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Archive for December, 2006
Reader Jonathan Lacaster has picked up an interesting logo design trope that I’d never noticed before. Here it is, in his own words:
I’m an Auburn fan and have always liked the old Aubie mascot with the sailor’s cap. I know other schools have used similar sailor-hatted mascots, including Oregon, Oregon State, Baylor, Miami, UNC, and Washington University.
My question is: What’s the deal with the sailor hat? Was it a symbol of being tough, or was it a patriotic thing? Why did so many schools use this kind of logo?
Hmmm, intriguing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t answer Jonathan’s question, so I turned to logo designer/historian Todd Radom, who usually knows the story behind this type of thing. Not this time, though. “Interesting question indeed, and one that I have absolutely no answer for,” he wrote back. “My only wild guess would be that many of these logos look to be from the 1940s, and the WW2 sailor was a very tangible visual identifier in those days.” Which is pretty much what I thought too, although that’s a far cry from a definitive answer.
If anyone knows anything about this, and/or if you have additional sailor-hatted mascot examples to contribute, please enlighten us, forthwith.
Blue Jay Way: Lots of people, myself included, have wondered why the Toronto Blue Jays wear so little blue these days. Toronto reader Andrew Stoeten has provided some useful background info (some of which I had previously known but forgotten, the rest of which was new to me):
In Canada there are two major telecommunications companies, Bell Canada and Rogers Communications, who fiercely compete with one another. Bell uses blue as the predominant colour in its marketing; Rogers, which owns the Blue Jays, uses red.
Ever since Rogers bought the team, they have very noticeably moved away from using their Bell’s colour, and even from using the word “blue” in Blue Jays (the Rogers-owned network that broadcasts the vast majority of games calls its telecast “Rogers Jays Baseball”).
To their credit, Rogers is putting blue rings around the facade of the “Rogers Centre” (er… SkyDome) to help remove some of the cement look in the stadium for the upcoming season. But as for the hope that blue may return as a predominant colour on the uniform, or the full name “Blue Jays” appearing on the jerseys, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Of course, this sort of influence from the marketing department is nothing new for the franchise. It’s no coincidence that the name Blue Jays was decided upon at the outset, considering that the majority owner at the time was the Labatt Brewing Company, whose flagship lager is, of course, Blue.
Good info. Let’s just be glad the team isn’t owned by Prince.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Good article here about the Titans’ assorted uni combos. … And here’s something about the Ravens’ alts. … One of the Cal players in the Holiday Bowl had “Google Me” written on his eye black. “I believe it’s Mickey Pimentel, a linebacker,” says Thomas Foote, who provided the screen shot. “If anyone can find play-by-play for the game, it’s definitely the kid who made a great tackle at the 9:30 mark of the third quarter, because he started bleeding after that hit.” … Allen Iverson presented George Karl an “800″ jersey, to mark Karl’s 800th coaching victory, on Friday night. Kinda looked like an apron, and made Karl look like he was doing a kitchen demo. … Ancient sporting goods catalog being auctioned off here, including a few pages of baseball uniforms and caps. … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: Sheffield United had to put a midfielder in goal on Saturday after their keeper was injured against Arsenal, necessitating a jersey switcheroo. … Navy did that thing yesterday where the players all wore the emblem of their squadron (or platoon, or brigade, or whatever it is — someone help me out here) on their jerseys. … A few days ago I ran an item about the refs going without uniform numbers in a recent Stars/Avalanche game. An explanation has now come, courtesy of Rick Moreno: “Apparently the referees lost their luggage! The same crew worked Friday’s Blues/Avalanche game, and had all their own equipment. Mike Haynes, the Avalanche TV guy, said that one of the refs wore Ian Laperriere’s skates, and during a break in the action, Laperriere asked the guy ‘How do you like ‘em?’ ” … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: Giants backup QB Jared “The Hefty Lefty” Lorenzen is arguably the largest No. 12 in NFL history (listed as 6′4″, 285, looks bigger).
