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Archive for December, 2008
New ESPN column today — look here.
Meanwhile … I recently got a note from reader Steve K., as follows:
A friend of mine was moving and his wife made him give up his boxes of old videos. Of course he kept all the Japanese porn for himself, but he knew I was a sports fan and offered me the rest. Most of them are ‘This Week in the NFL’ and ‘Game of the Week’ episodes and a bunch of other NFL Films stuff, spanning from 1971 to about 1979. Should make for a lot of interesting screen grabs!
To call the resulting screen shots “interesting” is to severely understate the point, because Steve (who, as you’ll see in a minute, has a very good eye) has come up with a body of material that’s every bit as compelling as Ricko’s contributions. In fact, if he keeps it up, I may have to inaugurate a new “Steve K. Files” series. For now, though, here’s what we’ve got:
• “This is from 1971, Week 1, Jets at Colts,” writes Steve. “Norm Bulaich had a big game, but the more interesting part of this is that he wore an NOB jersey during parts of the game but went NNOB during other parts. The NNOB jersey appears to be an old-school pre-1970 NFL jersey with the larger numbers, because it doesn’t even allow room for a nameplate.”
• “Check out how big the nameplate font was in these shots of the Bills and Jets (1972, Week 1) and the Jets again (1973, Week 2),” notes Steve. “I believe the Jets, Bills, and Patriots, all from the AFC East, used this ultra-large font at various times during the 1971 through 1974 seasons. The Jets seemed to use it inconsistently, as some players had more normal-sized fonts than others. By 1975, this font was gone for good, although I sort of like it.”
• “In Week 1 of the 1971 season, the 49ers wore white jerseys with plain white sleeves — no stripes, no TV numbers! This was NOT their customary road jersey. Except for the Bengals (who didn’t add TV numbers until their 1981 makeover), I can’t remember another instance in the 1970s when an NFL team did not have TV numbers.”
• “Check out the letter spacing on those Browns NOBs” [and the official’s picture-perfect stirrups — PL].
• “Look at the wild rain jackets the Giants are wearing on the sidelines! That’s from 1971, Week 1.”
• “It’s a little hard to see, but here’s an FNOB being worn by the Bucs’ Maulty Moore in 1976. They also had a Manfred Moore.”
• “Here’s another FNOB: Joe Owens, from the 1973 Saints. Oddly, there were no other players named Owens on the Saints that year.”
• “A lot of the 1973 Colts had NOBs that were literally abutting the numbers, plus Doughty’s NOB looks like it may be a bit off-center.”
• “Speaking of off-center NOBs, look at Craig Morton.”
• Check out Mike Williams from the 1975 Chargers — his first name initial comes after his surname. I think I’ve only seen that one other time in the NFL (Browns during the 1981 preseason).” [This is an absolute stunner for me. Never would’ve believed it if Steve hadn’t provided visual evidence. — PL]
• “When the Rams played their final game in the L.A. Coliseum in 1979, one end zone said ‘Good Bye,’ the other ‘Good Luck.’”
• “Here’s Lions head coach Don McCafferty in swanky 1973 duds, including a zip collar.”
• “Halftime show at New Orleans’ Tulane Stadium in 1973. Dog was NNOB, but at
least he had stripes on his sleeves. Is that T-shirt logo big enough?”
• “I hadn’t realized Archie Manning wore a single-bar facemask.”
• “Here’s Saints coach John North from 1973, with the Sir Saint logo on his jacket.”
Amazing stuff, no? Big thanks to Steve for all this great material.
The Oracle Checks In: When I linked yesterday to this vintage basketball warm-up top and mentioned its snap-on nameplate, I was pretty sure I’d be getting a follow-up note from Rochester sporting goods maven Terry Proctor (that’s him at left). Sure enough, he sent me a note yesterday afternoon, as follows:
That photo of the Wilson warm-up jacket brings back many memories of that style. Wilson used the smaller “gripper” snaps, which made sewing the name onto the separate piece of tackle twill much easier. The only company we used that also used the gripper snaps was Russell. Powers, SandKnit and Spanjian all used the larger jacket-type “dome” snaps, which made sewing the letters on very difficult, because the foot of the sewing machine had trouble fitting around the dome. We eventually had the tags attached only at the top, for easier sewing. By the 1970s we changed from snaps to Velcro, which made the whole process a breeze.
