Last fall I ran a rundown of old uni-related New York Times articles, which made it clear that uniform coverage was alive and well decades before the advent of Uni Watch. Now Doug Mooney, who did the archival research for that piece, has come up with a bunch of additional old articles from a variety of newspaper sources. There’s some great stuff in this batch — here’s a chronological breakdown:
• October 18, 1931, The New York Times, John Kieran’s “Sports of the Times” column: This column is a hodgepodge of disparate items, the first of which is about the Army football team’s uniforms (the practice unis were heavier than the game-day attire, so the team would feel lighter and faster) and footwear. Details here.
• January 24, 1937, The New York Times, “First Basketball Game of 1892 to Be Reproduced at the Garden”: Could this have been the first throwback game? The story describes plans to celebrate basketball’s 45th anniversary by staging a re-enactment of the first game ever played. According to the article, “The players will be garbed just as they were first that first game — turtle-neck sweaters, handle-bar mustaches, shin guards and the like, while peach baskets will serve as the targets.” Full text here.
• July 30, 1943, The Sheboygan Press, “Sports Uniforms of Nylon Will Be Used After War”: Nylon was hard to come by during World War II, because most of it was reserved for making parachutes, tents, ropes, and other military provisions. In this article, the DuPont company, which developed nylon, forecasts that the material will become common in sports uniforms once the war is over — a prediction that turned out to be correct.
• December 14, 1946, The New York Times, “Expanding Demand Seen for Uniforms”: This article describes a speech given at the annual dinner of the National Association of Uniform Manufacturers (could someone please build me a time machine, so I can attend?), where an industry executive predicted that uniforms would gain great prominence in coming years. He was mostly talking about service uniforms, for repairmen and the like, not sports unis, but it’s still pretty interesting. Look here.
• August 30, 1959, The New York Times, Letter to the Editor: Hilarious letter from a recent immigrant who “[can’t] help wondering why the umpires are forced to carry out their respective duties dressed in black suits that look heavy, uncomfortable and — pardon me — somewhat silly in the grueling heat of a three-hour game.” It would be another decade before umps stopped wearing neckties, and much longer before the letter-writer’s suggestion (”a lightweight, loose-weave shirt and summer slacks”) became the standard that we now see today. Full text of the letter is here.
• January 11, 1961, Ironwood Daily Globe, “Tigers Change Uniform Style”: We’ve discussed several times how the Cardinals’ birds-on-the-bat logo took a one-year hiatus in 1956. A similar situation unfolded in Detroit in 1960, when the Tigers replaced their old English “D” with a “Tigers” insignia. That experiment lasted only one year, and this article describes the move back to the “D” logo. Look here.
• July 30, 1972, The Odessa American, “Bellard Here to Charge Aggie Batteries”: This article is about Emory Ballard, then the new football coach at Texas A&M. Amidst lots of other Aggie chatter, there are two paragraphs devoted to the team’s new uniforms, including news that the team would be wearing white helmets, because “maroon is a hard color to duplicate.” Full text here.
• February 7, 1973, Sheboygan Press, “Football Uniforms Fashion Items”: Fun article about the latest in “modern” football attire. Key quote: “Striped kneesocks are big, and so are terrycloth wrist bands, originally intended to just soak up sweat.” Full amusing details here.
• February 5, 1974, Winnipeg Free Press, “Als Will Try Popular Colors”: Really interesting article about how the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes planned to switch their color scheme to red, white, and blue, because that’s what the city’s more popular teams — the Canadiens and Expos — were wearing. Kind of amazing to think that the Expos were more popular than, uh, anything. Also discussed in the article: the Als’ new logo (apparently this one). Full text here.
My continued thanks to Doug for all his great archival research.
Seattle Update: Next week’s Uni Watch gathering in Seattle will take place on Friday, March 14th, 7:30pm, at the Pyramid Alehouse. Looking forward to meeting lots of you there.