Auld Lang Syne: This has been a really good year for Uni Watch, and huge chunk of that is because of the countless great contributions you people provide every day. Thanks a heap for all the incredible info you send my way, and for making this project way more successful than I ever could have imagined. Looking forward to bigger and better things in oh-seven.
December 31st, 2006
(Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)
Running back Ray Rice of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights carries the ball as linebacker Alphonso Moran of the Kansas State Wildcats moves in for the tackle during the Texas Bowl on December 28, 2006 at Reliant Stadium in Houston Texas. Rutgers won 37-10. It was Rutgers’s first-ever bowl game victory.
December 30th, 2006
The other day I got an e-mail from Matt Kowalski. The subject line read, “The only sport where the winner gets the loser’s uniform…” When I opened the e-mail, the sentence was completed: “is rowing.”
The rest of the e-mail read like so:
“Shirt racing” is the way things are done at all major college rowing championships. If you win the regatta, then you get ALL THE JERSEYS/HENLEYS/UNIFORMS of the other crews you beat. If a rower is lucky enough, he can get on a run — the U of Wisconsin recently had a class (’03, maybe?) that won four consecutive Eastern Sprints titles; the few kids in those boats wound up with lots of Harvard/Yale/Princeton gear. I think there’s a legend of some guys from Penn in the early or mid-’90s that came away with 150+ shirts over four years, between Eastern Sprints, IRAs (Intercollegiate Rowing Association), and dual races.
I rowed at a small club school (Pitt) and also spent a season on the Wisconsin crew after transferring. After every race at Pitt, I had to give up my shirt. At Wisconsin, however, I had the satisfying feeling of watching a Purdue rower dump a huge laundry pile of Purdue jerseys right in front of out trailer after all our boats spanked them at the Big 10 regatta.
Then there’s the story of Yale’s silk sash. At one point in the ’70s, their crew was so slow, and giving away so many of their jerseys with the real silk stripe, that they had to switch to screening the stripe onto the jersey, just to save money.
Shirt racing, incidentally, is one of the reasons why men’s rowing is NOT an NCAA sport. Betting by NCAA student-athletes is outlawed, and shirt racing is essentially a bet. But under the IRA (which is 12 years older than the NCAA, by the way), it’s no problem.
There’s no professional rowing (anymore). No money to be made in
the sport. Yet Wall Street types from Ivy League schools put off big-$$$ careers to live like hobos trying to make national teams. Shirt racing encapsulates this spirit of the sport. In dual races between 8s, they actually pull the 63-ft. shells together at the finish line and give over the shirts right thereon the water. International rowing doesn’t really have shirt racing, but there’s a long tradition of trading gear at the end of a World Cup-level regatta. When the East German crews were winning in the ’70s, one of their henley jerseys could command barter of a lot of Western-issued sweats/warm-ups/gear.
Interesting protocol, although it raises as many questions as it answers, at least for me. Here’s the ensuing back-and-forth I had with Kowalski:
Uni Watch: Do the winners wear the losers’ jerseys, or do they all go into a trophy case, or what?
Matt Kowalski: They don’t usually get displayed or anything, other then being worn at practice or other regattas as a symbol of speed. I lost the few that I won at Wisconsin. I think a lot of successful rowers just throw theirs in a drawer. It’s not a sport with a lot of glamour.
UW: I assume women’s rowing teams don’t do the uni-trade thing, right? And this is why women’s rowing is an NCAA sport?
MK: Women’s rowing is a NCAA sport because of Title IX. It’s the logical choice when you need to add 50-70 female students to balance football, and has grown by about tenfold since the 1990s. The women tend to wear unisuits, so there’s not as much trading.
UW: What does a typical crew jersey look like, anyway? Is there any standard template or style for what it’s is “supposed” to look like (tailoring, colors, home-vs.-road ettiquette, etc.), or is it just a freestyle kind of thing? Is there an acknowledged “classic,” like Yankee pinstripes or something like that?