Also: In the 1970s, the Coane Mfg. Co. of Philadelphia, which made a full line of quality uniforms (they did the Philadelphia Warriors and the early years of the 76ers) came up with a fleece tag that we sewed directly onto the jersey or jacket. Then you applied individual die-cut letters made out of the hook-sided velcro material. These letters would not fall off during play and were very easy to change if you had a new player. We used them mostly on basketball and baseball uniforms. They didn’t work out for football but they were a great idea in their day.
Terry has loads of stories like these. You might even get to read some of them if I ever get off my lazy ass and transcribe the phone interview I did with him last month. Soon, soon….
Uni Watch News Ticker: Indiana State wore powder blue throwbacks the other night. Note that the “I” is actually the shape of Indiana (with thanks to Dave Reding). … The trend of giving a personalized jersey to a newly hired coach, even though coaches don’t wear jerseys, has spread to soccer (with thanks to Jeremy Brahm). … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: Amazing series of old NFL posters available here. … Trey Phillips notes that Saints receiver Lance Moore often wore one eye black sticker over the past season (but not always). … Matt Englander has brought another sports-themed illustrator to my attention: Paul Schoeneck. … Great time-lapse video showing the Winter Classic rink being set up at Wrigley Field here (with thanks to Greg Riffenburgh). … Faaaaaascinating rugby observation from Caleb Borchers who notes that the Harlequins, a club in London, wear their first and last initials on their shorts. But if there are two players with the same initials, they use the first initial and the first two letters of the players’ surnames, as in the case of Nick Evans and Nick Easter. … Vintage Riverfront Stadium groundskeeper’s uniform available here. … You know how boxers always do those cheesy stare-downs at press conferences and weigh-ins? Here’s the lamest one yet. That’s WBA flyweight champ Takefumi Sakata with the gauze mask. “On his blog, he says it is just to protect from catching a cold,” says Jeremy Brahm. “I know from personal experience that the Japanese will wear their masks while going to work, riding the bus or train, etc. I wore one over a weekend and couldn’t stand it.” … Matt Powers recently took his family down to Fordham, where his sister works in the Athletic Dept. After watching Colgate and Norfolk State play a color-on-color women’s hoops game at beautiful Rose Hill Gymnasium, they walked around the campus and saw some old framed football programs (here’s another) and this memorial to the Seven Blocks of Granite. … For a few months now there have been all these rumors about the Mets possibly going to a dark-gray alternate jersey next season. As I’ve explained to everyone who’s asked me about it, there’s no truth to this rumor — they may add some dark-gray fashion/replica merch to sell to suckers (just like every other team is doing), but the on-field attire has no significant changes for next season. Then, two days ago, I got a note from a reader who I won’t embarrass by printing his name here, breathlessly telling me that he’d just taken these photos of a dark-gray Mets jersey at a local Sports Authority outlet. I told him it was just a fashion jersey, to which he replied, “But it sells for the same $80 as the other jerseys!” After I explained to him that fashion jerseys sell for $80 and authentics sell for a shitload more, he went away, but he apparently gave the same spiel to several bloggers who pounced on the “story” (including this clown at The Daily News, who really should know better), which in turn led even more readers to write to me. So I’ll say it one more time: Contrary to what a few people apparently think, the Mets are NOT adding a dark-gray alternate jersey next season. And that’s the last time I’ll be addressing that rumor (unless it, y’know, turns out to be true or something).
Holiday Schedule: Phil will have an entry tomorrow, I’ll be back on Friday, and then Phil handle the weekend, as usual. My thanks to everyone who helped make 2008 a very good year for Uni Watch, and remember not to make any New Year’s resolutions you can’t keep.
