Round 2: Best jersey design in Oakland A’s history

Last week, we began a community vote to determine the best jersey in Oakland A’s history. We started with a bracket of 16 designs from the last half-century, and now we’ve cut that list down to eight.

Here’s how the first round played out:

White Bracket

• Modern home whites DEF 1968 white vest over green sleeves (final tally: 73-3)
• 1970s stripes w/ A’s logo DEF 1980s stripes w/ Oakland print (46-24)

Gold Bracket

• Modern gold alts DEF 1970s gold pullover (58-22)
• 1970s gold vest w/ green sleeves DEF 1970s monochrome w/ gold sleeves (47-21)

Green Bracket

• Modern green top w/ Athletics script DEF 1970s green pullover (38-37)
• Modern green top w/ yellow piping DEF Player’s weekend w/ gold sleeves (66-5)

Wild Card Bracket

• New kelly greens DEF Modern road grays (58-24)
• Black tops 2000 w/ green script DEF Black tops 2008-10 w/ white script (48-16)

The biggest landslide was in favor of the modern home whites, which are a longtime classic and still beautiful. There was also virtually no support for the creative Player’s Weekend design from 2017-18.

On the other hand, there was one photo finish. In the Green Bracket, the modern green tops edged out the ‘70s green pullover by just one vote. For what it’s worth, if there had been a tie then I would also have voted for the modern greens, so really it won by a two-vote margin.

In the responses to the intro post, there were two more designs that I think are good and different enough that they could have been in this bracket, if there had been more space available. Both are from the forgotten years of the early-1980s:

• 1982-84 home whites, which are like the 70s stripes except a button-up (instead of a pullover) and with piping going up the middle
• 1983-86 green pullover, which is like the 70s pullover but with Oakland script (instead of A’s logo)

Here’s a look at each, with Davey Lopes wearing the whites and Dave Kingman wearing the green pullover (the Lopes picture isn’t a great angle but it’s the best one I could find in our Getty database):

Getty Images

Beneath the second-round votes, there will be an extra ballot to gauge interest in these two. Depending on how that goes, it’s not impossible that one of these could find a path into the bracket, based on the rulebook of “I’m making this up as I go along.”

First and foremost, though, here are the matchups for Round 2 of the main bracket.

• White: Modern home whites vs. 1970s stripes w/ A’s logo
• Gold: Modern gold alts vs. 1970s gold vest w/ green sleeves
• Green: Modern green top w/ Athletics script vs. Modern green top w/ yellow piping
• Wild Card: New kelly greens vs. Black tops 2000 w/ green script

The voting will be done in the style of the Community Prospect List. Go to the comments section to find the ballot, and “Rec” your favorites in each matchup to cast your votes. In this post, we’ll pare from eight options down to four. Let’s vote!