MK: For years the rowing world went with the Oxford/Cambridge standard design, which was basically a “ringer” T-shirt with a few buttons at the collar. The diagonal stripe and the school letter are common, too. Remember, rowing is generally a conservative sport, and it’s horrible for spectators, so unis have never been a huge deal (outside of your shirt being taken by a faster crew). That said, with the increase in rowing apparel companies in the past few years, there’s a lot of radical designs making their way to the water. Princeton’s women wore tiger stripe unisuits last spring for a few races, and the German national team’s sponsorship by Deutsche Telecom led to some outrageous pink unis.
There’s no home vs. road. There are seasonal uni differences, fall vs, spring. Shirt racing usually takes place in the spring. In the fall, the races are 4000-6000 meters. Because of the longer time spent on the water (I’ve had races where I was out there for three hours with delays), the gear is long tights and long-sleve tech shirts made of Coolmax.
Another rowing uni phnomenon is the Stevenson. These are pullover jackets cut short in the front and very long in the back. The long flap in the back provides extra padding and waterproofing when tucked into the trou (for some reason, what everybody else calls “compresion shorts,” rowers call “trou”). Stevensons also have shoulder gussets to allow for the arms to reach out when placing the oar in the water. Stevenson is a company that became identified with the jackets, like Kleenex for tissues. Most of the nice ones today are made by Boathouse Sports.
J & L was the first company to do nothing but rowing gear, and they do all kinds of custom embroidery and color schemes for crews; most varsity programs have a new design each year. Clubs are on a tighter budget, and for fall races a trip to the discount store for wacky gear is common (different boats will wear different shirts). The Head of the Charles in Boston is the unoffical world rowing convention every year, and a lot of club crews make up specific gear/hats/glasses/headbands just for that race.
UW: What about logo-emblazoned oar blades?
MK: Yeah, I guess that could be considered part of the uniform. Most big regattas will have a T-shirt for sale showing all the blades of the different schools. They’re pretty cool. Down by the docks where crews lay their blades before they get in the boat, you can often find pile after pile of oars next to each other, and it makes a kind of rowing rainbow.
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Wow — big thanks to Matt for that crash course in rowing aesthetics. Here he is at Head of the Charles in 1999. “I liked wearing orange over my tech shirt,” he says, “because I was a big fan of the Dutch rowers at the time.”
And just to put a characteristic Uni Watch spin on this, it will come as no surprise to any of you that I managed to turn up this photo.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Good story here (and additional details here) about a Sikh kid in Pennsylvania who successfully challenged a ruling that he couldn’t wear his patka while playing soccer (with thanks to Jeremy Brahm). … Reprinted from yesterday’s Comments section: Amazing polka-dot socks on the Collins Hill High girls’ hoops team in Georgia. … Todd Davis reports, “Iverson was just on local TV complaining that the Nuggets don’t have any colored or striped socks going on. ‘We’ll fix that,’ he said.” … A few gazillion people wrote in to inform me that Cal’s Marshawn Lynch didn’t have a nameplate on his jersey in last night’s Holiday Bowl. I’m not sure which is more depressing: the lack of quality control or the fact that so many people were actually watching the Holiday Bowl.
Long Weekend Schedule: We’ll have an open thread tomorrow, a short entry on Sunday, another open thread on Monday, and then back to regular content on Tuesday. OK? OK.
December 29th, 2006
New ESPN column today — here’s the link.
Meanwhile: Recognize that kid with the golf clubs and the letter sweater? It’s 13-year-old Gerald Ford, in front of his childhood home in Grand Rapids (here’s a larger view). Ford wasn’t much of a president, but it turns out he wore a lot of uniforms over the years — more than any other president, near as I can figure.
The most familiar photos of Ford in uniform — or maybe just the most familiar photos of him, period — are two pics of him wearing his football togs at Michigan (where his number was later retired). But those shots are just the tip of his uniform iceberg. He played high school football, as seen here and here (middle row, fourth from left, I think), and he made All-City in 1930. After his undergrad days at Michigan, he went to Yale Law, where he coached football and boxing (top row, third from left).
