Going Chris Sale on Recent Bulls Uniforms

On Saturday, Chicago White Sox pitcher Chris Sale was scratched from a start and suspended five days. Rumors went full tilt that Sale was pulled because he was going to be traded as the MLB trade deadline neared. It appears that was not the case for Sale and the sister club of the Chicago Bulls, both are owned by Jerry Reinsdorf.

There is a near 100 percent chance that every person you have ever met was forced to wear at least one thing in their lifetime that they didn’t want to wear. In many cases, it was probably something that a parent forced a child to wear, but also a fair number of people have to wear particular items to school or work that they would never be caught in otherwise. Much less likely that someone would bother to cut up an employer issued item of clothing that they felt strongly about.

That’s exactly what Sale is reported to have done and what truly earned him a scratched start and five-day suspension from the White Sox.

This is the kind of thing that even a Cubs fan can love – a White Sox player was so disgusted with the retro uniform that he took action and destroyed it. Even if this were ever proven to be an inaccurate portrayal of events, it is already legend and larger than life.

Baseball isn’t the only sport where players don’t like their jerseys. In fact, if this type of behavior were permissible in the NBA, a lot of jerseys would find their way to scissors. LeBron James has torn jerseys multiple times since the introduction of the sleeved jersey.

The sleeved jersey seems to be one of the most universally hated concepts in the league, even more disliked than Hack-a-Shaq, the last four years of the Philadelphia 76ers, and games officiated by Joey Crawford. With that in mind, there have been a lot of topical jerseys in the NBA recently. The Bulls have had a fair number of themed uniforms and some of them have been terrible. Unfortunately, Sale isn’t able to help the Bulls out. If Sale were to show up prepared to make some alterations, which jersey should be the victim? Let’s take a look at some options.

There are only a couple of really bad Bulls uniforms that spring to mind. Most of the classic Chicago uniforms have become iconic because of their simple design, black-red-white color coding and the recent history associated with the players who wore them and champions that won in them.

Christmas Day Uniforms

This is the runner up category. Yes, there are jerseys that are worse than these. The reason that these aren’t the worst jerseys is that the last two years were winners and helped erase the painful memory of the not-so-distant past.

The 2015 Christmas jerseys were actually pretty amazing. The jersey relied on a particularly “Christmas-esque” script and stuck with a more traditional red for the uniform’s base color. Seriously, these jerseys look great. It wasn’t just the Bulls; they were a huge success across the board for teams that played Christmas Day games.

The 2014 Christmas jerseys weren’t as good as the 2015 version, but they still held their own. Probably the most reductive jersey design you can imagine for a holiday uniform. It borrowed heavily from the type of placement you might envision more akin to a soccer jersey with a block, centered approach to the front graphic and the player name in a “box” below the number instead of above it. Also, they made the jerseys more personalized by featuring first names and nicknames for players instead of last names. A nice twist and a solid jersey, though definitely not great.

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That would bring us to 2013. The Christmas Day jersey that year was a guaranteed loser right away – it had sleeves. Beyond that obvious failure, it explored spaces in unique ways. They put the player number on the sleeve and the front of the uniform top didn’t feature any writing, simply an oversized Bulls logo in silver. Yes, the jersey was still traditional Bulls red which is a winner every day, but more appropriate on Christmas. However, it took a huge turn south by featuring only white or black as sparse accents. Instead, it was all about the silver.

Sale entered the locker room, saw these jerseys, and pulled out huge hedge shears. However, because it was Christmas, he spared the jerseys and decided to go home and starting concocting new ways to try and get himself traded away from the White Sox. Also, not sure why he had the hedge shears with him, but he was ready to cut all those jerseys up with quickness.

St. Patrick’s Day Uniforms

Conventional wisdom says that it takes a while to come to a well-reasoned conclusion. A well-written piece glows with knowledge and information that was culled from research and references the best ideas already shared without plagiarizing or having to be obvious about sources. Or maybe not at all. There is no mystery to which jerseys are the worst when it comes to the Bulls.

St. Patrick’s Day is a big day in Chicago. The day is a massive celebration and the river is dyed green. The river is dyed green. They do this on purpose. This truth notwithstanding, green isn’t a great look for the Bulls. This might have more to do with the players wearing it than with the jerseys, but there is a real issue with the green jerseys.

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To be clear, there was no problem with the recent Chicago St. Patrick’s Day jersey. It looks like an NBA jersey for, you know, the Boston Celtics. So, it makes sense, they just misprinted them and decided to keep them around for the holiday.

What’s the problem? Simple answer – sleeves! Yes, sleeves are the culprit again. It seems that the NBA makes one of the most casually wearable jerseys on the planet, but they can’t figure out how to put sleeves on the thing and make it look like anything other than a sad shirt.

Again, this might have a lot to do with the player wearing it. Who wore it better: no one wearing this shirsey or Kirk Hinrich wearing an authentic Chicago Bulls St. Patrick’s Day sleeved jersey on court? If you said shirsey, you might be entirely correct. If you said Kirk Hinrich, you might be entirely correct. Look, that picture of the shirsey is the least flattering thing in this entire piece and it isn’t even that bad when you put it side by side with an actual St. Patty’s Bulls jersey. The shirsey has to win because while it looks terrible in that picture, it still isn’t actually being worn which means it is serving its correct purpose – lying on the ground.

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Sale reappears with his hedge shears. He is grinning both in a menacing and spiritually enlightened way. There is no turning back, jerseys are getting cut up today. Just when you think the ugly, sleeved monstrosities of the Bulls are about to see their end Sale pulls this real-life, actually-happened Carmelo Anthony ensemble complete with arm sleeves and headband out of a bag he brought with him that you didn’t notice, probably the same bag that contained the shears, and sets it on fire. Because those things are hideous and somehow way worse than a sleeved jersey when you let Anthony accessorize an already bad idea.