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Archive for October, 2008
Here’s my latest eBay score — a 1961 basketball uniform catalog filled with lots of pasty-looking white guys. Exciting! Let’s take a look:
• The basketball shorts in this catalog feature a lot of interesting panels and inserts I hadn’t seen before. Check out the two guys on the ends here, for example, or the guy on the right here (and a sleeved jersey!). And look at the dude on the right — it’s like a Jesus fish tipped on its nose! Additional interesting pants designs on display here and here, and you can see all five of these pages in this slideshow.
• This catalog had unusually good women’s uniforms. Check out these, and dig the buttons on these shorts. Additional women’s designs here and here, and all the preceding pages grouped together in this slideshow.
• Lots of cool varsity-style jackets. Check them all out here. (For some reason there’s also a small selection of quilted outerwear, although it’s not clear what this has to do with basketball.)
• Terry Proctor always wants to see the lettering pages, so they’re all grouped together here.
• Totally digging the striped collar points in the top warm-up pullover here. And look at that rear yoke!
• Rather annoyingly, this catalog doesn’t have a hosiery section. Fortunately, there’s this great display of knit trim options.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Tons of cool old football posters available here (with thanks to Rich Liu). … Lots of good pics in this book, including Will Clark with NOE (name on eyewear), a great little uniform on Johnny Evers’s kid, a really interesting insignia style that I’d never seen before, and two examples of striped contrast collars. … Tom Shieber turned up an interesting Sporting News item from 1951: “Warren Spahn, who had been wearing on his uniform the number of the victory he was attempting to notch, was crossed up on the next-to-final day of the season. The Braves’ lefty, after wearing uniform No. 21, borrowed George Estock’s No. 22 shirt. He beat the Dodgers, 6 to 3, registering his twenty-second victory. However, when seeking his twenty-third win on September 29, he wore Johnny Logan’s No. 23, and the Braves failed to produce any runs for him.” Amazing, right? But the item then continues: “Mort Cooper, when with the Cardinals in 1942, went on changing numbers to chalk up 22 triumphs, after he had stumbled several times on No. 13.” I’d never heard of anything like this before. … Best thing about this story: the next-to-last graf. Second-best thing: Singletary probably didn’t realize he was honoring a long-held Niners tradition. … L.I. Phil notes that John Goebel of the Cincy Bearcats had a biceps inscription last night. Anyone know the story behind that? … Yowza!
October 31st, 2008
Frank Mercogliano is the media relations czar at Idaho State (that’s him at right, holding a press conference while surrounded by marks of the beast), but he’s also a serious uniform guy. He designed the football team’s helmet logo, and he often spots interesting uni details on other teams — unusual, since most media relations folks are fixated on their own teams.
Case in point: During last Saturday’s football game between Idaho State and Portland State, Frank spotted lots of eccentric NOB action on the Portland State team, so he went over to the Portland State sideline to document it for the rest of us. “I have to be on the field at the end of the game for interviews,” he explains, “so I snuck into their team area and took some photos. The toughest thing was running from the field to the pressbox to get my camera, because it was a lot of steps.”
Now that’s devotion. Here’s Frank’s rundown of the Portland State oddities:
• “Erik Pedersen and Ryan Pedersen (who aren’t brothers) both entered Portland State at the same time, but only one of them gets an initial. I had two separate photos of them before they stood together.”
• “KJ McCrae is technically wearing a FNOB, except for some reason he has a period after the J, even though his name is KJ (it’s not an abbreviation). Also: The first ‘C’ in McCrae should be lowercase, but it isn’t. I thought he was going to kill me for being in their team area, but when I told him I wanted a picture of the back of his jersey, he said, ‘You got it’ and turned around. They were about to finish a 36-13 win over us in which they passed, for 535 yards, so he was pretty much up for anything at that point.”
• “The pièce de résistance is Johnathan Benjamin-Nichols. He has his first initial, even though there are no other Benjamin-Nicholses on the team, and then it’s an abbreviated Benjamin, but with a hyphen instead of a period. Holy shit, right?”