Ford also wore several non-sports unis, as an Eagle Scout (here’s another shot), park ranger, and Naval officer (additional shot here). While in the Navy, he also played hoops, although his “uniform” was rather abbreviated.
Later, while in Congress, he’d suit up for the annual Republican/Democrat baseball game. In this shot, taken in May of 1949, he and another GOP lawmaker appear to have been wearing the same unis worn that year by the Washington Senators.
Based on my admittedly very quick internet research, no other president offers nearly as rich a uniform history as Ford. But many White House occupants from the past half-century have left at least a few uni-clad photos for the historical record. For example:
• Dwight Eisenhower: Ike wanted to play pro baseball (but hey, so did I). Here he is — front row, center — in his 1909 Abilene High School uniform.
• Jack Kennedy: JFK was in the Navy, natch, but I couldn’t find any pics of him in a sports uniform — unless you count this shot of a Senate baseball game. At least he looked good in proximity to uniforms. (Update: Scott M.X. Turner and Carrie Klein just came up with this and this, respectively.)
• Richard Nixon: Tricky Dick wore a classic football jersey on the Whittier College squad.
• Jimmy Carter: I was surprised to learn that Carter was a football and basketball star in his high school days (top row, second from left). Later on, he became a softball enthuiast, although the only photo I could find was this rather uninspiring shot.
• Ronald Reagan: The Great Communicator played football in high school. He’s in the bottom row, second from the right, in this shot — great socks and sleeves, but how come he didn’t get one of those cool vertically striped jerseys like those guys two rows back? He also played football in college (front row, fourth from right). And of course he portrayed George Gipp in one of history’s most insufferable movies (and as Jonathon Binet pointed out shortly after today’s entry was posted, he also wore a slew of cool baseball uniforms in The Winning Team). But the coolest photo of him that I found was this one — now that’s a uniform!
• George H. W. Bush: In between Skull and Bones sessions at Yale, Poppy played a bit of baseball, and even got to meet the Babe.
• Bill Clinton: Clinton may have been the first president to wear a team jacket while throwing out the first pitch on Opening Day. (His successor apparently likes team jackets too, dating back at least to his days as a team owner.) Speaking of which, there’s a gallery of Presidents throwing out the first pitch here.
As for Ford, let’s not forget his unique contribution to 1970s sartorial accessorization. If you’re not old enough to know what that button was for, look here.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Panicked report from Rick Moreno regarding last night’s Stars/Avalanche game: “The referees have no uniform numbers! The linesman do, and when I was a clip of another game, the refs there appeared to have numbers as usual. Any way to find out what happened here tonight?” I’m gonna call the NHL later today, but if anyone else knows, please speak up. … But hey, no number is a lot better than what the refs were wearing on their backs last night at the World U20 hockey championship in Sweden. … Speaking of hockey refs, yesterday’s post about shoelaces prompted AJ Brandt to report the following: “Did you know that hockey refs have different laces than the players? The refs’ laces are plain white, while players’ laces have little black squares in them.” … More shoelace follow-up: Yesterday I asked if anyone had details about those laces that featured gold aglets. Andy Gladstone responded with a link to this article, which mentions “the gold-tipped shoelaces popularized by former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Randall Cunningham.” … Yesterday’s post also prompted Steve Zolis to point out that some NHL players have used pink laces and sticks to support breast cancer awareness. … More hockey news: Nike’s Swift Jersey has hit the college hockey scene (with thanks to Brian Kohout). … And speaking of hockey, Paragon Sports in Manhattan had this rather odd window display just prior to Xmas. … In non-hockey news (yes, there is such a thing), I never fully understood what “nude stockings” meant until I saw Florida State’s socks in last night’s Emerald Bowl. … And speaking of socks, check out the amazing hosiery stylings of Hyndman High School in Pennsylvania (as spotted by Jason Schiff).
