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Posts filed under 'Uniform Designers'
By Phil Hecken
You guys will recall several weeks ago I ran a “Design-A-Cap” contest, for Coach Jerome Nemanich and his Sartell Sabres, and the results were outstanding. Reader Marc Walls saw the original contest, and thought our fantastic readers could do the “Design-A-Cap” one better — to wit: Design A Whole Uniform!
Here’s Marc’s original e-mail to me explaining his idea:
Love the work you’ve been doing on the website. I really enjoyed the design a cap idea for today’s column. I saw that you had proposed a design a uni option. I think that’s a great idea, and if you’re interested I’d like to offer the school I coach to be the team you choose.
I am one of the baseball coach’s at Clarksville High School in Clarksville, Tennessee. We are looking to undergo a complete redesign, including possibly a new logo.
Here’s the catch, which I think will make it fun for uniwatchers. Our colors are purple and gold! I’ve tried with no hope to come up with uniform designs that use the purple in a way that isn’t awful, and I could really use everyone’s creativity. Our current hat is solid purple with the Chicago Cubs “C” in gold.
Intrigued, but semi-swamped with weekend entries, I did respond to Marc, who then got back to me with more of the guts of the idea, as well as a few pictures from which to base the uniform redesigns:
Our high school is planning to undergo a complete redesign of our uniforms over the next year. I’m going to make some requests, and attach some pictures to show what the team has had in years’ past.
The school has been using the same hat design for the last 20 years, the Chicago Cubs “c” logo in yellow on a white outline. The hat is solid purple. We are probably going to keep that logo, but are looking to add a few alternate logos. I’m hoping the savvy guys at UW can create some great logos for us to use. Here’s what we’re looking for:
* A logo incorporating the letters “CHS” … any font or format. Looking for something unique, even outside the box. We would love a hat design featuring the CHS logo.
* A ferocious looking “wildcat”. Any logo involving a wildcat or paw logo would be outstanding. Our football program has been using the Kansas State Wildcat, and we want something a little better.
* Uniform designs. We are looking for a white, grey, purple, yellow or black (yeah, I know). Our head coach loves black so any black jerseys or hat designs would be outstanding.
If we decide to use any of these designs in the future, we will definitely work out some kind of payment for all of your hard work.
* The parameters: colors are purple and gold, which I know is hard enough, without including the black.
Marc included four photographs to emphasize his points above:
“Purplemesh” … “Purplemesh 2″ … “Grays” … and “Yellowmesh”.
I got one last e-mail from Marc this week, with one or two points he wants to stress:
While we are looking for uniform ideas, we would also really appreciate any logo redesigns and cap designs. That’s almost as important as the uniform designs. And like I said, we will gladly contribute some goodies to everyone who works so hard on those mock-ups.
Well there you guys have it. Another reader has thrown down the gauntlet, challenging you to come up with not just a new cap and logo redesign, but a whole uniform redesign as well. I’m not sure what “goodies” Marc will be able to provide to the contest winner(s), but we’ll worry about that when we get there.
So, anyone who is interested, the “rules” are basically the same as the “Design-A-Cap” contest: Take Marc’s ideas and put them into cyber-reality. Just remember the “guidelines”:
* A logo incorporating the letters “CHS” … any font or format. Looking for something unique, even outside the box. We would love a hat design featuring the CHS logo.
* A ferocious looking “wildcat”. Any logo involving a wildcat or paw logo would be outstanding. Our football program has been using the Kansas State Wildcat, and we want something a little better.
* Uniform designs. We are looking for a white, grey, purple, yellow or black (yeah, I know). Our head coach loves black so any black jerseys or hat designs would be outstanding.
*The parameters: colors are purple and gold.
As with the Design-A-Cap contest, I would ask that when you have your design(s) ready, please send them to me and put as your “SUBJECT” line: Design A Uniform Contest. You can also E-mail me at that address if you have any questions. I won’t set a hard and fast deadline, but I’d expect the contest to be open for at least two weeks — so try to have your submissions to me by the weekend of November 14-15.
