The team's uniforms have undergone several changes - mostly subtle but some debatable throughout the years.

The sports fan itching for a fight can always stroll into Pickles Pub across from Oriole Park at Camden Yards some game night and loudly declare support for keeping that darn city name - "Baltimore" - off the Orioles' road jerseys.

Along the 50-year march of Orioles history, "Baltimore" appeared then disappeared, one uniform change that for some folks still stings. Who's to blame a soul for clutching stability in the pickup game that major league baseball has become?

Jerry Seinfeld has famously noted that with players switching sides every two minutes, the contemporary fan essentially roots for laundry. Apologies to Francis Scott Key, but through the perilous nights of free agency, our polyester double-knit flag is still there.

With the addition of a number on the jersey front, changes from black to orange and a few other uniform details, the Baltimore Oriole of spring 2004 will look slightly different from his predecessor of 1954 who took the field in Detroit for that first game on April 13. For the record, the Orioles lost, 3-0, behind Don Larsen, and 46,994 people were counted as witnesses. For the record, the out-of-town jersey did not say "Baltimore."

The premise that the city name's disappearance from the uniform represents some departure from authenticity is perhaps a conflict of memory and history, or maybe a question of what constitutes the "genuine" Orioles look.

The decision to put "Orioles" in place of "Baltimore" on the out-of-town jersey was actually a return to the look of 1954 and 1955. From 1956 through the 1972 season, the team switched to the practice of many but not all other ballclubs in using the city name on the out-of-town jersey and the team nickname on the home uniform.

So it went until 1973, the same year the designated hitter rule appeared in the American League and civilization as we know it continued the slide that began when the Houston Astrodome opened in 1965.

"It galls me to no end," says Phil Wood, a veteran Baltimore sports broadcaster and uniform collector.

He's talking about the decision to drop the city name from the out-of-town uniform, which, contrary to a common view, was not made by Washington lawyer and former Orioles owner Edward Bennett Williams, who did not buy the team until 1979.

The contentious uniform change was made under Jerold C. Hoffberger for reasons that remain not entirely clear. One theory holds that since the Washington Senators had left the District of Columbia after the 1971 season, Orioles management thought that subordinating their club's Baltimore identity might somehow make the team more appealing to bereft Senators fans.

Hoffberger thus plays both heavy and hero when some Baltimore fans envision the "true" Orioles look.

The 'Baltimore' debate

For Wood, who has occasionally advised the team on uniform configurations, that genuine look was established during the 1960s and early '70s. Those were Hoffberger teams, the most successful in franchise history. In the American League pennant seasons of 1966, '69, '70 and '71 - a stretch when the Orioles won the World Series twice - the club wore the two-toned cap with the cartoon bird emblem, the orange socks with one black stripe. And, yes, the word "Baltimore" in script across the chest for games away from Memorial Stadium.

"When people think of Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson and Boog Powell, they see them in that uniform," says Wood, who is co-host of a Saturday afternoon radio sports show on WJFK-AM.

To the extent that collective memory has been shaped by baseball cards, chances are the uniform would have said "Baltimore," not "Orioles." As Orioles public relations director Bill Stetka points out, baseball card photographers in those days mostly worked in New York, taking player pictures when teams came through town.

"A lot of these cards had players in their visiting uniforms," Stetka says. "That's what gets stamped in people's heads."

Orioles principal owner Peter G. Angelos, whose group bought the team in 1993, has on occasion talked about bringing the city name back to the uniform, but Stetka says the question does not get much attention from Orioles management. He says the issue "comes up periodically, but not as often as people think."

Once in a while there's a letter to the club or the argument flares on a radio show. Stetka says "it's something else for people to get on us about."

Cartoon bird soars

You can arouse a small measure of that heat with the argument about the Orioles bird emblem. The dispute splits between those who prefer the realistic bird perched now on the crown of the black uniform cap and those who long for the smiling cartoon version originally drawn by former Sun artist Jim Hartzell, who died last spring.