December 28th, 2006
Consider the humble shoelace. Or better yet, let reader John Muir consider it for you:
Look at this picture of Marc Savard in Boston’s home uniform, complete with yellow laces. In the background is Tampa’s Brad Richards, with the standard white laces.
There’s something clean and beautiful about both players’ laces in that photo. Savard had worn white laces in previous stops with Calgary and the Rangers but switched to yellow soon after he was traded to Atlanta (before, after). Ovechkin has been going with the yellow laces, but it looks awkward, because yellow isn’t one of the Capitals’ colors. Jagr did it in Pittsburgh (cool) Washington (see: Ovechkin), and currently in the sewers of Manhattan (ugh). I’ve seen black laces before, but cannot find any sort of documentation. I think someone on Dallas.
What’s my point? Colored laces, with the right team, complete a uniform. I’m surprised more players don’t do it.
So is Muir in favor of, say, the Canadiens wearing blue or red laces, or the Devils wearing red laces? “I think it would look cool if done right,” he says. “Minnesota wouldn’t look too bad with Christmas-colored laces; the Isles could pair the orange third with orange laces and I’d be all for it.”
Intriguing concept (although one that I can’t really get behind). The most interesting thing about shoelaces, it seems to me, is how the protocols vary from sport to sport. In hockey, most players still wearing white laces against their black skates, creating a nice contrast (although there are more and more players wearing gold, including, as Michael Rich recently pointed out to me, Slava Kozlov). But football laces are largely contast-free, with lots of black laces on black shoes and white on white (although there are occasional exceptions, like Joey Porter’s gold laces, Greg Spires’s red, and Jim Maxwell’s orange). Back in the preseason, there were reports that Matt Hasselbeck, who wears black shoes, was actually instructed by the officials to trade in his white shoelaces for black, although I’m a bit skeptical of this, in part because Hasseleck had worn white laces in the past without incident.
MLB cleats and laces usually match, whether the color is black, blue, red, or white. There are some exceptions, however, and there are also situations where the laces match the trim instead of the shoe’s primary color. I also seem to recall some of the Reds wearing red laces a few years back, but I can’t remember the details. Anyone..?
NBA kicks are so elaborately designed these days that there’s no defining shoelace trend. For the most part, though, black sneakers are accessorized with matching black laces, while white shoes sometimes have colored laces and sometimes have white, which sometimes are designed to contrast against a colored tongue.
Getting back to hockey, there’s another kind of lacing to consider: the lace-up collar, which is usually white, as seen in these pics of the Islanders, Rangers (home, road), Coyotes, Oilers, Leafs, Blue Jackets, Avalanche, and Wild. A few teams, however, opt for dark laces, including the Thrashers and Flames.
Meanwhile, here’s a subject for further research: Several years back — maybe in the 1990s, before Uni Watch’s debut — I believe there was a company marketing sports shoelaces made with solid gold aglets (those are the little tips at the ends of laces). They were supposedly “premium” laces for “the athlete who demands the best,” or some bullshit like that. I can’t find any background info on this, though.
And finally, in the unlikely event that you want to know still more about shoelaces, look here.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Uni Watch publicist Carrie Klein came back from her family’s Xmas gathering with the following news: “My mom, unbeknownst to me until last night, collects old photos of kids in school (not sports) uniforms. The entire front hall of her condo is decorated with them. It’s nuts. There are striped socks aplenty! … Not quite uni-related, but I judged a pretty hilarious baseball-centric haiku contest a few days ago. Details here. … Take a close look at this photo of Hines Ward from Super Bowl XL. It almost looks like his right-leg stocking has a zipper running through it. … Interesting blog about uni numbers here. … Jesse Spector notes that the NFL Network, which runs lots of old NFL Films footage during the day, is offering a free preview on many cable systems this week (Ch. 199 on Time Warner systems in New York). “Today I watched the season films of the ‘69 Chiefs and ‘82 Jets,” he writes. “Noticed lots of uniform stuff, like Willie Lanier’s helmet having a big bump in the middle, the huge numbers the Jets had on their shoulder pads in the ’80s, and stuff like the Chiefs having their helmet and the opposing team’s helmet painted together at midfield for home games.” … Check out what Tom Hoffman got for Christmas. … Odd typography at Middle Tennessee State, as observed by Alan Topolski, who writes: “It seems like MTSU has a font size for the nameplate that changes depending on the length of the player’s last name.” The only other team I can think of that did something similar was the bumblebee-era Pirates, as seen on the Lee Lacy jersey shown in this page from Bill Henderson’s indispensable Double Knit Era Collector’s Reference.