Yes, well, that’s certainly one way of describing it. At the very least, I’d say Portland State’s equipment staff could use a remedial course in punctuation. Meanwhile, let’s all buy Frank a beer or something (everyone just give him a little sip of yours and it’ll all add up to one beer, simple!) in recognition of his stalwart efforts last weekend.
Signal Flare: Yo, Dave Graf, please give me a shout. Thanks.
Uni Watch News Ticker: I won this the other day on eBay (simple but nice, right?). After I sent my payment and shipping information, I got a note from the seller, Aaron Stoker: “I have to say I was surprised by the name I saw as the winning bidder. I love your site and I’m honored to have sold this jersey to you. Enjoy!” To my knowledge, this is the first all-Uni Watch eBay transaction. … Very odd find by Glenn Cook, who was covering a high school football game in Canada and spotted a player with one block numeral and one non-block. … A few weeks ago I linked to this article about the designer who created the NHL’s Winter Classic logo, but you couldn’t really see the developmental designs on the floor in front of him. Now, thanks to Steve Stovall, I have a much larger version of the photo, which reveals some interesting work. … Has there ever been a more lopsided accessory-to-logo ratio as on Demetrius Williams’s armband? (Good spot by Dylan Horowitz.) … Barack Obama was presented with a Steelers jersey the other day. … And in the interests of equal time, here’s history’s scariest goalie mask (with thanks to Roger Faso). … You may have noticed that Pepsi has a new logo. There’s a really cool video clip showing the brand’s design history here (with thanks to Mark Dziak). … By now you probably know that Marshall wore green helmets on Tuesday night. What you might not know is that the helmets won them the game (with thanks to Chris Mycoskie). … Final uni-related note of the MLB season: J.P. Howell wore Willy Aybar’s helmet last night (with thanks to Travis Church and Aaron Whitlow). … Check out the card at lower right — an early Pedro porthole! (Good spot by Ben Kramer.) … The Rockets wore red at home last night (with thanks to Brandon Hamburg). … A year after his death, Sean Taylor is still the source of uni-related fines: According to a small item at the end of this page, Steelers safety Ryan Clark (who played alongside Taylor on the Redskins in 2004 and ’05) was fined $5000 for wearing eye black stickers with a memorial “21″ etched into them (with thanks to Chris Hilf). … Adam Gerard attended last night’s Wizards/Nets game and captured the NBA debut of Chris Douglas-Roberts and his remarkable NOB. … This article (forwarded by Jeff Janssens) suggests that Darren McFadden’s turf toe injury might be due to a change in footwear brands. Key passage: “McFadden wore adidas cleats in college and the Raiders wear Nike. McFadden said Nike has been contacted and, ‘we’re going to have something working up.’” Wait a minute — “the Raiders wear Nike”? I don’t know anything about turf toe, but I do know that NFL clubs don’t have team-specific footwear contracts, as the guy who wrote that article could have known if he simply looked at some photos. Jeez. … Congrats to Morris, Jared, Bill, Peter, and all our other Philly readers — enjoy.
October 30th, 2008
I recently noticed that a reader who used to comment and contribute fairly regularly had pretty much stopped doing so, so I shot him a quick note to make sure he was OK. Here’s the response I got back:
Everything’s fine — I just decided take a little hiatus from commenting. I’ve been really busy and wouldn’t have had the time to spend in the comments like I used to anyway.
I was joking with another reader about this one day when you closed the site. We were e-mailing each other and saying how hopelessly addicted to the site we were. I literally kept a Post-it note at my desk with the number of the last comment I’d read and then brought it home after work, so I’d know where to pick up. I was even one of the renegades who’d go into the previous day’s comments and carry on conversations when you would shut off the current day’s comments.
Once I took a couple days off from posting, I felt good. I’ll jump back in the fray at some point, but when I do, I’ll be much more focused.
There’s a lesson here for everyone, namely that a day without Uni Watch doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Which is a good thing, because today I’m giving the site a day off — no new content, no comments (and don’t bother trying to comment on Tuesday’s or Monday’s entries, because I’ve sealed those off too). But even though I’m depriving you of your fix, it doesn’t mean you have to go through withdrawal symptoms like the fellow pictured above. Just channel that nervous energy into something productive, like making a Phil Knight voodoo doll, or hitting “Refresh” on the Philadelphia weather report page every 30 seconds. You’ll see, it’s not so bad, and your body will feel like it’s been through the wringer nice and refreshed tomorrow. See you then.