If you don’t have any “blank” templates, a few designs can be found here, here, here, and here, or you can simply google “baseball uniform builder”, which will provide ample ways to customize a baseball uniform. There are probably a bunch of other blank uni templates out there too.
OK? OK. Don’t disappoint us Uni Watchers! After seeing those Sartell Sabres Cap designs, I know how great your entire uniforms, caps and logo designs will be.
~~~~~~~~~~ Well, folks, in case you missed it yesterday, Uni Watch Prexy and ESPN Page 2 columnist Paul Lukas had a great piece on World Series Rings. Paul didn’t get to upload the column to the main article yesterday, since by the time it was released, he was on his way to Cooperstown. I hope there’s some stuff for him to do up there. Check it out if you didn’t get to read it yesterday — really great, and timely article.
~~~~~~~~~~ Dipping into the E-mail bag again, got one this week from Dave Magruder, who has done some fascinating research regarding NFL alternate and throwback uniforms, and the frequency with which they have been worn. Obviously, with the “Legacy” uniforms, and the tremendous number of alternates out there (as well as several teams throwing back this year), Dave wondered which teams were the least guilty of this. Here’s what he found:
~~~“Last night as I was thinking about the widespread use of throwback and alternate uniforms in the NFL recently. It made me wonder: How many teams have NOT redesigned their uniforms, or worn alternate/throwback uniforms since 1995? In other words, how many teams have retained the exact same look and uniform set for every game?
“(Obviously, I thought 1995 was a good starting point since it is still recent history, and most NFL teams wore throwbacks to celebrate the league’s 75th Anniversary in 1994).
“You may be surprised by the answer. From 1995-2009 there is not a single team that has retained the same uniform set for literally every game. All 32 teams in the league have either redesigned their uniforms, worn alternates, or worn throwbacks at some point since 1995. There were four teams that came close to retaining the same look throughout this period, though. I have outlined them below:”
Packers: Green Bay has diverted from their traditional uniform set only twice since 1995. This occurred in 2001 and 2003 when they wore throwbacks as mandated by the league for Thanksgiving Day games.
Colts: Indianapolis donned league-mandated Thanksgiving throwback uniforms in 2004. (Note: Colts have also changed their look in a couple minor ways. The team wore blue pants for several games in 1995–no longer a part of the team’s wardrobe– and permanently switched from a blue to a gray facemask).
Chiefs: Kansas City sported the same uniform until this year’s AFL Legacy celebration.
Raiders: Like the Chiefs, Oakland’s steak of uniform consistency was broken by league-mandated AFL Legacy celebration.
“As you can see, these teams were mostly eliminated for use of throwbacks that were mandated by the league, instead of issued by the team itself. Nonetheless, I was surprised to find that there is literally not a single team in the NFL that has survived the alternate/throwback/redesign craze.
“Thought this may interest readers. Thanks for all your hard work on this blog.”
~~~Thanks Dave! That’s very interesting. Only four teams (and even they are not immune) seem to have escaped the alternate/throwback craze. Not surprisingly, those four also ranked very highly on our recent home and road uniform surveys (results of the road poll here). Obviously, when you have a uniform that works, you don’t mess with it. Wish a few other teams would take a page from their books. Great stuff there.
~~~~~~~~~~ Teepee for your bunghole? Oh…wait — that’s Cornholio, not cornhole. Good thing Milwaukee’s finest David Frost (”Frosty”) has some schweet cornhole game boards he’s designed. I’ll let Frosty explain:
Very sexy…not trying to be a whore or anything, but I gotta tell ya – I got done with them last Thursday, took them to my kids’ baseball tourney in Charleston this past weekend…the compliments and inquiries – wow! There’s Packer fans everywhere!
So what exactly did Frosty design? Check ‘em out: here, here and here.
I’m guessing those are supposed to be Packers boards? Probably no significance to the numbers either.
Thanks Frosty!