December 31st, 2008
Wish I’d known about this before the holiday shopping season: Reader Stu Taylor just tipped me wise to the work of Brooklyn illustrator Joel Kimmel, who specializes in really cool NBA portraits, like the one of Caron Butler shown above (you can see dozens more of them here). He’s cobbled a bunch of these illos into a book called Portraits in the Paint, plus he’s made them into T-shirts and sells limited-edition prints. All good stuff.
New ESPN column today — link coming soon. tomorrow. Thought it was gonna be today, but they just decided to bump it back a day. I’ll have a full entry tomorrow (and a really good one, I might add) to make up for today’s short entry.
Paging Jeff Apple and Dan Luther: I can’t parcel out the holiday raffle prizes yet because two of the top four winners — the aforementioned Mssrs. Apple and Luther — haven’t yet given me their prize choices. Yo, Jeff and Dan, please check in asap, OK? OK.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Yesterday’s Ticker mistakenly stated that that all NBA teams playing on Xmas Day wore a snowflake patch. As several readers quickly pointed out, the Cavs pulled a last-minute uni switcheroo (because LeBron James wanted to wear the blue alts to match his new blue sneakers — jeez Lou-fucking-eze), which forced the Wizards to change uniforms as well, which in turn meant that neither team wore the patch. The weird thing is that when the NBA showed me samples of their new uniforms back in the fall, the snowflake sample was sewn onto a blue Cavs uni. But apparently at some point they decided to wear the snowflakes on their home whites — and then got caught short when LeBron had them switch back to blue. … In other follow-up news, yesterday I posted pics showing Al Harris wearing biker shorts and super-high whites. But that was just in the first half — Jeff Ash reports that Harris switched to super-low whites in the second half. … Still more follow-up news: Yesterday I linked to this catalog for a tabletop soccer game called Subbuteo. Turns out Jeremy Brahm is a Subbuteo enthusiast, and he pointed me toward several web pages related to the game. There are old boxes shown here, old uniforms here, and more uniforms here. … And yet another follow-up: Yesterday I showed James vanRiemsdyk and his small-caps/caps NOB. “JVR (as he is known on campus) also plays for UNH,” reports Adrian Kerrison. “We have a bold, italicized font on our nameplates so I don’t envy the staff trying to fit his name on there. Here’s a photo that gives a good view of the lowercase-uppercase mix.” … Why does this Michigan helmet have a gray facemask? Details here (good find by Jason Hillyer). … While looking for something else, I came across this shot of 1960s heavyweight boxer Buster Mathis shooting hoops. … Lots of you enjoyed Bryan Justman’s recent entry about making his own DIY hockey jerseys. Here’s his latest creation: a Blackhawks Winter Classic jersey. … Something I’d completely forgotten about until I stumbled across a photo of it yesterday: Jose Canseco briefly wore double-zero during his 1998 stint with the Blue Jays. … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: The rink setup at the Winter Classic will apparently look like this. Note the team logos in the on-deck circles. … Also from yesterday: When the Steelers’ medical staff took Big Ben off the field on Sunday, they removed his facemask but not his helmet, because they didn’t want to jostle his noggin. … Here’s an interesting find: This vintage basketball warm-up top has snaps on the back so a player’s nameplate could be affixed and then removed. … Really nice warm-up top here, too. … There’s a whole subculture of people whose hobby is to sneak into abandoned buildings and poke around (I’ve done a decent amount of this myself, although not nearly enough to qualify me as a full-fledged member of the club). One such person apparently snuck into the Aud in Buffalo last year and took a bunch of cool photos. Check out his story here (with thanks to Michael Joachim). … Reprinted from last night’s comments: a Scott Player imposter, complete with low-bar facemask (wrong helmet brand, though). … Like they always say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity (with thanks to the many readers who sent screen shots of CNN’s home page last night). … “I visited the Carnegie Science Center last Friday because I wanted to see the train display,” writes Doug Keklak. “I thought it would be relevant to share some photos of it, mainly the replica of Forbes Field. The man working the display said the stadium crowd was made up of over 20,000 hand-painted Q-tips.” Additional details worth savoring: the waving flags, the runner suspended in mid-slide (but did anyone slide head-first back then?), and the street lamps. And hey, one kid checking out the exhibit was wearing awesome striped sleeves. Sign that kid up!
