Most people think there are only Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Up until yesterday, that would have been correct, but now we know without a doubt that there is actually a Fifth Horsemen… the MLB Commissioner’s Office actually made a good decision.
Take a second to let that sink in.
You good? OK. So what exactly did Bud and his cronies finally not foul up? Only some of the best uniforms of all-time, the Houston Colt .45s jerseys. The Astros intended to wear their super sweet throwbacks this seasons but were told that they had to remove the namesake pistol from the jersey, making it decidely less awesome.
Amidst the outcry of Houston fans and even the Astros new owner Jim Crane, the league office has made the rare decision to reverse course, throw political correctness to the wind and are going to allow the gun, for the sake of historical prosperity. Or something like that, either way we all win because the unis will appear fully intact and unsullied, well, excepting that the Astros are going to be terrible this season which isn’t exactly a great way to honor the past.
The beauty of this decision is that MLB actually recognized their own hypocrisy. After all, this is a league that continues to allow the Cleveland Indians to proudly sport a logo that is offensive to Native American people (and if you really want to argue against that, please be sure not to come off as a card-carrying KKK member). Taking a minimal risk that someone out there will somehow interpret the throwback Colt .45s uniforms to be a glorification of guns pales in comparison to tacitly approving racial stereotypes.
The only shame in this whole saga is that the Astros won’t get to wear these beauties full-time, especially considering how bland their current regular threads are. Jim Crane even briefly considered changing the Astros team nickname with the Colt .45s no doubt a contender but for the fact that it was assumed that a gun-related name would not be permitted. Crane has since blown off the idea of a name change, which is a shame now that the uniform and name has passed preliminary approval. At a minimum, we can hope that Crane will follow through on his promise of changing the Astros current uniform, perhaps with the Colt .45s as an inspiration.
