Odds are if you went a sporting event anywhere in North America over the past three days you saw somebody decked out in camouflage. No, I don't mean one of our nation's finest suited up in the stands, I mean a player, a coach, or hell, even a cheerleader.
It was Veterans Day weekend (or Remembrance Day depending on where you live). This was once a day where ordinary citizens would stop everything they're doing and take a moment to pay silent respect and personal appreciation for those who have served. Now, in 2013, it's not only that but it's also a sports marketing manager's one chance a year to play army man dress-up with his team.
As with most "suddenly everyone *has* to do it" uniform trends in sports, the camouflage phase is not a new one, it's just all of a sudden everywhere. The San Diego Padres would be the ones to blame or thank (depending on your point-of-view) for bringing the uniforms of soldiers from the battlefield to the ball diamond. The City of San Diego is home to a multitude of military bases which led to the team wearing camouflage just once a year for "Military Opening Day", the first of which took place on April 13, 2000.
The Padres lost their first camouflage game, thanks largely to two home runs by Arizona's Steve Finley, leading sports writers to suggest they should have camouflaged the balls thrown to Finley instead of their jerseys. Before the game D-backs starting pitcher Brian Anderson was more concerned that "they might play a weird shift in the outfield and we'll have no idea where they are." This didn't seem to be an issue.
San Diego continued to play one game in camouflage per season until 2008 when they began their current tradition of wearing the jersey for every Sunday home game. When the Padres unveiled their latest version of the camouflage jersey in 2011 team president Tom Garfinkel said the goal of the uniforms "is to honour the men and women of the military." Which is nice, of course, but they still sell the jerseys to fans at $189 a pop (for the authentic version) and if the MLB.com Shop page is to be believed, none of the proceeds seem to be going to any military charity whatsoever. I better be wrong about this.
While the press and fans alike were largely critical of the look, rather than the idea, of the Padres wearing camouflage to salute the military, MLB decided to expand the concept out on a league-wide level. In 2012, for Memorial Day, every Major League club wore a ball cap with a camouflage pattern sublimated over their teams logo. The Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles took the idea a step further and wore camouflage jerseys, like the Padres, as part of their own team promotions. In 2013 MLB cranked it up to 11 when they had every team wear caps which were all-over camo and jerseys featuring a camo-pattern on team names, and player names and numbers. MLB did create a line of camouflage merchandise, which, for the first time in 2013 all proceeds are said by the league to be donated to the "Welcome Back Veterans" charity rather than just "a portion" as they had claimed in years past.
We'll see even more camouflage in baseball in 2014 with the news that the New York Mets are joining the Padres by wearing a camouflage jersey regularly throughout the season. The Mets will wear their all-camo for every Monday night home game, which works out to about 5 times per year. There will also be a third team unveiling a camouflage alternate uniform in addition to the Mets and Padres for 2014 but... I've promised my source I wouldn't reveal who the other team was so I guess you'll have to wait and see this time.
Camouflage uniforms haven't been limited to baseball, in 2012 the Toronto Raptors became the first NBA basketball team to wear a camouflage uniform when they took to the court against the Chicago Bulls on March 21 for "Canadian Armed Forces Day". It's still a part of their uniform rotation and is usually worn 2-3 times per season, they just wore them this past Saturday. Last month the San Antonio Spurs announced they were also going camo for two games taking place later this season.
In the NHL we haven't seen a team wear a camouflage uniform during a game... yet... but you can be sure it'll happen sooner than later. Teams have been wearing camo jerseys during pre-game skates around this time of year for the past three seasons (and are doing so again all week), but, as mentioned before this has been limited to pre-game. These jerseys are auctioned off with all of the money going to appropriate charities.
Camouflage jerseys are, however, quite popular in minor league hockey, where it's not unheard of for some teams to wear 5-10 different special jerseys per season. Hey, when you support one cause, you gotta support them all, right? Plus, it's good for getting coverage on the national news.... I'm looking at you, Bakersfield Condors.
Football surprisingly didn't hit us over the head with the camouflage, but you did see camo ribbons on helmets, camo caps on coaches, and camo skimpy outfits on the cheerleaders. No, seriously. Seems totally inappropriate to me, but then again I didn't hear anyone else opposing to the idea, so maybe I'm alone on that.
My take on the whole camo trend is ... it's too much. It really is!
Look, supporting and honouring the troops is a fine idea, let's keep doing that, but not like this. Surely we can think of a more appropriate way to pay our respects while still raising money for charity. Did you see how they do this over in the United Kingdom? That's perfect, and they auction off the uniforms for charity. Something like that would be a much more fitting way to say "thank you so very much" to everyone who has done anything to keep us safe and to keep us free.
Chris Creamer is the creator and editor of SportsLogos.net. You can follow him on twitter at @sportslogosnet.