In other administrative news, you may have noticed that we have a new advertiser at the top of the page: Black Fives. In what I consider to be very classy move, Black Fives prexy Claude Johnson has configured the ad to link to the company’s home page, not to its merch page, so he’s looking to spread awareness, not just to sell stuff (although he’s certainly got plenty of stuff to sell). Claude’s Black Fives blog is a consistently good read, and I’ve been very impressed by my interactions with him. He’s documenting an important and overlooked chapter in sports history, and I hope more people will get hip to what he’s doing.
Uni Watch News Ticker: The Brett Favre tribute-a-thon has spun so far out of control that I’m half-expecting the Packers to be wearing a memorial patch for him next season. … Fun rumination on NFL typography here … A Cleveland inventor has come up with a visor designed to keep your eyes focused on the rim, not on the ball. Details here, and the inventor’s site is here (thanks, Vince). … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: Is a Colts soap dispenser the one thing that’s really been missing from your life? Then the NFL Hardlines VI Trade Show is for you. Details here, and there’s a photo gallery of dubious products here. … Stirrups alert from Yankees camp: Ian Kennedy. … Speaking of the Yankees, they played a navy-vs.-navy game against the Twins yesterday, while the Rockies and Chisox went black vs. black. … If you don’t like mandatory helmets for baseball coaches, you might not like this either (with thanks to Ryan Connelly). … “I received an e-mail today telling me I could order a commemorative jersey for the 20th anniversary of the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure (GOBA),” writes David Ballenger. “I don’t even know where to start with this horrid design. How long do you have to be riding directly behind someone to have the time to read a paragraph on the back?” … Good video here on the Canadiens’ equipment manager and arena staff. Only catch: It’s in French. Still, there’s some pretty cool visual footage (with thanks to Jean Gagnier). … align=”right” padding-left=”10px” FREE!: this and this. Naturally, I approve of all the green, although I kinda miss the silver. Additional details here and here. … This year’s MLB undershirt template from Nike will apparently look like this. … According to this page, “[Tiger] Woods donned a batting helmet and Braves jersey (tucked into shorts) and stepped into the batter’s box when [John] Smoltz threw three simulated innings at Disney’s Wide World of Sports.” No word on whether Woods insisted on a swoosh-emblazoned helmet. … Nick Waters took some photos of Georgetown’s new SOD uni (additional pics here). “Not sure if they’ll debut them on Saturday or at the Big East Tournament next week,” he writes. … Minna H. reports that the Minnesota high school state hockey tourney is underway, with plenty of interesting uni designs. There’s a full gallery here. … Yee-IKES (horrifying find by David Sonny). … Shorpy continues to delivery the goods. Note the lack of uni numbers and the ump’s backwards cap. … Reprinted from last night’s comments: The Yankees’ official retired numbers page shows Yogi Berra wearing a Mets cap (which of course pleases me no end).
March 6th, 2008
A really good book has just been published: Matthew Algeo’s Last Team Standing, which chronicles an odd chapter in NFL history: the temporary merger of the Steelers and Eagles (thereby creating the “Steagles”), which took place in 1943 due to manpower shortages caused by World War II.
Although not a uniform book per se, the book features lots of great uni-centric moments. Here are some highlights:
Page 21: “Fed up with sloppy uniforms, [NFL commish Elmer Layden] ordered players to wear knee-high socks, a curious preoccupation with hosiery that persists in the league to this day. (College palyers are permitted to wear their socks at their ankles if they choose.) Another of Layden’s sartorial innovations: He ordered game officials to wear color-coded striped shirts. Referees wore black and white, umpires red and white, linesmen orange and white, and field judges green and white. One official ridiculed the dress code as a ‘circus on parade.’”
Page 33: “[In 1943] the owners also voted to make helmets mandatory for the first time. … Not that the leather helmets then in use afforded much protection. Concussions were a common injury. In 1939 the John T. Riddell Company had patented a new plastic helmet that was lighter and stronger than leather (and it didn’t get moldy when wet, either). But plastic was needed for the war effort, so players were stuck with the high-crowned leather headgear. … Facemasks were practically nonexistent. Ted Doyle may have been the only player in the league wearing one. ‘I had a cap put on my tooth and didn’t want to have to replace it, so I had them put a nose guard on my helmet,’ Doyle explained.”