~~~~~~~~~~ Cleaning out the cupboards today, I wanted to feature a Mets Uniform Redesign (is it me, or do we seem to have a lot of folks clamoring for the Mets to redo their unis? Don’t worry, we won’t be having any “Fixin’ the Mets” full entries this year — that’s what Spring is for, no?.) Anyway, reader Laurence Holland missed the last batch of uni-tweaks, but wanted to send along his Mets redesign concept, so without further ado, here’s Larry:
Hi Phil,
I know the moment may have passed, but with all the buzz about a possible Mets redesign for 2010, I thought I’d pass along my two-cent contribution. I first mocked up a cream-and-pinstripes combo over the summer, when the Mets rocked the oversized-NY throwbacks, so I was very happy to see that it might come to pass. I also tweaked the rest of their uniforms, the idea being to make them simple, classy, traditional, and black-less.
A couple of notes: the racing stripe on the away grays is supposed to be a little more subtle than the original ’80s version, though my ham-handed photoshop skills couldn’t really convey it. And the all-blue alternate with the blue-and-white trucker-style cap isn’t my favorite, but it’s the best I could come up with. Consider it a concession to merchandising reality.
Anyway, please do with this what you will. From my lips to Jeff Wilpon’s ears, eh?
Thanks Laurence. Next up is Bill Jones, who also missed the last “uni tweaks” but had a “Rays” tweak he wanted to share. Here’s Bill:
Hey Phil,
I love the uni tweaks! I know I’m late, but I did this almost 2 years ago had some trouble finding the MS paint file. I thought it was pretty good though, so I wanted to send it to you.
PL has mentioned that he liked the TB Devil Rays unis that featured green as a primary color. I too liked this design, and although I don’t completely hate it, I think the newer Rays unis are too sterile and flat out boring. I did, however, like the introduction of light blue, so I combined that with the deep green. I think it’s a handsome combination, one that is original and nicely captures the tropical feel without the use of aqua/teal (Does the world need more aqua? I think not!)
A couple notes…
For the logo, I kept the actual Ray that the team currently features as a sleeve patch. I also took the liberty of changing the team’s name to the St. Petersburg Rays (maybe it’s just me, but I think calling teams “Tampa Bay” is lame…the cities are Tampa and St. Pete, “Tampa Bay” is the body of water between them, and the Rays play in St. Pete). Besides, how can you argue with that two-tone interlocking S-P (for the hat), and the sweet “St. Pete” sleeve patch? I like the idea of calling the team the “St. Pete Rays”. Also, for that jersey, you may be thinking “what is going on with that that neck trim?” Well, think of the early 90’s Royals jerseys…
I’m proud of this one … and I never got around to it, but I totally envisioned a powder blue road uni (with the dark green hat…it would be killer!). Thanks a lot and keep up the good work!
–Bill Jones (not the gumball helmet guy)
Good stuff Bill. Thanks again to all who have sent me their uni concepts. I expect some time in the near future to begin running your Football Uni Tweaks, so if you’ve sent me something, it’s-a-comin’ — and if you want to send me some NFL tweaks, drop me a line.
~~~~~~~~~~ Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: OK, another “apropos” scoreboard today. Shouldn’t pose any difficulty at all. But we’re winding down the major league baseball season so today’s game should reflect the timeliness of the year, no? Of course it should. Most of you, if you’ve been paying attention to events on the national stage, should be able to “name the game” (although, probably not the date) just from site. The rest of you may need to hit Baseball Almanac or Retrosheet. You gotta hit them anyway, in order to provide the link to the game. So, here we go: Guess The Game From The Scoreboard.
~~~~~~~~~~ The boys are back for a little football today, (could Mick possibly wear more sweatbands, btw?), and Mick is about to make the acquaintance of one of Mike’s relatives. The things you learn about your friends when you meet a member of their family. So…enjoy the beginnings of a serial benchies:
Meet Mongo
More Mongo
~~~~~~~~~~That’ll do it for today. Hope you guys, especially all you designers (and wanna-be designers) out there really go to bat, no pun intended, for the Wildcats and Coach Marc Walls. If the ‘design a cap’ nominees were any indication of the incredible talent in UW-land, then I’m sure we’ll get some amazing entries for the full-blown “Design A Uniform” contest. Remember, send me your submissions to me, or email me if you have any questions about the contest. Take the last train to Clarksville — I’ll be waiting at the station.
