Saturday Open Thread

13 comments September 23rd, 2006

Wrestlemania

I’ve never given much thought to sumo “uniforms,” because the combatants basically just wear diapers. Okay, so there are different colors (including you know what), along with the occasional bit of flag-based imagery, but still — come on.

Or at least that’s what I thought. But as with virtually all things Far Eastern, this one has come under the gaze of reader Jeremy Brahm, who recently sent along the following primer about the special ceremonial belts — which look more like skirts or aprons — that some sumo wrestlers wear:

I bet you didn’t know that wrestlers actually have two belts that they wear each day for the highest level (or “Makunouchi” in Japanese). These wrestlers wear these belts in addition to their regular wrestling belts at ceremonies and before starting the day’s bouts. Take these guys, for example — actually, the guy in the middle is the yokozuna, which you can tell because of the big white belt with “lightning bolts” that he’s wearing (here’s another example).

Some of these ceremonial belts have very bad sponsor creep. Here’s Japanese wrestler Chiyotaikai wearing the Coca-Cola logo, and here’s the Bulgarian wrestler Kotoohshu — that’s basic basically an advertisement for a Bulgarian yogurt. (He’s also worn the Japan-Bulgaria Friendship Association logo and the Bulgarian flag with a horse.) Somewhere there’s a picture of Japanese wrestler Takatoriki with a Pepsi ad on it, but that was about 10 years ago, so it’s hard finding something like that on the web.

Here are some other interesting belts, as worn by the Georgian wrestler Kokkai; the Estonian wrestler Baruto; the Russian wrestlers Roho and Hakurozan; the Mongolian wrestler Kyokushuuan; the naturalized Japanized citizen Konishiki (who can be seen wearing a Yomiuri Giants jersey and throwing out the first pitch here); the Japanese wrestlers Kasugaoh and Shunketsu [who appears to be wearing an anime design]; and the American wrestler Sentoryu.

I would almost say this next picture, of the Japanese wrestler Tamarikido, is like wearing a college sweatshirt.

Then there’s this kind of sumo outfit, but that’s a separate category.

Wart(burg)s and All: Got an interesting note yesterday from reader Jesse Gavin, as follows:

I’m a recent graduate of Wartburg College, a Division III school in Iowa. While in school, I spent a lot of time working for the student TV and radio stations, usually covering Wartburg’s athletic teams. Therefore, I cringed a little bit when I found out that the football team would be wearing new Nike home uniforms this season.

However, it didn’t occur to me until later that the new home unis might cause a conflict with the road uniforms, made by Adidas, that had been unveiled last season. So what happened when Wartburg went on the road for the first time this season last Saturday? The road uniforms were now adorned with an IIAC [Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference] patch on the exact same spot where the Adidas logo had been visible last season. A source within the program tells me that sewing the patch onto all the away jerseys was less expensive than buying new ones.

Hmmm, Nike takes over home jerseys, Adidas logo mysteriously disappears from old jerseys. Coincidence, I’m sure.

Uni Watch News Ticker: Marhsall will mark the 35th anniversary of the school’s landmark victory over Xavier with “1971 Young Thundering Herd” helmet decals this Saturday (with thanks to Craig Bates). … Georgia Tech’s 1970 throwbacks looked my-t-fine last night. Too bad they didn’t wear period-appropriate socks, though. … Latest high school team to go with the Nikefied sleeve treatment: Ontario High, in Mansfield, Ohio. “The’ve also got some pant stripes thrown in there,” says Mansfield alum Clint Whittington, who provided the pics. “I’m not sure they look so good together, not that many things would look good with that yellow sleeve.”

103 comments September 22nd, 2006

Humankind Not Doomed After All

New ESPN column today — here’s the link.

Meanwhile: Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a new hosiery hero in our midst. That would be Brian Tallet of the Blue Jays, who on Tuesday night earned himself a lifetime Uni Watch exemption by wearing some picture-perfect stirrups. Here’s a closer look — note the bloused cuffs (which didn’t drape exactly right, but I blame that on the polyester, not on Tallet). Very, very nice.

