50 Shades: Fanatics, Nike made sure Cardinals-Mets looked straight out of 1950

It's highly doubtful that Fanatics and Nike were outwardly trying to honor St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Sonny Gray on Saturday afternoon as he got the start at Citi Field against the New York Mets. But even if that wasn't the case, E.L. James had to be a big fan of all the shades of gray that we saw on the field in Queens.

On Saturday for the home game against the Cardinals, the Mets were set to debut their City Connect uniforms, a look that was divisive at best when the jerseys were first announced based on the fan base's reaction. The dark gray with black lettering was certainly a choice for New York to make, especially with the Yankees not looking too dissimmilar just down the road.

Regardless of your thoughts about the Mets City Connects, though, it would've all been fine in previous years. The Cardinals would've worn their powder blue uniforms that St. Louis typically dons on Saturday. Just one problem: Fanatics and Nike still haven't delivered the Saturday blues to the Cards, so they were instead forced to wear their road uniforms which are, you guessed it, gray.

For those keeping track at home, that's a gray-on-gray matchup with Gray on the bump for the Cardinals.

Fanatics, Nike delays lead to horrendous gray-on-gray matchup for Cardinals-Mets

That was indeed how the game was played, looking like color TV had yet to be invented -- or like something out of Back to the Future or Pleasantville -- as the two teams took the field. Suddenly, we all felt like listening to Counting Crows... we felt so symbolic yesterday.

Perhaps inspired by the uniform matchup that lived up to his own name, Sonny Gray buoyed the Cardinals with 6.0 innings of work allowing just one earned run on four hits and three walks (lowering his ERA to 1.16 on the season). St. Louis went on to win, 7-4, pushing to just one game below .500 after a middling start.

But in reality, the result feels secondary with another blunder from Fanatics and Nike a full month into the season. Just get the Cardinals their Saturday blues, get all of these seemingly previously nonexistent issues fixed, and maybe the uniform debacle can avoid giving baseball another black -- or maybe gray in this case -- eye.