Sale’s crime of fashion sparks Jay memories
Chicago White Sox ace lefty Chris Sale was so put off by the collared throwback uniform he was supposed to wear in his start Saturday night that he shredded the entire set while his teammates were taking batting practice. The White Sox scratched Sale from his scheduled start, and on Sunday punished their star player with a five-day suspension in one of the more bizarre incidents of the season. While Sale’s issue was with the jersey’s discomfort and what he saw as putting “PR and jersey sales” ahead of winning, we asked a few Jays for lighthearted takes on whether they’d ever had to wear a uniform they would have rather cut to pieces:
JOE BIAGINI, RH
“There was some weird ones in the minors. There was a tie-dye uniform one night and then we had another one nobody really understood. It was for Memorial Day, but it wasn’t even red, white and blue. It was like this purple sky and they tried to put a picture of fighter jets flying. But the picture was blown up and the jets were so small that nobody could see them. So it was supposed to be Memorial Day and people were like, ‘What’s this Purple Rain thing you guys are doing?’ ”
BO SCHULTZ, RH
“When I was in Low-A, in Kane County (Ill.), we wore our batting practice tops for games a couple times. At one time they must have been bright green, but after 10 years of sun-bleaching they were kind of like almost a dead-grass green. I wouldn’t say it got to the point where I wanted to cut ’em up, but I was kind of like, ‘I know it’s cool to wear some- thing different, but this is a bit much.’ ”
DARWIN BARNEY, INF
“When I was with the Cubs we wore throwbacks probably at least 12 different times. But to be honest, I’m a fan of that throwback look: the mids, the stirrups, all that. But when I was in the minors there was some kind of Hawaii night somewhere that we wore flowers on our jersey. That was pretty bad.”
DEVON TRAVIS, 2B
“It’s a bad feeling when you’ve got a jersey on that doesn’t fit. Here (in the majors) you’re blessed enough to get a jersey that fits you. Down there (in the minors), they’re like, ‘What number do you want? OK, what size are you? Well, we have that number in this size, or this number in that size.’ So you have to pick between whether you want your number or whether you want your size. I mean, if you’re going to work, regardless of what your job is, you want your uniform to fit.”