And It Only Cost Me $15
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!
94 comments October 31st, 2008
