On July 20, 1999. the Dodgers were at Three Rivers Stadium for a Tuesday afternoon getaway-day game. (This was right after the All-Star break, so the L.A. series started Sunday.) Kevin Brown, who had signed baseball's first $100 million dollar contract, pitched for the Dodgers, and I was one of the 16,921 who came out to see him.
The game itself wasn't bad. Los Angeles scored four runs off Jason Schmidt to take a 4-0 lead into the bottom of the fifth. Brant Brown hit a two-run homer to cut the lead to 4-2, and Warren Morris' seventh-inning double tied the score, 4-4. Todd Hundley hit a two-run home run off Brad Clontz in the eighth, and the Dodgers scored two more in the ninth to win, 8-4, raising Kevin Brown's record to 10-6 and lowering the Pirates' record to 46-47. (Browns fans will be happy to know that Adrian Brown also pinch-hit for the Pirates.)
But what always stuck with me about that game was that the Dodgers wore blue jerseys. The next day, neither the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette nor the Los Angeles Times mentioned it. At that point, the Internet wasn't quite ready to cater to every obscure group, so I had no idea that seeing the Dodgers in those jerseys was historic. Over the years, I've gotten to know Ross Yoshida, who is now the Dodgers' Director, Design Services, in the uni watching corners of the net, and we did an email interview about an event that's never been documented.
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