October 29th, 2008
My annual NBA season-preview column is up on ESPN today, which would normally mean no main entry over here. But I’m planning to give the site the day off tomorrow, so we’ll treat today as a normal day.
Now then: Meteorological disturbances notwithstanding, the Phillies are poised to win their first championship in 28 years, so Phillies fans like reader Jeff Cook should be happy. But Jeff isn’t happy at all. Here’s why:
As a Phillies fan and a visual communicator (art director, designer, illustrator) who’s designed with type for over 25 years, I’ve always been bothered by the poor execution of the current Phillies logo. This is a $500 million organization with a logo that looks like it was drawn by a sixth grader.
Take a look at the current logo [that version is from MLB’s official art files, so it’s totally certified and all that — PL]. The letterforms are bulbous and balloon-like, creating a juvenile look. There’s no elegance, no thick-and-thin variation in the strokes of the letters, no natural flow of the stroke from one letter into the next (particularly from the “i” into the “e”). There are uncomfortable and inconsistent sizes to the letters across the word: The ascender on the “h” reaches higher than the “l”s, the “i”s are shorter than the other lowercase characters, and the “P” is too large in scale to the rest of the word.
Moreover, the verticals on the “l”s are thin at the loop and thick below, the foot on the “P” is awkward and abrupt, and the shape of the “e” simply defies description. This is to say nothing of that bar with the blip on the end that underlines the logo (what is its purpose anyway?), or the fact that the stars aren’t even symmetrical — they’re horizontally scaled! Also, the second star doesn’t sit centered above the “i” (hey, maybe that’s why the designer scaled it — “Oops, the star is crashing into the L, so I’ll just scale it!”).
So I took some time to redraw the logo in an attempt to give it the sophistication you’d expect from a major professional sports franchise. My primary aim was to raise the level of execution without changing the character of the logo. This was very important — I wanted this exercise to be purely about execution, not about proposing a new concept. I wanted to start with the plain script, but I’ll complete the exercise with a new version of the full Liberty Bell logo. I’ll send that along when finished.
If you look at the the original and redrawn logos together, two things become apparent: First, Jeff’s version is definitely better. Second, the official version looks a lot like what you’d get if you took a crisper version (like Jeff’s) and xeroxed it, and then xeroxed the xerox, and then xeroxed that, and so on. That happens to be exactly what’s happened at so many companies over the years — if someone needs a logo to create new letterhead, they just xerox it from the old letterhead, or from some other second-hand source. Eventually you’re dealing with a fourth- or fifth-generation logo with all its nuances and edges blurred into an indistinct mush.
I don’t know if that’s what happened with the Phillies’ logo, of course, but it wouldn’t surprise me. And I bet they’re not the only ones.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Regarding those orange thingies in JaMarcus Russell’s earholes, which I mentioned in yesterday’s Ticker: Those are the speakers for his radio headset. “The orange speakers must be in the coach/defense helmets,” says Joe Skiba. “Since the new speakers were made to hold up better with contact, we have decided to put them in our quarterback helmets as well.” … Drill, baby, drill (with thanks to Rob Bartlett). … Norm Duke won the PBA World Championship on Sunday while wearing a genuinely hideous shirt. Scott Johnson reports that the shirt is the work of the PBA’s official outfitter, Gemini Sport Marketing, whose designs are a far cry from the gorgeous bowling shirts of generations past. … Shame on me for not mentioning in yesterday’s entry that the Browns added a “GH” memorial decal on Sunday, in honor of Gene Hickerson. … This site has all sorts of info about the Old Oaken Bucket Game between Purdue and Indiana, including this photo from the very first game in the series (with thanks to David Farrell). … Good spot by Jacob Reed, who noticed that Pat Thomas’s left-sleeve Reebok logo was peeling off on