The folks of Uni Watch at ESPN put together a list ranking every single uniform in the four major professional sports. They ranked the Montreal Canadiens number one overall, with the top five including:
1. Montreal Canadiens
2. Chicago Bears
3. St. Louis Cardinals
4. Chicago Cubs
5. Boston Bruins
Our San Francisco 49ers came in No. 34 overall and No. 8 among NFL teams:
Wouldn't it be great to have been in the room when they decided how to design the 49ers' sleeve stripes? "We don't really have room for three full stripes," someone must have said, "so let's just use partialstripes!" And then they presumably went back to whatever they were smoking. Aside from that, though, the Niners look very, very good these days.
The timing of this is pretty perfect as over at SB Nation, we're coming up with a feature looking at some of the worst alternate jerseys in the NFL. Not all teams have released much in the way of alternate jerseys, so it also includes some of the random jerseys you see sold in the team store.
I've been doing some searching and it's interesting to note how few "alternate" jerseys the 49ers have rolled out. Over the course of the 49ers jersey history, they haven't made many drastic changes. In 1946 they opened with simply red and white. They added a gold color in 1947, but then moved back to red and white, with occasional black, until 1957. Gold did not become a permanent staple of the uniform until 1964.
Speaking of gold, if I had to pick my least favorite 49ers jersey, it would probably be in the 2000s when we saw gold trim on the numbering with gold pants. When they first went gold trim in the late 90s, they kept white pants. However, when they switched to gold pants with the gold trim, it just didn't look right. I still have a gold trim Patrick Willis jersey, but I'm just not a big fan of the coloring on it. Needless to say I was quite pleased when they went back to straight red and white jerseys.
Sometimes the team shop will reveal some horrendous ideas for jerseys. The 49ers do not have such a team shop, at least online. They stick with their traditional look for most of the jerseys they offer for sale. I don't recall seeing anything at the stadium stories with pink for ladies or black jerseys, or anything like that. The closest random "jersey" for sale is this youth team set, which I think is actually pretty cool for a kid.
The closest we have to a hideous alternate would be this random helmet that was mocked up but never used. You may want to avert your eyes.