The ‘94 Phillies protested their blue caps by throwing them in the trash and shredding them with Jay Leno

The Phillies were playing the following afternoon, which meant that the players would take the field wearing blue caps. So Frank Coppenbarger, then the team’s equipment manager, spent the night in April 1994 placing the caps at each Veterans Stadium locker before turning to see Dave Hollins following behind.

“He took each one and threw them into the trash,” Coppenbarger said. “Then he dumped barbecue baked beans and potato salad on top of them. He told me they weren’t wearing the hats.”

The Phillies introduced the blue caps in April 1994, hoping to capitalize on the popularity of the magical 1993 season. Other teams were starting to unveil alternate uniforms, so the Phillies decided to join in by designing a cap for day games.

» READ MORE: Dave Hollins defined Macho Row for the 1993 Phillies. He wants his son to chart a more pleasant course.

They set an attendance record in 1993 and took the city by storm on their way to the World Series. A new cap gave the team something new to sell. The caps — all blue with a red “P” — were a hit with fans as local stores struggled to keep them in stock.

But inside the clubhouse, they were trash. It didn’t take long to feel that the magic of ‘93 was gone. So the blue caps became an easy target for the Phillies, who lost their first four games in blue.

“It had to be something,” said Coppenbarger, who retired in 2019. “It had to be the hat.”

The Phillies wore nearly 10 cap designs last season as the league issues hats for holidays from Mother’s Day to Armed Forces Day. The Phils will introduce a new uniform — their fifth option for games — on Friday as alternate looks have become common.

The players aired their grievances this spring about the fabric of MLB’s new uniforms, but it would be a surprise if anyone complained about having to find room in his locker for yet another uniform. It’s the way it is. In 1994, it was something to protest.

“Here’s the thing,” Curt Schilling said. “You had a very ‘old-school’ team. Stop playing games with the uniforms and just worry about the on-field product. That was about the time when all those alternate uniforms started happening. I hated them.

“They call it superstition, but we’re detail-oriented. I don’t want to have to think about my hat. It gets down to the minutiae. I’ve always found that people who are great in anything, their attention to detail is so far beyond anything you can imagine. In my mind, I don’t want to have to think about my hat. I used the same hat for the entire season from the first day of spring training.”

Larry Bowa, then the team’s third-base coach, understood how the 1994 Phillies felt. In 1979, Greg Luzinski told the team’s owner that he could trade him or release him before he ever wore the all-burgundy uniform they wore that night. Bowa and the rest of the team backed the Bull. The Phils ditched their “Saturday Night Special” uniforms after debuting them in a 10-5 loss to Montreal.

“If you’re playing good and then all of a sudden, they make you wear a different hat or different colored uniform, that doesn’t fly,” Bowa said. “It might now because there’s so many different uniforms on different days.”

The day after Hollins trashed the caps, the Phillies took batting practice in their traditional red caps. David Montgomery, then the team’s chief operating officer, called general manager Lee Thomas, who soon called Coppenbarger. It was a day game and the players needed to wear blue. The hats were in the trash, Coppenbarger told Thomas.

“He said, ‘Well, they’re wearing those hats whether they like it or not,’” Coppenbarger said. “So I had to issue all new hats to every guy on the team.”

The Phillies finished last in 1992 and were picked to finish there again before they started 1993 by winning 23 of their first 30 games. They used platoons in right and left field, had a bullpen of veteran relievers who had career years, and a starting rotation that clicked. Everything was perfect. They ended August with a 10-game lead, clinched a playoff spot in September, and won the pennant weeks later.

“They played with a chip on their shoulder,” Bowa said. “It was a bunch of veteran guys who went through ups and downs and came together as a team.”

But 1994 was not 1993. Schilling said he could feel something different in spring training. And not just because his elbow was sore.

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“It was senseless to expect that to happen again,” Schilling said. “If I knew now what I knew then, I would’ve known that as Joe Carter’s ball was sailing out in Toronto that we just experienced a season that no one will ever experience again.”

The Phillies started the season with three wins in Colorado before being swept in Cincinnati. They then came home and the blue caps were waiting for them. John Kruk received a rousing ovation hours after undergoing radiation treatment for cancer and the Phils received their National League rings.

And that was the last time the Phils seemed to smile in their blue caps. After the Phillies lost their first three games in blue, Lenny Dykstra went on The Tonight Show and shredded blue caps in a wood chipper alongside Jay Leno.

“They didn’t like it because they were losing,” Coppenbarger said. “It didn’t have a damn thing to do with the hats. The hats were the same type of hat that the red ones were. They just didn’t play well with them. They didn’t play very well with the red ones either back then. It wasn’t ‘93.”

The Phillies won the pennant in 1993 with a cast of mulleted baseball rats who spat tobacco and hung out in the trainer’s room until early in the morning.

“I used to tell people that they were the Oakland Raiders of baseball,” Coppenbarger said. “They were something else.”

They were led by Macho Row and Jim Fregosi, the team’s manager, let Darren Daulton keep everyone in line.

“Fregosi was the Godfather,” Hollins said. “You only came to him with something that was really important. ‘You guys run the everyday stuff.’ You came into the training room and we had our spots where we hung out, drank, ate and talked about the team. That was just the way it was.”

The blue caps proved to be something important. Fregosi summoned Daulton to his office when the team wore red caps for batting practice after Hollins trashed the blue ones. Montgomery, Thomas, Fregosi, and Daulton met for more than 10 minutes. The Phillies had to wear the blue hats — which were designed by Major League Baseball — as the team had designated them before the season as their alternate.

“The reason David Montgomery was so effective is he had that pragmatic business side of him‚” said Dennis Mannion, then the team’s marketing director. “But the other side of him was a very gentle type of delivery. So he could go down there and give Darren and Jim all the details on licensed merchandise and the commitment that he made. More than anything, David had his way to take a very sensitive issue and break it into parts. It would comfort you. Darren was probably like, ‘I don’t really want to wear it, but I get it.’”

The Phillies lost again that day and the groans continued. Two weeks later, the players made a deal with the front office: They would wear blue caps on weekday matinees but not on Sunday afternoons.

“Why take just a second of focus away from winning the ballgame?” Schilling said. “The club does it because they’re a business and they’re trying to make money. I get all that. But I never saw a marketing department come down to the clubhouse and ask the players what they thought of something.

“Part of that is the hubris of the athlete like, ‘You’re not going to tell me what to do.’ There’s some of that, I’m sure.”

It took the Phillies until June 29 to win their first game in blue. They went 1-6 that season in their new caps, battled injuries all year, and were seven games below .500 when a players’ strike ended the season in August. The strike not only canceled the World Series but took the Phillies off the hook for their final blue cap day of the season.

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When the team returned in 1995, the roster was different and the magic from 1993 was never recaptured. By then, the World Series was a fading memory. And so were the blue caps as they were permanently trashed after the 1994 season. The only thing missing was baked beans and potato salad to pour on top of them.

“I plead insanity on that one. Frank has told me the story, but I’ve really tried to selectively forget some of the stupid stuff I did,” said Hollins, who has since mellowed. “I love the hats now. Extra merchandise, the fans love it. I mean, shut up and put the hats on and go play. But ballplayers are a pain in the butt. They’re superstitious.”