Bill Blevins, who provided the screen-grabs, reports that Yankees TV announcers Michael Kay, Al Leiter, and Ken Singleton “spent over a minute talking about the fact that Tallet wore actual stirrups in the proper manner. The talk was entirely pro-stirrup, and I did not detect irony in their tone.” Apparently they also showed a quick video clip of Leiter wearing stirrups back in his Blue Jays days (although that couldn’t have been too exciting, since Leiter’s stirrups in those days were exceedingly uninspired). Unfortunately, the MLB.TV game video is from the Toronto broadcast, where the announcers didn’t even mention Tallet’s fine example.

Tallet’s an interesting case. In his minor league days, he sometimes wore stirrups and faux stirrups (nice cuff level, despite the bogus hose). I’ve been unable to find pics from his 2002 and 2003 cups of coffee with the Indians, he was definitely long-pantsed during his two Cleveland appearances in 2005. Then he caused a stir at the beginning of this season — his first with Toronto — by showing some stirrup, which upon closer inspection turned out to be of the faux variety. But as the season progressed, he shifted to full-fledged pajama mode, and as recently as two weeks ago he appeared to be a lost cause. Who’da thunk he’d end up with the season’s best sock stylings so far?

About yesterday’s post: As you may have seen, I ended up taking down yesterday’s interview with Joe Hilseberg, at his request. Many of you have asked why, but the specifics are private. All that matters is that Joe is a stand-up guy who had good reason to make the request, so I honored it. I want to make it clear that there was no pressure put on me by any outside parties, nor was this a case of a source coming back to me and saying, “Oh shit, I didn’t think you’d print that!” This was simply a friend of the site ending up in a tough spot through no fault of his own, so I helped him get out of it. End of story.

No, I can’t tell you more, and no, I can’t e-mail you a transcript of the interview, so please don’t ask. Let’s move on, shall we?

Uni Watch News Ticker: With Georgia Tech wearing throwbacks tonight, I’ll be appearing at 6pm eastern on the school’s flagship station, WQXI 790. I’m told we’ll be discussing the topic of throwbacks in general. … Check out this totally rulin’ 1959 Wilson advertising poster that I scored yesterday on eBay. I’ll post better photos of it when I get the actual item from the seller. … Big, big kudos to Andrew Shieh, who came up with a photo of last weekend’s Navy placekicker jersey typo. … Good catch by Jonathon Binet, who notes that the sleeve patches worn by many of the Nationals are curling and puckering. Additional views here, here, here, here, and here. … In yet another great catch, Dustin Ray has noticed that MLB umpires’ “EG” memorial patch for Eric Gregg is disappearing from many umps’ sleeves, often leaving behind a sticky residue. … Speaking of memorials, this obituary for longtime MLB exec Syd Thrift mentions that he’s the one who got underbills changed from green to gray (or so Thrift always claimed — some other sources dispute this). … On Monday I mentioned that many NFL players’ waistband towels now feature the Wilson wordmark (instead of the Wilson “W,” as had been the case for the past several years). That prompted the following note from a source at Wilson: “Good catch on the towels. We did change to the script Wilson logo this year, to match our current branding (I know…logo creep). If someone’s still wearing the ‘W,’ I assume it’s because the team had old inventory and is just using them up. Each team receives 528 towels per year and a lot of the northern teams seem to go through their allotment slower than southern and/or dome teams.” … While he was at it, the Wilson sourced added this: “If you look closely this year, you’ll see that NFL game balls have the team names stamped on them, below the NFL shield panel. In the past, the home team supplied the balls for both teams; this year, each team will supply their own footballs when they are on offense (similar to college).” … The Raptors have finally confirmed what everyone already knew: no more purple. … Here’s something you don’t often see anymore: the old ABC helmet logo, as worn on Sept. 9th by Ken Huckaby. … The Cardinals retired Bruce Sutter’s No. 42 on Monday night — an odd move, since 42 was already retired for Jackie Robinson. … In case you missed it in yesterday’s Comments section: With the Falcons having signed Morten Andersen Tuesday, lots of readers are wondering if the ageless kicker — who hasn’t played in the NFL since 2004 — will wear his old-school Dungard facemask. … Nice piece here making fun of the Vikings’ unis (with thanks to Jennifer Hayden). … Lots of negative reader reaction yesterday to the new U.S. cycling uniform, and it’s easy to see why. … Cork Gaines notes that there was some serious logo creep discussion in yesterday’s Doonesbury (where the item being discussed for adornment is a prosthetic leg). … Browns WR Josh Cribbs is inviting a fine by wearing an unapproved memorial tribute to a recently deceased teacher (thanks to Dave Sterling for the tip). … Webmaster John Ekdahl has added several new features to the Comments section, including the use of gravatars. For details on that, go to yesterday’s Comments and scroll down to Nos. 139 and 144.