December 30th, 2008
Maybe it’s because I’m a Niners fan, maybe it’s because the San Francisco Chronicle posted a really big photo gallery, or maybe it was just a coincidence, but I spotted an unusually large number of uni-notable details in yesterday’s 49ers/Redskins game. To wit:
• Let’s start with the obvious things we always say whenever the Niners wear their throwbacks: The pants piping is too wide (just like it was back in the day), and the Reebok logo looks particularly egregious when it interrupts the sleeve stripes.
• The Niners’ throwback socks have three white stripes. So how did Joe Nedney end up with five stripes? Must’ve worn two pairs, but he did an unusually good job of getting the stripes lined up on both legs.
• Speaking of sock stripeage, the whole biker shorts thing looks particularly stupid when you’re wearing striped hose.
• Here’s something I hadn’t seen before: Vernon Davis wore red spats (and Under Armour cleats for those of you who care about that kind of thing).
• And speaking of red, the coach’s challenge flag doesn’t look quite as stupid when the coach’s team colors include red.
• Shaun Hill threw his wristbands into the crowd after the game. Anyone know if his does this on a regular basis, or was this a new thing?
• As promised, SanFran wore old-school moustaches, just like the Niners of old. Wait — what?
• And it looks like that big wooden cross will be around for a while.
Raffle Reminder: I announced the 32 winners of the holiday raffle back on Thursday. If you haven’t checked already done so, please check to see if you’re among the winners; if your name is on the list, follow the instrux to claim your prize. Thanks again to everyone for all your contributions over the past year — it’s my pleasure to give back a little something.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Haven’t run a Ticker since last Wednesday, so we’ve got lots of stuff to catch up on. I’ll skip the “As you’ve probably seen by now” proviso on all these items, but you’ve probably seen lots of them by now. … Notre Dame wore NOBs for their bowl game on Xmas Eve. According to a press release, this move “renew[ed] a tradition from the Ara Parseghian years, when Irish teams did not have names on the backs of their jerseys during the regular season but added them for bowl games.” … That game also featured one of history’s weirdest invocations of the term “golden shower.” There’s a nice screen-grab sequence of the helmet explosion here (with thanks to Jonee Eisen). … Lots of uni-notable NBA developments on Xmas Day: (1) All 10 teams playing that day wore a snowflake patch (although it was hard to see on white jerseys). (2) The Blazers and Mavs wore holiday colors (Portland was the home team). (3) The league’s normal footwear-color rules were suspended for the day, resulting in lots of special designs and red shoelaces (at least one pair of which was apparently worn untied). Or to put it another way, it was a big mish-mash. … Steve Johnston got a great Xmas gift: “My grandfather, who played football at Riverside-Brookfield High School in Illinois, passed away this past March. My parents came across some items from his playing days and got them framed for me.” … The Yomiuri Giants have unveiled a 75th-anniversary logo (with thanks to Jeremy Brahm). … Canada’s world junior hockey team is wearing memorial decals in honor of Luc Bourdon, who died earlier this year (with thanks to Nick Hanson). … Marcus Perkal was at the Nets/Bobcats game last Friday and noted that the Bobcats’ 5th-anniversary patch was not being worn by Gerald Wallace and Raymond Felton. … Hey, if you’re gonna steal, why not steal from the pros? That’s Central Bucks East High School in Pennsylvania (with thanks to Samantha Coren). … History’s coolest basketball warmup garb on display here (big thanks to Zac Neubauer). … Roman numeral on back. That’s Ralph Sampson III, who plays for Minnesota (with thanks to John Thompson). … Interesting article about sales figures of NHL third jerseys here (with thanks to K.C. Kless). … I didn’t watch the Real Sports year-end show. Good thing, too, cuz Bryant Gumbal wore a sportscoat that would’ve made Lindsey Nelson blush (with thanks to Brett Crane). … Check this out: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in Notre Dame and USC football togs, respectively. Details here (with thanks to Frank Hanney). … Last Tuesday I mentioned that this program cover featured a stylized version of the NFL logo that I’d never seen before. Now Fleer Sticker Project