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The New York Mets will bring back their black jerseys for Game 3 of the National League Championship Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday.
Luis Severino, who will get the start for the Mets, made the call to go with the black jersey with white pants for the first NLCS game at Citi Field since 2015.
The Mets first introduced their black uniforms during the 1998 season. It was used as an alternative to the traditional home whites, with the numbers and lettering in blue with a white outline.
A staple of their uniform rotation for 14 years, the black tops were retired after the 2012 season.
In February 2021, Rustin Dodd of The Athletic noted the Mets’ black jersey was their most-popular selling jersey at the Shea Stadium team store during the 2005 season.
Not long after Steve Cohen purchased the Mets in November 2020, he teased the potential return of the alternate jerseys:
“There’s lots of discussion on these black jerseys. Seems like there are people who are fervent who want it, and then people who actually don’t want it. I think it’s probably more that people want it than don’t want it. I haven’t talked to the players about it. I want to make sure they would be into that. And maybe we do it on a night every once in a while or something, just to shake it up.”
Soon after Francisco Lindor was traded to the Mets in January 2021, Cohen once again teased bringing back the old look:
Cohen finally delivered on his teases when the Mets wore them against the Cincinnati Reds on July 30, 2021, and for every remaining Friday home for the rest of the season.
The Mets have continued to wear their black jerseys most of the time for Friday home games in the years since 2021, but this year’s uniforms were met with some fan backlash due to a change in design that got rid of the white outline.
The Mets most notably wore their black jerseys during their run to the World Series in 2000. They would lose to the New York Yankees in five games in the Fall Classic.
Severino and the Mets will square off against Walker Buehler and the Dodgers in Game 3 at Citi Field on Wednesday at 8:08 p.m. ET. The series is tied 1-1 after the two teams split the first two games at Dodger Stadium.
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