DETROIT TIGERS:
I loathe the Tigers for winning the AL Central. I loathe that my earliest baseball memory is pissing in the troughs at old Tiger Stadium next to dudes five times my age. I loathe them for discovering the switch to turn Jhonny "Don't Call Me Johnny" Peralta from zero to hero (NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: apparently that switch involved heavy use of illicit drugs).
But damn if these aren't snazzy uniforms. The home kit is simplicity personified. Classic white and classic navy with a classic f*%#ing logo. It helps that the Motor City Tiggers have been wearing this kit since the Mesozoic era; where other teams try to force a classic feel through design, the Tigers unis have a classic feel because they're genuinely classic.
The road unis I find slightly less appealing. Grey as a background and your city name in script is clean and classic, but something about the color combination of orange and navy in the lettering doesn't sit right. It looks like candy corn tastes, sweet and slightly off.
There's also the small issue of Detroit's shape-shifting script D. Just pick one and go with it, man!
SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS:
Again, I'm forced to suppress my vomit reflex in discussing the San Francisco Giants. Not for anything to do with their on the field product ("Milkin' " Melky Cabrera aside), but because they're the knuckleheads who blasted my Sure-Fire MLB Playoff Predictions to hell. What can I say, Cincy winning the World Series seemed a good idea at the time (that "time" being before Dusty Baker called an effing hit and run with no outs and two on in NLDS Game 5).
This cannot be overstated: San Francisco's cream home uniforms are resplendent. (Quick aside--it's my not-so-secret hope that my beloved Cleveland Indians, currently en route to scrubbing Chief Wahoo from their uniforms, adopt their cream and red Sunday alts as their everyday kit.) The lettering on "Giants" here is also top-notch; the pointed serifs suggest sepia-washed nostalgia. Counterpoint to the orange in Detroit's road kit, the cream background and black lettering make orange right at home on San Fran's home unis.
The Road kit utilizes the same gray background as Detroit, but keeps the "San Francisco" lettering in a printed font. To my discerning eyes, this creates a cohesion between uniforms. The home "Giants" font and the road "San Francisco" font seem to at least be cousins, if not siblings.
...And let's just pretend--since they're not likely to be used during the course of this World Series, anyway--the Giant's pumpkin-spice alternates don't exist.
THE CALL AT THE PLATE:
This is tough. Detroit and San Francisco stand at the pinnacle of the MLB uniform mountain**. Classic colors and spare designs catch the eye while paying homage to the sport's lengthy and honored history.
Maybe it's the slight off-taste of Detroit's navy and orange script lettering. Maybe its the inconsistency between the cap and chest insignia on Detroit's home unis. Maybe it's a holdover grudge for being forced to pee standing shoulder-to-shoulder with drunk 300 pound men in the seventh inning of a long-past Indians/Tigers game.
Either way the clear winner is San Francisco. I'm not even a fan of the team and I'd wear that home kit; that's how good it looks.
*Tigers in 5, BTW.
** Poor Miami sits at the bottom of said mountain: a shitty team wearing even shittier uniforms
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