Page 50: “Finally, there was the prickly issue of uniforms. Eagles owner Lex Thompson would not allow his players to wear anything other than the team’s usual colors of kelly green and white. [Steelers owners Bert] Bell and [Art] Rooney wanted the team to wear the Steelers’ black and gold jerseys, at least when it played in Pittsburgh. In the end, Thompson won out. The team would wear Eagles jerseys for every game. Bell and Rooney probably gave in because it would have been too costly to clean and maintain two sets of uniforms all season anyway.”
Page 123: “[Due to the war] it was almost impossible to get the uniforms cleaned, since laundry services were inundated with military business. After his first day at training camp, tackle Al Wistert handed his sweat-soaked jersey and pants to the Eagles’ trainer, Fred Schubach. ‘We can’t get laundry service,’ Schubach barked. ‘Wear that stuff a while!’ Wistert took his uniform back home to his wife Ellie, who cleaned it in the tub.”
Page 155: “[During a game against the Redskins] Steagles guard Rocco Canale broke through the Washington line and ripped [Sammy] Baugh’s burgundy No. 33 jersey of his back — twice. (The jerseys were made of tightly woven wool and did not tear easily.) Baugh played much of the first half in tatters, his left arm exposed to the shoulder and his white undershirt visible on his back.”
And of course the book also features plenty of excellent non-uni material. The only downer is that there are very few photos. But the ones that are included are really cool. Highly recommended.
Garden Party: These people are having fun. Wouldn’t you like to be more like them? And you could have been, if you’d attended yesterday’s BBQ at Uni Watch Gardens (i.e., my back yard). Among the highlights:
• Here’s Bill Campbell, who drove up from the Philly and generously spent some time manning the grill, where we had plenty of corn and brats, among lots of other stuff.
• The brats came courtesy of Joel Keller (the only Yankee fan in attendance), who procured them from Usinger’s — Milwaukee’s finest!
• Lars Russell was clearly trying to curry favor with the striped socks. He had to leave early because he was hosting a BBQ party of his own.
• This is Chris Selicious, proudly wearing his Quebec Nordiques T-shirt and a cool woodpecker cap of uncertain origin.
• Jon Springer, who runs the excellent Mets by the Numbers site, is the subject of the next Uni Watch Profiles interview, which should be published later this week.
• Here’s Superba Graphics prexy and Uni Watch logo designer Scott M.X. Turner and his wife, the lovely and talented Diane George.
• Mike from Queens has been posting lots of comments lately, but he tore himself away from the blog long enough to come out for the party. So did frequent contributor Marc Beck.
• This is Uni Watch librarian Carrie Klein, who did a better job of keeping her eye on the camera than I did.
• Last but not least, here’s a really crummy photo of the deeeeelicious smoked chicken I made, and what was left of it 10 seconds later.
It was great to see these folks, most of them for the first time. Thanks to all who attended.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Good catch by Anne Tynan, who notes that Colorado State’s Gartrell Johnson III had something written on his finger tape last Saturday. “My guess is that it’s a tribute to injured star running back Kyle Bell, for whom Johnson is filling in,” she writes. “No word on whether he has the roman numerals on his nameplate.” … Diacritical alert from Thomas Courtman, who sent along the Wikipedia entry for Brazilian footballer Kaká: “The nickname Kaká from his native Portuguese, is pronounced as it is spelled. The accent would signify that the stress is on the second syllable. In Italian, the language of his current club team, the phonetic equivalent is written as Kaká. However, the [name appearing on his shirt] is KAKA’ (with an apostrophe, rather than an accented ‘A’) for both his club in Milan and in the past for the Brazilian national team. In the World Cup 2006, the back of his shirt read KAKÃ.” I hereby beg everyone to please avoid all the obvious scatological jokes here. … More diacriticals, from the FIBA World Basketball Championship (courtesy of the ever-alert Jeremy Brahm): look here, here, here, and here. … More FIBA observations from Brahm: It looks like several of these players are wearing NBA socks; check out the crazy New Zealand outfits (with inconsistent shoe colors!); a Nigerian player had no name on his jersey in one game, and then his name magically appeared later on. … And still another Brahm catch: The Hamilton Tiger-Cats wore and auctioned off special white helmets yesterday (instead of their usual black), but that’s Canadian football, so nobody cares. … Mike Coles, of the Northern League’s Gary Southshore RailCats, was sporting some major pants rippage the other day (with thanks to Jeremy Bra– no, wait, this one’s from Mike Alper). … Not really uni-related, but close: U. of Florida had to call off a T-shirt promotion because the roman numerals on the shirt added up to 26, not 2006. Full details here (gold star for Shirl Kennedy).