December 27th, 2006
My family doesn’t celebrate Christmas (chosen people and all that…), but Uni Watch hedge fund analyst Jenny Strasburg and I had our own little Christmas celebration last Wednesday, before she had to fly home to spend the real holiday with her family. And even though I stayed away from the computer for most of the day, the specter of Uni Watch seemed to hover over me all day long.
We began by checking out the Design Triennial exhibit up at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. There was one entry that included a critique of corporate branding, including the Nike swoosh, so of course I enjoyed that. But there were also two entries that featured actual Nike products, including — get this — a purple Nike running suit. Jenny saw this before I did and tried to steer me away from it, but it was no use. After staring, transfixed, for about a minute, I vomited all over the display.
Okay, not really, but I wanted to.
The exhibition also included some work by a menswear designer named Thom Browne. I’d never heard of him before, but the little placard accompanying his display included the following quote from him: “I love uniforms. They make everything so easy.” And sure enough, his work features lots of stripes, piping (sometimes lots of piping!), even striped socks. I’d never wear any of this stuff, natch, but it was still cool to see uniform details seeping into haute couture.
From there we went down to the New York Public Library, where they had an exhibit on the history of “rakish” menswear. Lots of great stuff, as you can see here and here. But what really stopped me in my tracks was an illustration of a dude with one vertically striped pant leg, accompanied by the following caption, which I copied down on the spot:
As early as the Middle Ages, striped cloth had achieved a reputation as the “Devil’s Cloth.” Stripes were associated with deviance and criminality. Even after striped garments like hose had become socially fashionable and a hallmark of heraldry, the design evoked licentious connotations. Young Renaissance warriors (and civilians) wore their eye-catching stripes with bravado — knowing that their rakish appearance would test their society’s tolerance level.
Explains a lot about my preoccupations, no? (Maybe explains Sean Taylor, too.)
We eventually made our way back to Uni Watch HQ, where we cooked this into this, and then it was time for presents. Let’s just say Jenny knew who she was shopping for. Among other treats, here’s what I scored:
• Two pairs of striped socks.
• This book, published in 1952. It would be worthwhile for its cover photo alone, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Imagine my reaction, for example, when I saw the title of Chapter 7. There’s a fair amount of uni-centric text scattered throughout the book, including the following account of the players lining up to receive their uniforms:
Each boy stood patiently until he received his equipment. Then with a shrill yell he rushed over to the grassy part of the field, carefully laid down his pile, and hastily began pulling on the uniform on top of his T-shirt and pants. After checking the uniform for size, each boy carefully bagged the trousers in the approved big league manner. Then, with cap pulled down at a studiously careless angle, he fled for home.
Gotta like that.
• This book (see link at right), which features hundreds of New York Daily News photos from the golden age of New York baseball (including some taken just a few blocks from where I live). There are way too many amazing pics to go over here, so I’ll just showcase a few: Willie Mays and Monte Irvin co-owned a liquor store, and looked mighty sharp while running it; check out the great old logos on this TV camera; and here’s another reason why I’m proud to be a Brooklynite.
My good fortune continued the following day, when I had drinks with Uni Watch publicist Carrie Klein, who surprised me with this swell trinket (here’s a bottom view). Isn’t that nice? It has taken all my willpower and self-restraint to refrain from removing the little perforated hole-punch.