140 comments September 21st, 2006

Uni Watch Profiles: Joe Hilseberg

Back on April 10th, 2005, Miguel Tejada slid head-first into home plate at Yankee Stadium and emerged with the “1″ on his jersey peeling off. He then ended up playing the rest of the game as No. 0. When I linked to those photos from my ESPN column a few days later, I got a note from some guy I’d never heard of before, which read, “That NEVER would’ve happened back when I was in charge of the Orioles’ numbers!”

That was my introduction to Joe Hilseberg, a lifelong Marylander who, as he explained in our subsequent correspondence, spent parts of his high school and college years working in the Baltimore shop that sewed all the names and numbers on Orioles and Ravens jerseys. He’s stayed in touch during the ensuing year and a half, often pointing things out regarding the subtleties of uniform stitching.

Hilseberg isn’t the first stitcher I’ve encountered. Back in 2004, I met Ross Gompers, who does all the stitching for the Mets, and ended up writing about him. But Hilseberg — maybe because he’s not in the business anymore and is therefore a bit freer to speak his mind — was much more expansive on the ins and outs of stitchery than Gompers was. We chatted on the phone a few weeks ago.

[A quick aside: Remember that I myself will be interviewed by reader Todd Krevanchi for an upcoming Uni Watch Profiles installment. If you have questions that you want Todd to ask me, submit them to him here. Okay, end of promo -- on to the Hilseberg interview.]

Update, Wednesday, 7:45pm: Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances, Hilseberg has requested that I take down the interview, and I’ve reluctantly agreed. I’m doing this because Joe is a peach of a guy who deserves better than the grief he got from certain quarters today. Those of you who saw the interview know how good it was; my apologies to those of you who didn’t get to see it.

148 comments September 20th, 2006

Black Monday

The Mets finally clinched the National League Eastern Division title last night. As a lifelong Mets fan, I was thrilled; but as a uni aesthete, I was appalled, because the game, the celebration, and the historical record of the day will forever be marred by the sight — nay, the blight — of those unspeakable black uniforms.

For those of us who’ve followed the encroachment of black into the team’s color scheme over the past nine years, this was no surprise. The bigger the occasion, it seems, the less likely the Mets are to wear blue. It’s almost as if they intentionally lost those three weekend games in Pittsburgh (where they wore predominantly black caps but at least didn’t sink to the level of wearing black jerseys) just so they could come back to New York and clinch the title while wearing black.

Enough is enough. All the Mets fans I know — and many non-Mets fans, too — are sick of the Amazins’ ebony-centric ways. It’s pathetic and embarrassing, and it’s time to do something about it. And so, assembled Uni Watchers, I have three words for you: DITCH THE BLACK.

That’s the name of Uni Watch’s new campaign to banish black from the Mets’ wardrobe. I’ve drafted a modestly worded petition, which you can read and sign here (feel free to forward the URL to everyone you know), and we also have a wide range of T-shirts with a pointed message on the back, which should make a very fashionable statement this postseason. (For the full range of shirt options, look here.)

Incidentally, while I’ve been grumbling about the Mets’ use of black every since they started doing it, I can’t take credit for the Ditch the Black campaign concept. It was Uni Watch webmaster John Ekdahl’s idea — and he’s a Yankees fan! But as he said to me a few days ago, “I want to get back to being able to make fun of the Mets for something other than their uniforms.” (We’ll see about that in October, John.)

Meanwhile, as many of you know, Mets equipment manager Charlie Samuels, who decides what the team wears each day, supposedly doesn’t like to choose the blue caps because they clash with the team’s black dugout jackets. But there may be some progress on that front: Reader Brian Erni reports that the Mets Pro Shops are now selling a blue dugout jacket, which would be in keeping with MLB’s recent habit of releasing new designs just in time for the postseason and then carrying them over into the following year. If that’s the case here, it’s a good start. But there’s still a lot more to do, so remember: DITCH THE BLACK.

