The New York Mets have long been at the forefront of poor uniform design.  Despite inheriting a cool concept that worked for almost 40 years -- orange for the Giants and blue for the Dodgers -- the Mets decided to add black in the late nineties, and haven't had a decent looking set since then.

They started adding black drop shadows, a black hat, black socks, black undershirts, and finally a black alternate.  Which was bad enough.  I'm sure there are some here who actually like it, though I'm not a fan, and frankly I think they've sold out their identity to the color black.  But as of Opening Day, the Mets have gone too far:

http://www.newsday.com/media/photo/2006-02/22192931.jpg

That helmet is an absolute travesty.  I tolerated it during Spring Training, naively thinking that it was a spring-training-only thing.  Apparently, I was wrong.   I was irritated enough by the silly looking design -- Rawlings idea of "branding" (something I DETEST -- see the new sleeves Nike's supplying this year) because they aren't allowed to put their logo on it -- but honestly, this color scheme is beyond the pale.

May the New York Mets' design team die a slow and painful death for this travesty...