September 5th, 2006
Greetings from Memphis, where’s it’s approximately one billion degrees, and where reader Luke Pellegra joined me and a few of my friends for dinner last night. The good news is that he’s a peach of a guy; the bad news is that he says he wore his baseball pants pajama-style back in his playing days. Fortunately, my blackened catfish and pecan caramel pie were so good that I was willing to forgive this egregious transgression.
Meanwhile: With today’s entry, we hereby inaugurate Uni Watch Profiles, an occasional series of interviews with interesting people from the uniform world. Kicking us off is Witesock, the pseudonymous webmaster of the amazing Professional Game Socks site.
I’ve been a huge fan of Witesock’s site since I discovered it in 2000 — not just because I like sports socks, but also because I especially love narrowly targeted niche obsessions. And Witesock is about as narrow and obsessive as it gets: His site features photo after lower-leg photo of Witesock himself wearing football, rugby, soccer, and hockey socks. Most of these are game-used, and all are from his vast collection, which is undoubtedly the world’s largest assemblage of athletic hosiery.
I particularly like that the text design of Witesock’s site is extremely spare and no-frills, as if to say, “These words don’t really matter — it’s all about the socks,” which just accentuates the sense of unwavering obsession. As you click to see one image after another of Witesock’s stocking-clad shins, the whole enterprise begins to feel like a Dada-ish conceptual art project — ingenious in its simplicity, relentless in its single-mindedness.
Such analysis aside, Witesock’s also a really swell guy. When I first got in touch with him back in 2000, he promptly sent me two pairs of game-used Jets socks, and we’ve stayed in touch since then. As you’ll see, he greatly values his privacy and anonymity, so I’m particularly flattered and appreciative that he was willing to do this interview, which we conducted over the phone about 10 days ago.
Uni Watch: How old are you, where do you live, and what’s your regular job?
Witesock: I’m 41, I live in Toronto, and I’m an engineer.
UW: Have you always been interested in sports socks? What’s your earliest memory of having this particular obsession?
WS: My first memory of it is from when I was seven or eight years old, mostly from watching sports — I used to like to watch soccer when I was young. They always used to show a game of the week from the English Premier League, and for some reason the part of the uniform that intrigued me the most was the socks.
UW: Did you play sports yourself when you were a kid?
WS: Not so much in those days. Later, in university, I played soccer, and after that I played football, rugby, and now I play hockey.
UW: And when you played in university, did you take particular pride or interest in your socks?
WS: Absolutely, absolutely. I always had them pulled up nice and high to show them off. I’d wear all different types, too — I’d rotate through different types.
UW: When did you start collecting socks?
WS [laughing]: As soon as my parents started giving me a weekly allowance. Probably when I was about nine or ten. I’d save up until I had a little money together and then buy a few pairs. At first it was just white soccer socks. And as I got older, I purchased more and more.
UW: How many pairs do you have?
WS: I knew you’d ask that. I don’t keep track of the numbers, but I’d say it’s several hundred.
UW: “Several” meaning, like, two or three hundred, or seven or eight hundred?
WS: Seven or eight hundred.
UW: Wow. And do you have them displayed, like in your rec room or something like that? Or are they all in drawers?