Game 3 of the Fall Classic and lots of college football today — and surely there’ll be some interesting uni-matchups for Jim to choose from. Don’t forget to post some of your suggestions in the comments. There will be at least ONE color-on-color matchup (and maybe more) — with those colors to be black and orange. How fitting.
Hey — how does a monster score a touchdown?
Easy, he crosses the ghoul line.
Have a safe and Happy Hallowe’en everyone.
October 31st, 2009
By Phil Hecken
Well, MLB has finally begun the League Championship Series, so as the second season begins to build towards the matchup FOX would kill for a possible Yankees-Dodgers World Series (and a uni classic of epic proportions), lets take another look at what you, the readers, have dreamed up to fix your favorite teams. We tweaked the White Sox, the Brewers and the Blue Jays, plus a whole bunch of others — so let’s empty the baseball tank today and see who else needs fixin’.
~~~
First up is Hungry Hungry Hipster, who has an unique take on the Bronx Bombers. Here’s HHH:
Hi Phil!
Attached is my Yankees jersey “uni tweak.” Since the Yankees are so traditional and probably wouldn’t want a major redesign of their classic uniforms, I decided to give them a subtle update. I was inspired by the treatment the NFL ref jersey stripes got in their update several years ago. I widened the pinstripes at the top of the jersey, and they mirror the flared ends (serifs?) of the Yankee logo. :)
~~~
Next up is Matthew Mark Sajna, who has some ideas for the Indians. Here’s Matt:
Here is my idea of how to improve the Uniforms of the Indians. The first set include the home and away jerseys. These are fauxback uniform combinations, and they feature my idea for a new logo the team could intorduce as a sort of compromise for the protestors against the iconic Chief Wahoo. The second set features alternate unis for both home and away games. I brought back the red jersey as a harken back to the 70’s. Hope you like them. Thanks.
~~~
Our next submission comes to us from Jordan Fleck, who has some thoughts on the Houston Astros. Here’s Jordan (who apparently likes all capital letters):
SINCE EVERYONE SEEMS TO BE IN THE MODDE TO REINVIGORATE THEIR CURRENT TEAMS DESIGN, I THOUGHT THAT IT’D BE A GOOD IDEA TO GIVE THE ASTROS FAITHFULL A MAKEOVER. THE FIRST IS MY ATTEMPT AT USING THE CURRENT COLORS WITH A NEW SCRIPT FONT ON THE JERSEY AND A TWO TONE CAP. THE BLACK ALTERNATE WOULD BE USED FOR BATTING PRACTICE AND I DECIDED TO CREATE A BIT OF A FAUX-BACK FOR A COLT .45S JERSEY TO BE WORN ON SUNDAY GAMES.
IN THE SECOND ATTEMPT, I WENT BACK TO THE MIDNIGHT BLUE AND SUNSET ORANGE COLOR SCHEME WITH THE NEW SCRIPT FONT AND AN ORANGE AND BLUE ALTERNATE. I LIKE THE ORANGE AND BLUE TONES BUT THEY DON’T LOOK GOOD IN GREY.
Jordan also included this cool Chinese motif with his submission — not sure if that’s supposed to go with the Astros mocks, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
~~~
Moving along, we have Doug Peltz, who has graced his with his concepts for the Detroit Tigers and Oakland A’s. Here’s Doug:
I saw your column today about making changes to MLB jerseys. I have a couple that I came up with a while ago and though I’d pass them along. I have a away alternate and an Oakland A’s home alternate. I’ve also included a new Tiger’s logo which is a combination of the old 80’s logo and the more recent Tiger crawling through the Olde English D logo. Hope you like them.
~~~
Our next submission comes from Matt McCutchan, who tweaked the Marlins. Here’s Matt:
Going for a more classic look and most importantly away from the black. If the mgmt wants to get away from the “90s teal,” I thought a UNC blue with navy highlights and just a touch of orange, the way, say, the STL Cardinals have a touch of yellow, would look nice..along with the navy piping..i hope you dig it.