prexy JC Helf has devoted an entire blog entry to this logo variation. Check it out here. … Tony Caliguiri notes that Josh Gorges of the Canadiens has been wearing heavy-duty skate protectors lately. … Greg Riffenburgh notes that Dan Marino is wearing two different shoes in this shot. “That’s a standard Nike Air Zoom Barracuda Stove on his left foot, but the right shoe is a VERY high-top version of a much older Nike football cleat (and colored very differently).” Greg also notes that the Jets used to have very large TV numbers — “and in the Red Sox font, no less.” … FNOB alert: Amdy Faye of Stoke City in the Premier League (big thanks to Shane Bua). … I have no idea what this, but it looks really cool. … The Capitals retired Mike Gartner’s number last night. Video of the ceremony is available here. … Reprinted from last night’s comments: The American world junior hockey team has a player named James vanRiemsdyk — an unusual name, which makes for an unusual NOB. … Al Haris may have set a new standard yesterday for how not to wear football pants and socks. … All the following is from Phil: A high school hoops game in Detroit on Saturday night was delayed when both teams showed up in white uniforms; the only thing better than winning eleventeen gold medals is being presented with one of the NBA’s ugliest jerseys; believe it or not, Udonis Haslem’s jersey was white before he suffered this cut; it’s not often you can see color-on-color, a clear facemask, and RNOB (roman numeral on back) all in one photo; something really, really (like, REALLY) needs to be done about this.
December 29th, 2008
By Phil Hecken
A little more than 50 years ago, Sports Illustrated ran a feature challenging its readers to identify 22 different balls used in the sports of the time. Although our knowledge and perception of sports have changed considerably, the balls have remained the same. I am pretty sure some of these sports are either no longer played or if they are, they’re only played on the manicured lawns of lily-white fancy resort hotels or in places like Cambridge, England, or Newport, Rhode Island — ya know, places where they christen their sloops with names like The Flying Wasp — but they still took balls to play. And, of course, for the regular folks, SI included the classic pink balls used by kids on the streets of the big cities of the day.
Think you know your balls? Lets see. Take the quiz (the scans of the original SI pages are shown below) and give yourself one point for each ball you nail. If the scan doesn’t appear large enough, you should be able to enlarge it, as I took the liberty of making the balls as big as possible. You should have no trouble examining the largest and smallest balls and their descriptions. I’ll post the answers later on in the day, but in the meantime, be sure to post your answers in the comments. And please don’t cheat by going to the SI archives, or I’ll have to break your balls. Ready? Ready…let’s go:
Balls 1-3 are a pretty easy beginning. Most of you should have no trouble identifying them. Quick start should yield you three points.
Balls 4-7 start to get a little tougher. One of the four is easy, the rest…maybe not so much. Good score here would be three out of four.
Balls 8-11 should yield at least three out of four correct. Be careful, however, not all balls look alike. Four out of four is possible here.
Balls 12-14 are knowable, but tricky. It’s likely none of you has ever played with the last ball, much less seen one. Still, based on the clue, you may be able to ascertain its purpose. Three out of three would demonstrate a worldly ball knowledge.
Balls 15-18 may be the easiest set of balls to identify. Four out of four is likely here.
Balls 19-22 will be the toughest yet for identification purposes. Two out of four would be a good score here.
Scoring:
0-14: You don’t know dick about balls — you’ll get nothing and like it!
15-16: You only know a little about your balls. You’re not…you’re not good — you stink.
17-18: You know the difference between a rubber and a leather ball. Another Rob Roy, Bishop?
19-20: You really know your balls, and you almost beat the ball quiz. How about a Fresca?
21-22: You must have cheated — but that takes some balls! You ain’t getting no coke. Know what I’m talking about?
Sorry for the non-uni post, but it’s the end of the year, and balls are as essential to sports as uniforms. And on that note, I wanna give a shout-out to Ricko for the SI scans. If anyone knows old balls his equipment, it’s the Rick. Thanks, Ricko!
