Rockies officially drop signature uniforms you either loved or hated

The Colorado Rockies have tried their very best to make purple their thing. From purple pinstripes to an updated color purple in the team’s scheme to the purple dinosaur who creates nightmares around Coors Field. The Rockies are purple.

But the uniform that probably first pops into your head when you think of the Rockies is not purple. It’s black, and it doesn’t have sleeves. In the last few years, however, the team had stopped using that black look for one that is not purple but green. Now the black uniform hiatus has become a retirement, according to Paul Lukas’ Uni Watch.

First introduced in 2005, the black vests became a club signature in 2007 for Colorado’s Rocktober run where they won 21 of 22 games en route to a World Series appearance. Many of the club’s most remembered moments came while wearing these alternate uniforms like Todd Helton pointing to the sky as the Rockies clinched the 2007 pennant.

The 2009 playoff season was draped in the black vests, as were the 2017 and 2018 postseason runs.

But the black vests have not been worn since the final day of the 2021 season The Rockies ditched their black uniform from the rotation in 2022, replacing it with the green Colorado license plate-inspired City Connect uniforms.

Funny enough, Lukas says the Rockies could have kept the black and green jerseys active at the same time while also having their home whites, road grays and purple third. In MLB’s style guide the past two seasons the black jerseys were part of the Rockies look, and the team could’ve worn those uniforms, but now MLB has taken the vests off the style guide.

No real reason is known for the switch, other than it’s reported that vest jerseys do not sell as well as others. While this may be true elsewhere, all it takes a look around Coors Field to know a lot of fans like the black jerseys.

The Rockies have rarely made changes to their uniforms since their inception in 1993. Their most notable changes were adding and then later dropping purple pinstripes from their grey road uniforms and updating their color purple to a more vibrant shade.

One subtle change the Rockies made was ditching their white home vests, which existed for a few years in the 2000s. Iconic moments like Carlos Gonzalez’s walk-off cycle and Troy Tulowitzki’s triple play happened in these uniforms.

Ditching both the white and black vests is one of the weaker uniform moves the club has made. Those jerseys were, both classic baseball with a modern flair that helped players keep cool in the Colorado sun. The white vests went away rather quietly, and so far, the black vests have too. But the black vests won’t be forgotten, and it’d be a shocking mistake to keep them on the hangers forever.

Going into 2023, the last vest in MLB—Colorado’s black look—is now gone. RIP to some truly beautifully terrible uniforms that became an iconic look.