~~~
Another Mets concept — a tweak on a previous concept — comes to us from Adam Wood. Here’s Adam:
Let me just start by saying that I’m a little pumped that I’m sending my first uniform design to you. Whether or not anyone gets to see it doesn’t concern me too much. Alex Rocklein made an excellent design for the Mets. However, there are a few things that I thought would be better. You will notice in the attached picture all my proposed revisions.
1) Replaced that orange button on the hats with a much more subtle blue one.
2) Got rid of the funky orange drop shadows and just gave the blue numbers an orange outline.
3) Added a number to the front of the home jersey as well as enlarged the one on the front of the roadies.
4) Took Alex’s idea for the road’s arm bands and applied the blue-orange-blue pattern to the whites.
5) On the home uniforms only, I removed the mets logo and replaced it with a Mr. Met patch.
If you want to get really detailed
6) I took the traditional “Mr. Met at bat” patch and cleaned it up by making all the cream colors to white, and changing the blue hat with an orange brim to all blue in order to better match the team.
Thanks for taking the time to check my ideas out.
~~~
Although our next submitter, Andrew Dixon missed the article containing all the Blue Jays tweaks, he sent the following along for your consideration. Here’s Andrew:
Hi Phil,
I am sending along a Blue Jays concept I came up with about six months ago. At the time, I didn’t have an email address for you, but I sent it along to Paul and asked him to forward it to you. I don’t know if that never happened or whether it did and it was so long ago it was forgotten, but I’d love to share my concept with UniWatch readers! I know I missed the day dedicated to Blue Jays posts, but hopefully you can work it in when you present the other re-design concepts!
I drew up home, away, home alternate, and road alternate concepts. I must admit I have an inexplicable affinity for the whole sans serif/no capitalization “mod” look in fonts which has recently become popular again (think the Pepsi font). The funny thing is, I always thought I hated this style – especially the trend toward not capitalizing things that ought to be capitalized – and I think part of me still does, and yet I also must admit to being weirdly drawn to it. I know it is very reminiscent of that old Padres font from 1978-1984, but what can I say? I like it, even as I know it has that kind of dated look (but that sort of font is very in right now – again, Pepsi, photobucket, etc.).
The other idea I had was to alternate shades of blue in the lettering: Blue Jays, after all, exhibit more than one shade of blue in their feathers, so, between the lettering and the use of powder blue for the road alternate, I’ve employed three shades of blue in this design.
One final note: had I had the expertise, I would have tried to mimic the original Blue Jays font by having a white line pass through the middle of all the letters in the word “blue jays,” just like it does/did in their original wordmark. However, I couldn’t get that to work in MS Paint, which is what I used, without making it look bad/unprofessional, so I gave up. If someone can do that to this design, I’d love to see what it looks like.
~~~
Winding down, our next submitter is Dwayne White, who has some Cincinnati Reds concepts. Here’s Dwayne:
Phil:
I love the articles about the MLB uniform updates.
I decided to tackle the Cincinnati Reds. I am not much of a fan of the “faux old-timer” look that the Reds are currently sporting. I grew up following the Reds in the late-’60’s and ’70’s of The Big Red Machine era. I always loved their traditional look, but the pullovers went on to long.
On the jerseys, I “ditched the black” drop shadows and went with the MLB Block font that the Reds used from the 1960’s until 2007. I felt it was a more traditional look with an updated style. I am not a fan of the current font that the Reds are currently using. The guys at The Clink Room did a good job, but it is not my cup of tea.
The road jersey is a button-down version of The Big Red Machine uniform. The home alternate jersey is a cream-colored vest look from the mid-’60’s. I like the cream colored jersey of the Giants and I went with that look for the vests. In my opinion, not every team can wear vests. Much like every team can’t wear pinstripes like the Yankees do. The Reds and Pirates vests have a deep tradition and I thought I’d incorporate that look. I also included a pinstriped cap to go with the vests, but a red cap can also be worn.
The home jersey is a crisp, bright snow white color with the contrast of red. The Sunday alternate jersey is my favorite. The bright red with the contrast of white, devoid of any black or drop shadows, is an upgrade without too many bumperstickers. Plus, it can be worn with the white, gray or the pinstriped pants.