WS: They’re mostly in sock drawers, boxes. Some are in storage.
UW: Do you have some particularly prized ones that you have displayed, like having on the walls or something like that?
WS: Not at the moment, although I’m looking into that.
UW: How did you get the idea to start the web site documenting your collection?
WS: Back in the late ’90s, I was interested in putting together a personal web site, and I was trying to figure out what topic to devote it to. And I thought, what could be better than displaying some of my socks?
UW: Was it your plan from the start that the site would feature photos of you wearing the socks, rather than just photos of the socks themselves?
WS: Initially I planned to photograph the socks. But it’s so much more fun to wear them, model them, that I decided to use that format. I also wanted to get photos of professional players wearing the socks, and to show those photos parallel to the pictures of me, but I’ve never gotten around to that.
UW: Now, a lot of your socks are game-used. How do you acquire those?
WS: That’s basically the result of a lot of time spent contacting equipment managers, and establishing good relationships with them over the years, and occasionally requesting game socks from them.
UW: Obviously, there are loads of fans out there who’d love to get game-used jerseys, or helmets, or whatever. And I think, for the most part, if those fans tried calling up a pro team’s equipment manager, the equipment guy wouldn’t give him the time of day. How do you get through to establish a relationship with these people?
WS: You have to be really persistent. You never, ever get these guys on the first call — it often takes dozens and dozens of calls before you actually get through to them. Sometimes it takes months. I never leave a voice message; you’ve gotta make direct contact with them. Basically, just be genuine and make your request, and usually they’re quite willing to help you out. A pair of socks doesn’t really cost them that much.
UW: Do you think it helps that you’re asking for socks, rather than, say, a jersey?
WS: Absolutely. I’ve never hassled them for jerseys or pants or anything else — just socks. And I’ve been quite successful in that regard.
UW: So you must have this little black book of all the equipment managers, all the times you’ve tried to call them, and so on.
WS: I do — I have a log book.
UW: When a team changes equipment managers, that must just kill you. Like, here you’ve invested all this time and energy in establishing a relationship with this guy, and then he retires or whatever, and you have to start from scratch with the new guy.
WS: Yeah, sometimes that can be problematic. But there are some equipment guys I haven’t been able to have any success with, so I’d be more than happy to see them go.
UW: In the NFL, which are the teams you’ve been most and least successful with?
WS: I’ve had the most success probably with the Baltimore Ravens and the New York Jets. As for as the least success, the Bears and the Dolphins don’t seem to, ah�
UW: They don’t want to talk to you?
WS: They just basically say that they have a strict policy against providing any game-used equipment.
UW: What’s your favorite sport, sock-wise, and why?
WS: I really like football socks.
UW: Baseball has such a great sock heritage, but you have only a few photos of yourself in baseball socks. How come?
WS: I do like baseball socks, and I have a box of old stirrups that I like to go through and put on occasionally. But you don’t see baseball socks very much these days, because the players all wear their pants down to their ankles.
UW: Tell me about it. What are your favorite teams to root for, just as a fan, and how do you feel about their socks?
WS: Here in the CFL, I root for the Toronto Argos. Their socks aren’t anything special — they’re basically just white with a navy top. In the NFL, the Dolphins and the 49ers are my two favorite teams.
UW: Do you wish that any of those teams had, y’know, better socks? More stripes or whatever?
WS: Well, I think every team should incorporate some sort of unique striping into their socks. And it seems like the trend is that more teams are going toward more of a solid-top sock, which seems a little bland to me.
UW: Yeah, between the long baseball pants, the super-short basketball socks, and the lack of stripes in the NFL, this isn’t a very sock-centric moment in sports history.
WS: I agree. It can only get better from here.
UW: If you had to choose just one favorite pair of socks in your collection, what would it be and why?
WS: I like the striped socks that the Dolphins wear with their colored pants.
UW: And you have game-used examples of those?
WS: Yes.
UW: Now, when a team sends you a pair of gamers, do they tell you who wore them?
WS: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I think a lot of times they don’t even know.