Uni Watch News Ticker: Informative note from Matt Nelson, who writes: “In addition to the blacked-out Big Ten logo on Iowa’s nose bumpers on Saturday [a memorial gesture for linebacker Mike Klinkenborg's father], QB Drew Tate had ‘22′ and ‘25′ written on his left arm. That would be for No. 22, Calvin Davis, who is injured and out for the year with a knee injury, and No. 25, Marcus Paschal, who missed the game with a shoulder bruise. Andy Brodell also had ‘22′ written on his wrist. Running back Albert Young writes ‘RIP Dad’ on the inside of one of his shoes, but I don’t have photos.” … In recent years, the NFL’s waistband towel has featured the Wilson “W.” But that now appears to be changing. This past week, many players wore towels featuring the full Wilson wordmark, including Ben Roethlisberger (here’s a closer view), Eli Manning, and Jon Kitna. But some players were still wearing the “W,” such as Chris Simms, Rex Grossman, and Phillip Rivers. … Good views here and here of the Stars’ All-Star Game patch.

157 comments September 19th, 2006

Light(weight) Sabres

Okay, by now that we’ve all had a few days to digest the new Sabres uniforms. Aside from the obvious (color scheme = good, logo = bad), here are some of my thoughts on the matter:

• The very first thing that caught my eye is that there are no stripes or other design along the jersey’s hemline — a major departure from hockey tradition. That’s why the chest logo looks like it’s floating so high, because there’s nothing to anchor it at the base of the jersey. The NHL has a few other jerseys with unadorned hemline areas, but they’re pretty rare, and Buffalo now becomes the only NHL team whose home and road jerseys both employ this design approach. Over on Chris Creamer’s message boards, someone else noticed this and had an interesting comment:

This is clearly a jersey designed with Reebok’s form-fitting uni plans for next year in mind. The empty lower half of the jersey strongly suggests that Reebok is still trying to aggressively push that their new jerseys be tucked into the pants next season [an idea that had reportedly been pushed by Reebok but resisted by team GMs last season]. After all, what’s the point of putting anything on the bottom if nobody’s going to see it on the ice?

Whether or not that analysis is correct, these jerseys need some lower striping, pronto.

• The front uni numbers don’t bother me — in fact, I kinda like them. The problem is that they create a boring symmetry when a captain’s “C” or alternate’s “A” is added.

• What is the deal already with all the bells and whistles in the underarm area? It’s a total mess. Check out what we’re all gonna have to look at every time someone raises his arms to celebrate a goal or make a save — ugh.

• It’s bad enough that the NBA and NFL are constantly adding garish matching side panels to jerseys and pants — now we’ve got the Sabres doing it too. The jersey side panel looks ridiculous. And yeah, it forms a continuous stripe pattern with the breezers when they happen to match up — but the nature of an active sport like hockey is that they usually don’t match up.

• All things considered, the rear view isn’t bad.

Overall, a missed opportunity. But I really hated the previous design, so I actually see this as an upgrade, if only a minor one.

Uni Watch News Ticker: Latest Japanese baseball observation from Jeremy Brahm: different-sized surname lettering on the same team. … Bryan Redemske reports that investment guru Warren Buffet had lunch with LeBron James the other day and showed up wearing a complete Cavs uniform, complete with a jersey that had “Buffett” on the back. … Sock stripe-o-rama in Saturday’s Portuguese league soccer match between Sporting and Pacos de Ferreira (the latter of which looks like an Oregon satellite program, no?). … Speaking of Oregon, they looked, um, really classy in Saturday’s game against Oklahoma. … Iowa players blacked out the Big 10 logo on their helmets’ nose bumpers on Saturday, a memorial gesture for linebacker Mike Klinkenborg’s father, who died earlier in the week. … No photo, but several readers asked why a Texas A&M player had “12th Man” on his right sleeve, in place of his TV number. Anyone know the story behind this? … No photo again, but a nameless reader claims that Navy’s placekicker had “NVAY” printed on his jersey, instead of “NAVY,” in Saturday’s game. Can anyone confirm? … Some serious vertical arching on Italy’s Atalanta Bergamasca Calcio soccer team (with thanks to Bryan Redemske).