December 28th, 2008
So how did you do for the holidays? Get any good uni-swag? Santa was pretty kind to LI Phil, as he scored a Giants sweatshirt (a reminder of good things in the past and better things yet to come) and an Isles sweatshirt (with “19″ and “80″ on the sleeves, to mark the year of their first Cup). This was a reminder of great things in the waaaaaaaaaayyyy past and nothing but futility, heartache, and despair in the immediate future.
But the real uni-prize came from a buddy, to whom I off-handedly mentioned I’d love a Bimbo kit after reading Bryan’s “Lost In Translation” piece more than a year ago. (Yeah, I know it’s the sponsor and not the team, but think of the conversation starter it would be for the unknowing.f) I searched high and low for a Bimbo jersey, to no avail, eventually losing hope and interest. Sure, Nike made one, but no way was I paying no $80 for one (that’s a lot of pesos, y’know). So, at the annual exchange of Xmas presents this year, I was so pleasantly surprised to receive that gorgeous thing pictured above. I don’t know if it’s their new shirt, or if it’s even the same team as featured in Bryan’s article (it’s prolly something he scored in the bargain bin) — and quite frankly, I don’t care. Sure, it’s not quite the Islanders Fisherman sweater I really wanted, but damn, it’s close enough.
So, it’s show and tell time. How’d you do? What’d ya get? Uni-related gifts and/or nekkid pics of your significant other/gf/wife only please! — Phil
December 27th, 2008
Uni Watch is closed today in observance of Boxing Day. We’ll be open for business again tomorrow — see you then.
December 26th, 2008
… but that’s what happens when you shack up with a guy like Santa, who, as I’ve been saying for years, is a bad seed. Serves both of them right.
Anyway: Ho-ho-ho and all that, boys and girls. As promised, here are the 32 winners of the Uni Watch holiday raffle:
1. Brian Russell
2. Jeff Apple
3. Rob Bindeman
4. Dan Luther
5. Hugh McBride
6. Petter Schinkai
7. Matt Gamertsfelder
8. David Rosenthal
9. Nicholas Schiavo
10. René Zepeda
11. Michael C. Wilson
12. Benjamin Bonnet
13. Jeremiah McElwain
14. Jason Tirotta
15. Austin Jones
16. Bob Andrews
17. Jon Silber
18. Nicole Haase
19. Peter Thompson
20. Charles Neiswender
21. Daniel King
22. Kenneth Clark
23. James Wortham
24. Jack Graham
25. Sutton Smith
26. Andrew Matthews
27. Taylor Davidson
28. Jordan Rose
29. Jason Dunmire
30. Matthew Hackethal
31. Kyle Shannon
32. Jeff Pudlo
The top winner, Brian Russell, gets his choice of the 32 prize lots listed here; the next person on the list gets his choice of the 31 remaining prizes; and the person after that gets to choose from the 30 remaining prizes; and so on.
All winners should e-mail me to claim their prizes. When doing so, please (a) provide your shipping address, and (b) observe the following protocol: If you’re the second-place winner, provide two prize choices, in order of preference; the third-place winner should provide three prize choices, in order of preference; and so on. Basically, whatever number you are on the list, that’s the number of prize choices you should provide me with.
For those choosing among the batting gloves (remember there are 15 separate prizes consisting of two pairs of gloves), please indicate which two pairs you want from these photos of the extra-large, large, and medium gloves (just indicate “Large, top row, third from left,” or whatever applies). I’ll do my best to honor specific glove requests but I might end up having to substitute a different pair depending on people’s choices.
I think that’s it. Comments will be open today; site will be closed tomorrow. Have a happy and a merry, and I hope each and every one of you finds yourself under the mistletoe with someone who’s wearing striped socks.
(Illustrations above by the very talented Gabriel Morka.)
December 25th, 2008
[Editor’s Note: I recently got a note from reader Brandon Stirpe (that’s him at right), who had news of a logo-related Uni Watch success story. I’ve decided to let him tell the story in his own words. See you after the mainbar. — PL]
By Brandon Stirpe
Last year my father and brother started a printing business called Global Press Solutions, or GPS. I was assigned the “marketing position,” and we needed a logo, so I posted a comment on Uni Watch — something along the lines of, “Calling all graphic designers: Need a good designer to put a face to my father’s company, serious inquiries only.”
