Through combined research efforts with Craig Brown at http://www.threadsofourgame.com, we found that the only photo of Dad Clarkson from this season isn’t Dad Clarkson at all. It’s his brother John Clarkson. John Clarkson never played for St. Louis. Clearly the cigarette card company messed up and pulled a photo of “Clarkson” from their file, but somehow turned it into a St. Louis jersey. We think one of two things happened. The company is skilled in the art of Adobe Photoshop and added in St. Louis lettering, or they combined two photographs, one photo of John Clarkson’s head with a photo of the body of a St. Louis player. We think this uniform has some merit as being authentic, but we have no real certainty of this claim.
Beyond the doctored photo we only have one newspaper article which tells of a blue road uniform. The article says “St. Louis Browns,” leading us to believe the team wore two lines of text on the uniform. We have no certainty of this claim. We also do not know if the lettering on the front of the jersey was white, brown, or red.
Newspaper Accounts
Boston Globe: March 24, 1894
St. Louis will travel this year with the following uniforms: blue cap with brown trimmings, blue flannel shirt and trousers with brown trimmings, brown belt and stockings and ‘St. Louis Browns’ across the shirt front. Home uniforms during the championship season will be of white flannel with brown trimmings
The Sporting Life: March 31, 1894
The Browns have announced their selection of ’94 uniforms. At home they will wear white with brown trimmings. On the road, blue flannel shirts and pants, with brown trimmings and the name, “St. Louis Browns,” across the shirt front. The cap is of blue, with brown trimmings, and the belt and stockings are brown.
The Evening World: May 30, 1894
The St. Louis uniform makes a horrible blot on the green of the diamond. The suit is of dark blue, trimmed profusely with bright crimson, and carries a tag bearing the title in letters a foot or so across the shirt front. All that is left of the old Browns is the dingy stockings, some of which look as though handed down for two or three generations.
Sporting Life: June 9, 1894
The St. Louis uniform makes a horrible blot on the green of the diamond. The suit is of dark blue, trimmed profusely with bright crimson, and carries a tag bearing the title in letters a foot or so long across the shirt front.
Scranton Times: August 13, 1894
The uniforms of the St. Louis Team are of very dark blue, and the grey uniforms in the centre made the wearer look like a stranger in a foreign land. But the wearer of the gray uniform was no stranger. He was at home. Those who looked closely and remembered well, saw that Pietro Gladiator Browning, ex-champion batter of the world for several seasons, and until recently with Mike Kelly’s Allentown aggregation, was to play centre field for St. Louis.
Team Colors
Brown – PMS 732
Brown’s Navy – PMS 288
Cardinals Uniforms & Logos 