UW: Sometimes the socks will actually have the uniform number written on them in laundry marker, so that’s one way to know who wore them, right?
WS: Yes.
UW: Who are some of the higher-profile players whose socks you know you have in your collection?
WS: I don’t have that many game-worn socks where I definitely know who wore them. But I do have a pair of Dolphins socks that were worn by Olindo Mare. And I have a number of socks from Jets players — pretty much most of their roster from 1996 and ‘97. The equipment manager was kind enough to send me all their leftover game socks at the end of their season. So I have a huge box of New York Jets socks sitting in my basement.
UW: Just how many socks are we talking about here?
WS: Probably a couple hundred pairs.
UW: Whoa, that’s a good chunk of your collection right there!
WS: Yes, it is.
UW: Now, do you wear these socks just for, y’know, walking around?
WS: I do. I wear them pretty much all the time.
UW: So are you wearing a pair of game-used socks right now?
WS: I’m wearing a pair of English rugby socks at the moment.
UW: Cool! There are so many people who collect things and then, either literally or figuratively, put them under glass — they squirrel them away, make sure not to touch them, and so on. But you actually use your collection. You wear your collection!
WS: I do, I like wearing the different socks. Maybe some of the extra-special ones I put aside and don’t wear. But most of the ones I get, I do enjoy wearing them.
UW: What would be an example of an extra-special one that you wouldn’t wear?
WS: The ones I got from Olindo Mare. I keep those separate.
UW: We’re talking a lot about football here. What about other sports?
WS: I like hockey socks a lot, and rugby too.
UW: People don’t always think of hockey socks as socks — they think of them as leggings.
WS: Oh, they’re socks. And I have a nice collection of NHL socks.
UW: Again, any notable players’ socks?
WS: I have a pair of socks from Eric Lindros, from when he played with the Flyers.
UW: Cool. You know, teams merchandise the hell out of their jerseys and caps, but except for the NBA, which does sell official NBA socks, you rarely see merchandised team socks. Do you think they should do more of that?
WS: A lot of the soccer teams in the UK actually do merchandise their exact replica socks. For soccer and rugby in other parts of the world, that is merchandise. But North America doesn’t seem to do that.
UW: Wow — that doesn’t reflect very well upon us here in North America. Now, when you get a pair of game socks, do you wash them first? Are they already washed when you get them?
WS: All the pairs I’ve received have been washed. But they show plenty of wear, grass stains, that sort of thing.
UW: I know a lot of collectors of game-used stuff love it when a jersey has a stain or a rip — do you like those sorts of battle scars on the socks?
WS: Yes.
UW: What sort of audience does your site have, and what sorts of communications have you had with your readers? Do you have “regulars” who are frequent visitors to your site?
WS: There have probably been three or four individuals who I liaise with fairly regularly.
UW: Are they also collectors, like you are?
WS: Yes, they’re all collectors of football socks.
UW: Is that a competitive thing between you and these other collectors? I mean, this must be a pretty small niche, so are you all trying to outdo each other? Are you all bidding against each other if a pair of game socks shows up on eBay?
WS: That happens occasionally, yes.
UW: So that’s sort of a friendly rivalry.
WS: I guess you could say that, yes.
UW: Have you met these guys, or any of your other readers?
WS: I’ve met one of the collectors.
UW: Do people ever offer you money for your socks?
WS: Sometimes, yes. And if I have duplicate pairs of something, I’ll occasionally sell a pair.
UW: Do you trade with the other collectors?
WS: Sometimes, but it’s increasingly difficult to find someone else who has anything I’m interested in, because my own collection is so large.
UW: Yeah, that’s always the problem with having a really big collection. Now, I know, because you’ve told me in the past, that you’ve also gotten some attention from fetishist types.
WS: Yes, that’s probably the most common type of feedback I get, usually from people who want to see more pictures of me in socks.
UW: Are these men, women, or both?
WS: Primarily men.
UW: And is it your impression that word of your site has spread through the fetish community, like through internet message boards or whatever?