Sunday. … In case you missed it yesterday, Joe Blanton’s cap caused a minor controversy, but I don’t see anything coming of it. … Rugby note from Caleb Borchers, who reports that the Blue Bulls, a South African rugby team, recently put the players’ first names on the back of their jerseys, as seen in this photo of John Mametsa. “It may look like last names on the back,” he writes, “but that’s what happens when you have players with first names like Rayno.” … Also from Caleb: Really interesting article here about the way Adidas markets the All Blacks, worth reading even if (like myself) you don’t know jack about rugby. … “This is a press pass from Sunday’s Panthers/Cardinals game,” writes Michael Orr. “Check out the Arizona helmet — why are there wordmarks on there? I’ve never seen an NFL press pass before [me neither — PL], so for all I know it’s always like that, but I just thought it looked weird.” … The Islanders unveiled their alternate uniform yesterday. As expected, it’s a 1970s throwback, which is fine — except for the miserable rear sock striping. Here’s a big photo gallery from the unveiling, courtesy of Tom Liodice. … It’s no longer enough to have a corporate-sponsored backdrop for your press conferences — now you need a rotating series of corporate-sponsored backdrops, as seen in this Jim Zorn Q&A session. … Lots of chatter about the Bobcats’ road uniforms in the comments that follow this article, prompting the beat reporter who covers the team for the Charlotte Observer to quip, “Guys: I can truly not believe you care what color they wear on the road.” Loser. … Good video report on the Majestic factory here (with thanks to Tim Burke). … Not a good idea. … I was having a hard time deciding what was the lamest thing about this World Series — the defense, the umpiring, or that goddamn Chevy Chase commercial (is it on an endless loop or what?) — but last night sealed it: Switching to local fucking news during a World Series rain delay is flat-out the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen. Rain delays are when announcers earn their money, because they have to improvise, they have to entertain, they have to work. How about an interview with a groundskeeper? How about getting a few of the players to talk about what it was like to play under those conditions? How about a review of past bad-weather postseason games (like Game 4 of the ’77 National League playoffs, when Tommy John pitched the Dodgers into the Series in a driving rain — in Philadelphia, by coincidence)? How about sticking around and covering the freaking story instead of handing it off to Joan and Bob telling us whose cat got lost up a goddamn tree? A national disgrace.
October 28th, 2008
Greetings, comrades. Been a long time since we had a weekend filled with so many uni-notable news items. Here’s a breakdown:
• College football coaches wore little plastic tag-ish thingies to support muscular dystrophy research.
• It’s rare that you see such a gruesome jersey repair as this. That’s Quan Cosby of Texas, who had to be stitched up in the first half yesterday. (Thanks to Josh Curran for the screen grab.)
• Did Ryan Howard have an iPod in his pocket on Saturday night or did he trade in his packet of sunflower seeds for a handful of lo mein? (Screen grab courtesy of Wayne Koehler.)
• The Rays brought a shipment of earflapped caps to Philly, but Joe Madden’s apparently the only one who’s worn them during one of the games. Did Jimmy Rollins do so, or was it only for the postgame interview?
• Reader Rick Friedel notes that JaMarcus Russell was apparently wearing something red under his helmet, as you can see by looking at his earholes. It wasn’t there when he took his helmet off, so was it built into the helmet..? If anyone knows more about this, please fill us in.
• The Saints and Chargers wore a jersey patch for their game in London.
• The Jets wore a patch to honor the 40th anniversary of the Super Bowl III championship team.
• The Blackhawks and Red Wings revealed the throwback jerseys they’ll be wearing for the annual Winter Classic game, and goddamn do they look awesome (additional info here and here, there’s a video clip here, and additional pics here and here). Here’s an old photo showing what the Chicago design is based on.
• Throwbacks yesterday in Pittsburgh and San Francisco (where Delanie Walker went a little stripe-happy).