Fans of the cartoon emblem - which appeared on the cap between 1966 and 1988 - have team records on their side. Under this happy bird, the Orioles compiled a .557 winning percentage with 19 winning seasons out of 23 and all six of the team's World Series appearances. Under the more ornithologically correct depiction, the team has gone .494 with 11 winning seasons out of 27.

Numbers do come into play when a team considers uniform changes, but not these sorts of numbers. The uniform over the years has become merchandise and subject to marketing analysis and approval by Major League Baseball's lords of licensing.

The Orioles and their counterparts around the majors step to the field at the start of each season much as fashion models sashay along springtime runways, trailing in their wake a multibillion-dollar retail business in jerseys, caps, warm-up jackets and other gear.

"Dollars and cents definitely play a big role here" in deciding uniform designs, says Mike May, spokesman for the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.

The editor of one trade journal notes licensing professional attire "can be defined as renting an emotion that's tied to a logo, brand or character."

Ah, the romance of sports.

For 2001, the last year for which such figures are available, Major League Baseball topped the four most popular American professional sports in merchandise sales at $2.6 billion. May says the projection for 2002 is slightly higher.

Thus, the teams may suggest uniform changes, but they cannot make any without the OK from Major League Baseball.

"It essentially has to do with trying to build the brand, build the marketability of those jerseys," says Stetka, the Orioles spokesman.

Coming soon to a shopping mall near you is the 2004 jersey, which is slightly different from what it has been since 1994: "Orioles" in script angled across the front of a snow-white jersey with a block number below, player name and number in block figures on the back - all switched from black with orange trim to the reverse. Black trim has been removed from the collar and down the shirt front but remains on the sleeves and pants. The bird - realistic version - on the left sleeve is expected to be replaced with a 50th anniversary patch featuring the bird.

The team that defeated the Chicago White Sox, 3-1, in the first home game at Memorial Stadium on April 15, 1954, stepped out with a slightly more plain look: off-white flannel uniform with "Orioles" in script angled across the front and trimmed in orange, plain black number on the back. No number on the front, no trim, "Audubon" bird on the cap crown but not the left sleeve. The socks were striped black and orange, rather than the all-black stirrup of today, and the pants were not trimmed.

A series of changes

Between 1954 and 2004 -- according to Bruce Genther of Laurel, a memorabilia collector who has compiled an authoritative history of the Orioles' uniforms -- Orioles history unfolds in a series of such changes.

The letters and numbers switch from black to orange and back again; trim at jersey front, sleeves and pants appears and disappears; sock stripes blink on and off. The cap flickers from all black to orange bill, black crown to orange, white and black and back to all black. Add to the mix the occasional all-orange and all-black jersey with white pants and a cap with an orange block letter "B" only for the 1963 home uniform.

Oh, yes, for a few bright, shining moments in 1971, the Orioles flirted with the sort of regrettable sartorial adventure for which the '70s became infamous. As if the double-knit debut in the World Series was not quite enough that year, the team tried an all-orange home uniform.

"They started calling Boog a giant pumpkin," says Ted Patterson, a sports broadcaster, writer and uniform collector. "It only lasted about 10 games."

The sleeveless jersey of 1968 and 1969 didn't catch on so well, either. The look flattered such big-armed hitters as Frank Robinson, but Wood says "the pitchers had arms like birds. The sleeveless jersey didn't do much for them."

Wood says the team wore the sleeveless look only seven times that season, and never again after the month of May.

Memorabilia market

Such rare items fetch nice prices on the memorabilia circuit. A block-letter jersey, the kind the team wore only at home between 1963 and 1965, could go for $1,000 more or less, no matter whose name is on the back. Of course, a Boog Powell 1969 game-worn jersey recently sold at auction for $4,000, Patterson says.

The savvy memorabilia collector remains on alert for fakes, watching for telltale signs: the tags with the wrong company name, the tag printed rather than stitched. The collector in the hunt for a jersey belonging to Orioles managers Earl Weaver or Jimmy Dykes checks the inside for a discreet sign of authenticity: a custom-sewn pocket used to hold a pack of cigarettes.

The prices stay aloft on currents of supply, demand, nostalgia. The athlete has gone but his uniform remains, to be run up the flagpole for one more salute.