WS: I believe so, yeah.
UW: And how do you feel about that?
WS: It was a little bit unexpected, but I certainly don’t mind.
UW: And are you part of that community yourself?
WS: I’m not, no.
UW: You have that “Request Gallery” section of your site, where you have photos that were specifically requested by readers. Did a lot of those requests come from the fetish community?
WS: Yes.
UW: What sorts of requests do they typically present to you?
WS: They want to see maybe a really beat-up pair of socks, things like that. I do maintain some anonymity — I won’t show my face, and I won’t show any other parts of my body. I do get those types of requests, but I don’t honor them. One of the most interesting requests I got was from a guy in Australia. He offered to send me five pairs of Australian rugby socks if I would take pictures of myself wearing the socks while at the same time throwing a pie in my face.
UW [incredulous]: Like, while throwing it in your own face, or while having someone else throw it in your face?
WS: He would have preferred to have someone else throw it, but…
UW: That’s a very specialized request.
WS: One of the weirdest I’ve received.
UW: So did you do it?
WS: I did, yes, I did. I actually had a lot of fun doing it.
UW: So did you make a pie?
WS: I just got a pie shell and filled it with whipped cream. And I smothered it in my face while I was wearing the socks.
UW: And how did you take a picture while you were doing that? Did you have someone else take the picture?
WS: No, I take all of the photos myself, including that one. It’s amazing what you can do with mirrors. It was a lot of fun.
UW: I haven’t seen that one on the site. You didn’t upload that one?
WS: I didn’t, no. I probably should.
UW: So you just e-mailed the photos to him, and that was the trade for you getting these socks?
WS: Yes.
UW: Did he feel like he got equal value?
WS: He wrote back and said he was quite entertained, and he thanked me very much.
UW: What do your friends and family think about your sock obsession?
WS: Oh, they don’t know!
UW [incredulous again]: They don’t know?
WS: No. I keep this all sort of hidden away.
UW: Now, wait a minute. When you were spending your allowance on socks, your parents certainly had to know about that.
WS: Well, I guess back then, yeah. They made some comments — I guess they thought it was a little odd that I’d be purchasing so many long socks. Other than that, I haven’t really shared this with any members of my immediate family. That’s why I’ve been hesitant to display them.
UW: Are you married?
WS: Yes, I am.
UW: And your wife doesn’t know?
WS: She doesn’t know!
UW: How do you keep something like this secret? I mean, you’ve got that big box in the basement with all those Jets socks! Hasn’t she noticed that?
WS: I try to keep them well hidden. She hasn’t come across them yet. But I keep a lot of football socks in my regular sock drawer — she sees them there, and when she’s going through the laundry, and she never says anything. She just thinks it’s a little odd that I have so many pairs of them when I don’t play that many sports.
UW: So she’s never seen the web site?
WS: She hasn’t, no. To the best of my knowledge, anyway!
UW: Don’t you wish you could share your hobby with her?
WS: I guess I feel a little embarrassed, actually, about having a hobby that’s so bizarre as socks. And I guess because of that I’ve decided, at least for now, to keep it hidden.
UW: But she’s your wife — wouldn’t she understand?
WS: She probably would. But she’d probably tell other people, and I just don’t want it to become a big point of discussion.
UW: Well, I certainly respect your privacy, and this makes me appreciate all the more that you’ve been willing to talk with me here. And I won’t e-mail a copy of this interview to your wife! But seriously, I think about this a lot — the notion of whether one’s obsession is something to be proud of or something to feel a bit squeamish about. Obviously, with Uni Watch, I’ve completely embraced my obsession and gone very public with it. But I realize everyone makes their own decisions on that type of thing.
WS: Well, I’m very proud of my collection, and I enjoy the hobby. But it’s kind of fun this way, because it’s sort of my own little secret world that I can jump into.
———-
So there you have it. Big, big thanks to Witesock for sharing his thoughts. I have several subjects in mind for future Uni Watch Profiles; if you’d like to suggest any of your own, let me know.
August 10th, 2006