Uni Watch News Ticker: In addition to ruining baseball pants, George Hendrick apparently liked visors so much that he wore them while posing for Topps photos on at least two separate occasions (with thanks to Andy Chalifour). … Interesting piece here about how uniforms play a role in college recruiting. … In case you missed it in Friday’s comments, the guy with the Batman logos in this photo has been identified as Richard “Batman” Wood. Additional pics of him and his namesake logo here and here (with thanks to Richard Dickson). … Chris Salove reports that Boise High School in Idaho uses an arrowhead-shaped “Boise” NOB (the team is called the Braves), plus the varsity squad uses a center spear decal while the JV doesn’t. … Here’s a photo gallery from last Thursday’s anti-cancer night at Nassau Coliseum, complete with pink-taped hockey sticks (with thanks to John Muir). … Also from John: The best shot yet of Rick DiPietro’s new mask. … Swedish hockey ref Thomas Andersson had to dress like this on Thursday. Why is that noteworthy? Because the Swedish refs normally wear gray, ad-festooned sweaters, but Andersson lost his gear on the way to Thursday’s game and ended up having to don traditional zebrawear (with thanks to Roy Ellingsen). … Just when you thought you’d seen everything, here’s a company that makes jersey-shaped napkins (with thanks to Jerry Duke). … Wow, somebody sure liked Velcro! Details here (with thanks to Joe Hilseberg). … Joe Skiba reports that the Giants will not be wearing their red alternate jerseys this year. … The Nats will unveil an updated uni set on November 6th. … Six days after that, the Orioles are planning a uni unveiling. Here’s the invitation (courtesy of Kenneth Levin), which makes it pretty clear that they’ll finally be switching to the long-rumored “Baltimore” road uni. … Oh man, how awesome is this?! That’s a 1928 Victoria Cubs sweater, which was up for auction a few years back (great find by David Soline). … Major historical find by Kenn Tomasch: a 25-second video clip of the Marlins unveiling their original uni set in 1992. … Good article here about a day in the life of the Calgary Flames’ equipment staff (with thanks to Chris Brard). … More cakes, this time all Texas A&M-themed, as seen here, here, here, here, and here (big thanks to Bryan Blake). … Alejandro Macri sent along some shots of the Argentine soccer team Vélez Sársfield. “These uniforms are their third alternates,” he writes. “Note the mismatched socks!” … Brett Moran reports that East Mississippi (a junior college) has a very odd jersey design. … Check this out: an 1879 baseball team featuring what might be the earliest recorded instance of a player wearing his cap backwards (courtesy of Tom Shieber). … Kinda says it all, no? Rick Subrizio spotted that license plate in a parking lot in Natick, Massachusetts. … Are those airborne paint chips after a helmet-to-helmet collision? Kyle Shoun thinks so. … Not many people realize that after Yogi Berra managed the Yankees in 1964, he came out of retirement and played in four games for the Mets in 1965, getting nine at-bats. You can see one of those ABs at the 3:07 mark of this early Mets highlight video (with thanks to Paul Wiederecht). … Reprinted from Saturday’s comments: RNOB (roman numeral on back) .That’s Missouri punter Jake Harry IV. … Also from Saturday: The Revolution Speed helmet finally has its own web site. … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: Logo creep has made it all the way to the pinkie. … NSFW: Nice body-painted Chase Utley jersey here. … Fascinating contribution from Marc Burgess, who reports that his girlfriend received this ad for the NFL Network in the mail. He writes: “My first thought was, ‘Why did they change Ray Lewis’s number to 25?’ My second thought was, ‘Why did the change the jersey number but not the helmet number?’ And they left Gurode’s number the same.” Very odd.
October 27th, 2008
You may look at this picture of Joe Maddon and say, “Wow … those hats are worse than I feared. That’s a stain on the stylistically spotless (timeless?) Tampa Bay Rays chappeau.”
I, on the other hand, think that’s abso-fookin-lutely genius. I have a hat like that for cycling, to fit under the helmet while keeping the ears and neck warm. And the bill — don’t forget the bill. It’s easily the most valued piece of winter-weather gear. Other than these, of course.
In baseball, there are about two weeks a year where this hat could be useful — opening week and World Series week. That’s when the real weather extremes are still possible. Plus, it looks about 10 times better than the gamer over the stocking cap, or the stocking cap over the gamer, or this. Well, it would if the flaps were down.
