellow striped stockings. Fans and sportswriters alike started referring to the team as the Tigers.” Information on Bennett Park retrieved from the SABR site on August 3, 2019.
—-4) Striped Sweater theory: The tiger nickname may have come from the striped sweaters worn during this period, though there have been no reports discovered that confirm the team wore these sweaters in 1895 or 1896. Researcher Todd Radom has found that the Detroit players were referred to as the “men of the striped sweaters” in the May 18, 1897 edition of the Detroit Free Press. Radom also found a May 27, 1899 item in the St. Paul Globe that stated “now that the Detroits have abandoned their old striped jackets, the nickname Tigers has no direct application.” Radom concluded that “jackets and sweaters, as opposed to striped stockings, could well be the inspiration behind the Tigers nickname.” Possible support for this statement can be found in the New York Evening Telegram which wrote on March 29, 1906 that the Tigers nickname “was due to stripes in the uniform.” Free Press and Globe research from Todd Radom at toddradom.com, retrieved August 3, 2019.
—-5) Princeton theory: In late 1923 and early 1924 an article circulated across the news wires comparing the Detroit team colors with the colors of Princeton University. The Jamestown (NY) Evening Journal reported on December 27, 1923, that Detroit in the late 1890s “was one of the first to wear striped stockings. Theirs had an orange colored stripe similar to those worn by Princeton football […] and hence the Tigers name applied.” According to princetonia.com: “Princeton is the oldest and reportedly the first [university] to adopt the tiger nickname. Football players of the early 1880s started to wear orange and black stripes on their stockings, jerseys and stocking caps, leading sportswriters to call them ‘tigers.'” Princetonia information retrieved February 9, 2019.
May 1895: “Detroit’s home uniform this year will be of Yale blue, with red letters and belt and black cap and stockings. The uniform for the foreign trips will be white with black trimmings.” From The Sporting Life, May 4, 1895. Research from Chuck McGill.
1895, referenced in February 1896: “Mr. Van Derbock [owner George Vanderbeck] will use the old blue uniforms [from 1895] for games abroad [in 1896].” From the Detroit Free Press, February 29, 1896. Research from Todd Radom, www.toddradom.com, retrieved August 3, 2019.
1895, referenced in March 1897: “The gray of last year [1896], the blue of the year before [1895] and some of the cream and black of the first year [1894] will serve for out-of-town games [in 1897], in spite of the fact that the team will have a sort of misfit appearance.” From the Detroit Free Press, March 3, 1897. Research from Ed Morton.
Team genealogy: Detroit 1894-
Detroit joined the Western League (WL) in 1894 when the league reformed. The reorganized WL operated between 1894 and 1899 and reformed again as the American League (AL) for the 1900 season. Detroit played in the WL between 1894 and 1899 and has played in the American League from 1900 to the present day. Information from wikipedia.com.
Rendering posted: August 10, 2019
Diggers on this uniform: Chuck McGill, Ed Morton, Peter Reitan, Todd Radom,