187 comments September 18th, 2006

Sunday Open Thread and Nike Roundup

(Photo by Rick Stewart/Getty Images)

The Buffalo Sabres revealed their long-awaited (and heavily criticized) new logos and uniforms on Saturday.

Nike Roundup:
On Wednesday of this past week, two comments were posted that were vulgar and rude enough to catch my attention. Paul and I believe that the person that posted these comments found the blog through a link from the USA Today article available here. Paul was quoted in the article and had some negative things to say about the current state of uniforms at the University of Oregon (what else is new). Apparently this person who called himself “j” (from here on known as “NikeSuperFan”) couldn’t handle criticism of Oregon’s classy atrocious uniforms, and felt the need to verbally attack this blog, Paul and everyone who “wastes” their time here.

NikeSuperFan first posted at 2:54 P.M. EST on Wednesday. He was responding to Paul’s decision to decline the invitation to appear on a local Oregon radio station. Here is his entry:

Paul Lukas said:

In response to that USA Today article, I’ve gotten several inquiries from radio stations that want to interview me (read: looking for free content to fill their airtime). One was a sports talk station in Oregon, whose producer said that having me on would “help stir things up.” Having been around this particular block a few times, I know that’s a polite way of saying, “Come on our show so we can totally abuse you for making fun of our uniforms,” so I declined.

I did accept an invitation to talk about uniforms on AM 800 CKLW, in Windsor/Detroit, however. They’re gonna have me on at 5:45pm EST. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have streaming audio.

NikeSuperFan said:

[personal insult deleted/IP will be banned if this continues -webmaster edit]

His response was ugly enough that I had to immediately censor it, as you can see above. The record of this comment is still available here.

At this point, I thought it was over. I warned the poster that I would ban the IP address he was commenting from if this continued. Usually people get the point. Not NikeSuperFan.

Only four minutes later, he posted this (permalink):

NikeSuperFan Said:

Paul-What makes you a design expert anyway? You say there is good design and bad design…what the f*ck do you know about design?

You’ve obvously missed the entire point of the uniforms…TO GET PEOPLE TALKING!

Thanks for pushing the agenda.

While this was mild compared to his first post, it was still annoying. I checked his IP and put it into the “blacklist”. This means the person can still view the site but is not allowed to post comments (as of right now, this is the only IP blacklisted). Still, something didn’t sit right with me about his comments. Why so angry? Why so defensive? So, I ran a trace on his IP address. Normally this will return somthing like “Comcast – Philadelphia” or “Verizon – Boulder, CO”. This time, to my complete surprise, it returned “Nike – Beaverton, OR”. I was shocked.

For the benefit of those who don’t completely understand what this means, let me explain. This information tells us that someone at the Nike Worldwide Headquarters (presumably an employee) has been checking this site and has verbally abused those who visit here in profanity-laced tirades. I’m sure some of you are thinking, “So what, what’s the big deal?”. It’s not that simple. Nike has allowed an employee to use company equipment from Nike Headquarters to attack Paul, the site and those who frequent here. Not cool. Most companies would never allow it to happen. In all fairness to Nike, they probably don’t know about it, but it isn’t my job to look into what their employees are using their equipment for, it’s their job.

I could have contacted Nike and informed them what one of their employees had done. I’m sure it’s a fireable offense, but I really didn’t want that weighing on my conscience. Instead, I developed a counter that tracks how often Nike visits the site. It’s not the greatest revenge, but it’ll be interesting to see how much they’re checking up on this little uniform community. Anyway, I wanted to tell everyone here the entire story, because I’ve discussed it briefly in the comments section the last few days.

Feel free to use this thread for technical questions regarding the site along with the regular uniform banter. I’ll be checking in throughout the day.

121 comments September 17th, 2006

Saturday Open Thread

Can you guess who’s attached to those socks? Pedro Matinez, naturally, who went with the high cuffs once again in his return to action last night. This keeps intact his string of showing plenty of sock ever since he was fined for stretching his cuffs under his heel back in July. Unfortunately, he never cashed the check that we sent him, but at least he’s got his hosiery priorities in order these days.

92 comments September 16th, 2006