Two days after that, on Xmas Eve, I went over to my friends George and Scout’s place, where a small but festive crowd had gathered. We ate the Meal of the Seven Fishes (count ‘em: oysters, smelts, cod, some sort of little bait fish thingies [sorry, I forgot to snap the photo until they were almost all gone], mussels, angel hair pasta with whiting sauce, and scallops), and then my buddy Dave Herman (who last year got me a pair of New York Rangers socks) gave me the gift to end all gifts. Now, as some of you know, I’m am extreeeeeeemely fond of beef, pork, lamb, and the like. And of course I’m also fond of uniforms, and of a certain National League baseball team. All those things came together when Dave presented me with this. Yabba-dabba-do!
All in all, a swell holiday. Hope yours was, too. If you got any cool uni-related swag, feel free to send photos this-a-way.
Uni Watch News Ticker: A while back someone mentioned in the Comments section that Kirk McLean had the word “Weird” written on the underside of his skate, but photographic evidence was lacking — until now (with thanks to ESPN.com photo czar Sean Hintz for the blow-up inset). According to this page, the “Weird”-ness started when McLean “was deemed too ‘normal’ by the [Vancouver] team trainers,” so they added the inscription to his skate. … Speaking of goalie weirdness, check out the illustration of Marvin the Martian on Patrick Lalime’s stick. … Remember our discussion of target-like hockey jersey logos? That came to mind when I saw this photo of what Yutaka Fukufuji, now in the Kings’ organization, used to wear in Japan. … Here’s a rare non-Japanese contribution from Jeremy Brahm: “In 1998, Real Sociedad of the Spanish First Division, had a fan killed by neo-Nazis. So for one game, the team wore his name, A. Zabaleta, on the back of their uniforms as a tribute to him.” … Nice bit about the 49ers’ throwbacks here (with thanks to Chris Kaufman). … The January issue of Smithsonian magazine includes this photo, with the following caption: “According to team lore, the Harlem Globetrotters first take the court in January 1927. They are a road team in the Midwest — not New York — and the name promotes the players, who are black. Soon known for trick shots and comedy routines, they will bring basketball to new audiences in more than 100 countries. As for Harlem, the team finally plays there in ‘68.” … Totally cool auction items here, here, here, and here. … Another racer-backed women’s hoops school: Alabama State (as spotted by Richie Murray). … More archival college photos, this time courtesy of Steve Delaney, who writes: “I’m a student at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland. I was looking through a PDF file today of our alumni magazine and saw some real photo gems. It’s a 44-page document and you’ll really want to focus on pages 18-23. In there you’ll find a photo of field hockey players from the early 1900s (apparently we had the second college field hockey team in the US). And in the early days, Hood had a tradition of giving blazers to deserving athletes (not unlike present day varsity jackets). You can see examples of those on pages 19 and 23.” They apparently gave out varsity sweaters, too. … Nice camera work by Brian Terreson who noticed that LaDainian Tomlinson had a rip just below his nameplate on Sunday. … Matt Leinart appears to have been shopping for maternity clothes. … Some logo creep is a lot more annoying than others. … According to this article, Browns WR Braylon Edwards “faces league fines for violating uniform code by wearing white shoes — covered partially with black tape — while his teammates wore black shoes, and two different colored gloves” in Sunday’s game against the Bucs (with thanks to Chris Marcinko). … Good article here about advertising on MLS jerseys.
December 26th, 2006
(Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)
A rare sight: LaDainian Tomlinson running without his usual dark visor in yesterday’s game against the Seahawks.
Back tomorrow with a regular post. Merry Christmas to all, and a big R.I.P. to the Godfather, who knew a thing or two about how to create a personal uniform.
December 25th, 2006
(Photo by Garrett W. Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images)
Allen Iverson’s new jersey awaits his arrival in the Nuggets’ lockerroom last night. Note the padded tank top hanging in the locker.
December 23rd, 2006
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