About two or three days later I received an e-mail a fellow Uni Watch reader named Eric Davis. He pointed me toward his web site to see what he had to offer. My father liked his ideas, so we told him what we wanted: the letters GPS, with some sort of paper/roller symbolism, like a printing press, with the CMYK colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, which are the four tones of four-color printing) in the mix of things.
Eric went to the drawing board and came up with a set of preliminaries (you can see the whole proposal here). From there we narrowed it down. At this point, I also sent him a set of drawings I did, because after his preliminaries, we liked the globe incorporated into the design.
Eric enhanced those drawings a bit and came up with these and these. We liked the globe designs, as they had the paper rolling along the outside of the globe to make a “G,” not to mention a nice touch with the little fold.
After we narrowed it down to that main concept, we had him tinker with colors, the rotation of the globe, and other minor details, as you can see here, then and moved forward to these.
We ruled out the CMYK effort and decided to stick with the Global “G” with the GPS right next to it. Next, we had Eric finalize some of the colors and eventually chose the one on top.
With the logo taken care of, we moved to cover pages (choosing this one, with the this one proposals) and business cards (choosing the lower-left version for the front and the upper-right ersion for the back).
Finally, it was time to get decked out in some GPS gear. We worked with Virginia Lee Embroidery out of Millersburg, Pennsylvania, a company that happens to do a lot of T-shirts dealing with the NFL, NBA, and other pro leagues (including many of the screen-printed “Division Champs” shirts). So we worked with them on a logo concept and they sent us this.
From there we came up with some GPS polos for the important people in the company. I did not want to use Nike, but my father and brother insisted on Dri-Fit because they often travel to the Middle East. We came up with a compromise that we’d use Nike as long as there was no logo on the front. Sleeve was okay, I guess. We also bought versions n white, blue, and green (for the lady of the house). My favorite part of the design was the CNOB (company name on back).
Finally, for the grunts we got black tees with chest pockets and the company name on the sleeve. That’s me sporting my GPS gear.
Raffle Reminder: Paul here. Remember, today’s the last day for the holiday raffle. Full details here, and I’ll post the winners tomorrow.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Good radio piece here about athletes who are forced to raise cash by selling their championship rings (thanks, Kirsten). … While looking for something else, I discovered something I’d never seen before in this video clip from Super Bowl VI. At the 1:20 mark, you’ll see Cowboys kicker Mike Clark preparing to kick off without a tee. The ball didn’t blow off the tee or anything like that, and it’s not an onsides attempt — the announcers imply that he’s kicking it that way to create a squib-kick effect (although they don’t use the term “squib,” which I guess wasn’t in common parlance yet). Somewhat predictably, the kick goes out of bounds, leading to a re-kick with a conventional tee. … The Rocky Mountain News ran a logo and uni quiz yesterday. … What the hell is going on here, here, here, and here? Answers here (with thanks to Frank Hanney). … Remember the tequila sunrise prototype and “Washington Padres” prototype I recently linked? Gumball helmet king Bill Jones has created helmets based on those designs. … Racine Lutheran in Wisconsin wears some pretty rad socks (with thanks to Tom Farley). … Someone on the Chris Creamer boards posted some video-game screen shots of the uniforms that will be worn in the NBA All-Star Game, which I guess means I may as well go ahead and show you this, this, this, and this (and no, the Adidas logo will not appear on the game jerseys). … Think all the uni-related Winter Classic news is about Reebok’s “Where’s Waldo?” promotion? Think again (thanks, Phil).
Holiday Schedule: I’ll announce the raffle winners tomorrow. No other content, but I’ll leave the comments open for those who want to chatter. The site will be closed on Friday (no content, no comments — play with your Xmas toys), and Phil will handle the weekend as usual. Ho-ho-ho to one and all, and be sure the stockings you’re hanging are striped.
December 24th, 2008
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