This seems to be one of those use it-or-lose-it deals, though. If you’re going to put on the flapped hat, put the flaps down. If not, put on your standard 5950 and stand near the heater. Also unacceptable: One flap down. – Bryan
October 26th, 2008
If you could see all of Florida goalie Tomas Vokoun, you’d be able t — hell, nevermind. We can see the important bits. Nike/Bauer stick and Reebok everything else. Odd.
But if you look on the other end of the ice, there’s the same stick, but with Vaughn pads. And here it is in college. And this is something completely different, but still the same.
So I guess my question to hockey-type folks is this: Why don’t goalies go with one sponsor for all of their gear, like catchers?
And in other, completely unrelated equipment issues, I know it’s the preseason and all, but can we get some good fishnets at least? Please? — Bryan
October 25th, 2008
Here’s another reader-recommended phootball photo book to check out. And this one’s among the best we’ve examined so far — not only are the photos tremendous, but there’s a wealth of uni-notable details. Por ejemplo:
• You’ve probably seen this photo of Jack Lambert’s gums a few dozen times. Until now, however, had you noticed that the end of his yellow-stripe tape appears to be coming loose?
• The single greatest thing about football is that they play in any weather, which leads to awesome photos like this, this, and this.
• Who’s the QB in this shot, Dilfer? Whoever it is, Note the Russell logo on his hip — I don’t recall having seen that back in the day. Did lots of teams have hip logos, or was this just a Tampa thing?
• Other things I didn’t remember: a chest wordmark on the Cowboys’ white jersey (hard to see, but it’s there), such massive maker’s marks on the officials’ caps, and such blatantly Wilson-branded gloves.
• Not sure who the tackler is in this shot, but check out the Batman logos on his arm pad and hand pad!
• Gotta love Charlie Joiner’s striped wristbands.
• This is one of the best old-timey football pics I’ve ever seen. Those are the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers playing at the Polo Grounds, 1936.
• See anything odd in this shot? Look closely at the tackler’s sock — that’s a little “Bengals” tag. I’ve seen something similar in a few 1990s Chargers shots, but never on a Bengal.
• Here’s the best shot I’ve ever seen of Lester Hayes and his stickum. Bonus points for the cup design.
• Wow.
• Back when football jerseys had sleeves, you could really see what the Jets were trying to do with their striping pattern: a white panel for the TV numbers, framed by two thick green stripes and then two thin white stripes. Puts the current version to shame.
• Picture-perfect.
Want your own copy? Won’t cost you much.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Robert Thomas has a new number. … Yesterday I linked to an article about a guy who claims to have created the MLB logo, but it turns out he’s not the only one who’s made that claim (links courtesy of JC Helf). … Mark Holmes sent along a bunch of images from the NFL’s Best Plays of the Year, 1962, which I’ve gathered into this slideshow. … Yesterday’s piece about football-themed baking projects prompted a few good responses. Derek Ponamsky steered me toward a bunch of LSU-themed cakes, and Brian Porter says his brother-in-law’s 40th birthday cake looked like this. Man, you’ve really hit rock bottom when you’re so desperate for a date that you’ve gotta grope a cake. … Here’s something you don’t see every day: a Pete Rose basketball jersey (thanks, Scott). … According to this page, there are less than 100 Revolution Speed helmets out there, and Navy has seven of them (with thanks to Mike Althouse). … R.I.P., old friend (courtesy of Alan Kreit). … Lots of old Devils and N.J. high school hockey jerseys shown here (with thanks to Kenn Tomasch). … Dog bites man. … It takes a lot of chutzpah to ask fans to spend big money for a jersey they can’t even see, but the Sharks are doing it anyway. … Someone on the Chris Creamer board has pointed out that if you scroll down to the bottom of this page, you’ll see several 49ers wearing gray facemasks during practice. Very curious to see if this is a permanent move by Singletary to put his aesthetic stamp on the team. … Anyone know why David Price has “Live Like Nate” printed on his glove? (Screen shot courtesy of Dan Perkey.) … Amusing bit here about how George Hendrick ruined baseball forever by wearing long pants (with thanks to Jesse Agler).
October 24th, 2008
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