The Great 89ers Jersey Heist of ’91

John Gentry, Indianapolis News

In 1991, the Oklahoma City 89ers had a uniform snafu at the start of the season. It was brief and quickly corrected by the time the club returned home for its second homestand, but it is a little-known story that should delight a few true crime uniform folks here on this website.

​Sometime between March 30 and 31, someone broke into the Reynolds Lettering Service shop and walked away with twenty-eight 89ers road jerseys. The uniforms were brought in on Saturday morning to have new surname tags sewn on the back. The thieves also walked away with a satin baseball jacket, a television, a fax machine, a telephone, and $44 worth of candy.

​The 89ers were set to embark on their first road trip, traveling to Indianapolis on April 17, followed by stops in Buffalo and Denver. OKC general manager Jim Weigel said if the club couldn’t recover the missing uniforms, they would have no choice but to order another set for the season. The only problem was that they would not be delivered until after the road trip on May 3rd.

“I really don’t want to see our club open its season wearing blue jeans and T-shirts,” said police spokesman Maj. Bob Taylor.

​Luckily, the team was expecting its red batting practice jersey in the mail sometime that week, and might have to wear it for the first 8 road games. That became reality when the club headed to play the Indianapolis Indians a few weeks later.

This isn't the first time someone in baseball has walked away with team merchandise. In June 1977, a break-in occurred at the visiting clubhouse of Milwaukee County Stadium, where all but seven of the Kansas City Royals jerseys were stolen. Luckily, both teams wore powder-blue jerseys, and a few Royals players sported Brewers jerseys for the game.

The Indians ran into their own uniform mishap as well: their home white jerseys weren’t ready in time for the game, forcing the team to take the field in batting-practice tops. Thankfully, their tops were a rich royal blue and did not clash with the 89ers uniforms. The incident was significant enough to merit a blurb in The Indianapolis Star.

​A crowd of 13,844 at Bush Stadium watched Oklahoma City pitchers Roger Pavlik and Steve Peters combine for a no-hitter, only to see the team lose the game. Pavlika and Peters held the Tribe to only two hits but walked 9 players. Besides the combined no-hitter, Indianapolis fans also witnessed a rare color-vs.-color baseball game.

Color v Color on the base paths, John Gentry, Indianapolis News

The third game of the series was postponed due to rain, as well as both games scheduled in Buffalo that weekend. When the 89ers finally took the field at Mile High Stadium against the Denver Zephyrs, they were greeted by clear skies and sporting red batting-practice tops. Their unconventional look even caught the attention of The Denver Post, which mentioned it in the following day’s sports section.

“The 89ers had to play Monday night with batting practice jerseys, featuring hard-to-read numbers, thanks to the fact that  the team’s regular road jerseys were stolen last week.”

The Niners finished the road trip with a 2-3 record and returned home to Oklahoma City. However, by the time the team headed back on the road to Nashville and Louisville, they received their second batch of road uniforms. 

On May 16, 1991, the 89ers finally wore their gray jerseys at Greer Stadium against the Nashville Sounds. As far as we know, they didn’t face any more uniform issues for the rest of the season, which ended with a disappointing 52-92 record in the American Association.

Emails and phone calls to Weigel went unanswered for this story.

It is unclear whether the missing uniforms were ever recovered or if they turned up for sale on eBay several years later. What we do know is that an unknown group of thieves forced a minor league baseball team to alter its uniform schedule and leave its mark in the world of sports.

I am sure one of those thieves is laughing about it today.

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Follow all of Marc’s stadium journeys on Twitter @ballparkhunter and his YouTube channel. Email at Marc.Viquez@stadiumjourney.com