I also went with the 4 inch player names on the back instead of the traditional 3 inch letters. That also harkens back to the mid-’60’s up until 2007. I like the name under the numbers, but not in an arch like the Reds have used, but no trim was used.
I hope you enjoy my concepts.
~~~
Our next submission also comes from a reader, Christopher Parke, who missed the Blue Jays fixin. But that’s OK, he’s got a uni concept anyway. Here’s Chris:
Your recent blog post about revamping the blue jays awful uniforms got me in a creative mood. I used the ideas and designs of the contributors in your post (including yours)and some of my own ideas. The MS Paint file is attached. What do you think?
~~~
The penultimate tweak comes from Geoffrey Waterman, who has conceptualized the Seattle Mariners. Here’s Geoffrey:
Hi!
I don’t really think the Seattle Mariners need to much to change their uniforms, but with the Sonics gone and a new soccer team that incorporates very similar colors that the Mariners use, plus the Seahawks, I thought they could use some color change.
I decided to go with a combination of the M-trident logo from the olden days and colors similar to then as well as from the baseball-M’s logo era. I chose to use a different font (partly because the one they use now is difficult to find) because I wanted to find something that reflected the metropolitan aspect of Seattle while not being hoity-toity. And for the numbers I wanted to use something similar to the ones used in their current alternate, a little more curvy and visually appealing.
With the home uniform I didn’t want to add much except for the change in font, number and color scheme (enough damage already), so I kept the blue piping, blue belt and the blue hat on white, with a similar arch to the team name and player name. I liked the non-capital “seattle” of the powder-blue Pilots unis, so I took that idea but with the “Mariners” for home, keeping the capital M to match the capital S on the hat. I also introduced a side stripe for the pants (followed down into the stirrups) and the sleeve stripes that made the Pilots uniforms so sexy.
With the away uniform, the changes were much the same as with the home, including the pants stripes, but I kept a straight blue stirrup for simplicity’s sake. It is the away uni, after all.
The alternate uniform is a few ideas mixed together. it has the sleeve and pants stripes from the home uniform, with stirrup stripes that match the sleeves. I did the jersey in the blue but with yellow sleeves (not a vest!), and did just the trident logo and a number on the front—it is supposed to be a home alternate.
Thanks! Hopefully someone else did some Mariners mock-ups to compare. Like I said, though, not that they need it.
~~~
Next up is Ben Traxel, one of our Sartell Sabres “Design A Cap” contest participants. Ben has seemingly way too much time on his hands, as I think he’s tweaked every MLB team (or is on his way to so doing). However, they’re really outstanding efforts, and you’ll wanna check each one out. So, take a deep breath, and enjoy the creativity that is Ben:
Phil,
As you can see, I’ve been working waaaay too long on this and not enough at my job lately. Part of the sickness I guess. At least I’ve been having fun along the way! I’ve got some more started but these are the ones I have finished. I really liked the Brewers changes the other day and wanted to tweak my tweaks after seeing the awsome designs posted, but alas, I left them alone. I’ve been e-mailing back and forth with Frosty and RPM in the process too. Well, here’s an explaination of each of the ones I’ve gotten to so far (I will do them all but it might take till next season!).
Process: I generally tried to look at the past of each team (that has a past) and use what is already available instead of completely redoing scripts, logos, colors, etc. In some cases I’ve gone all the way though. I prefer the city letter on the hat, mascot on the homies, and city on the roadies. I started doing this before all the tweaking began on the blog, with my versions of 70s alt unis. This was inspired by the Royals powder blues this year. Had to do sansabelts to make it “complete” but I suppose they could be used with belts as well. After you started posting the White Sox, I took it to another level and began adding the dailies to go with my alts. I never really liked having alts but now I’ve kind of changed my tune and am okay with one worn occasionally. Stirrups with stripes are a must. I am tired of boring grays and boilerplate designs that seem to be the same on each team so I tried to make something unique for the whites and grays for everybody. I am not afraid of bright colors as you will see…….here goes.
Brewers: home … road … alt. Current design looks to be off the shelf by people who have no sense of history or passion for baseball. Definately needs a redsign. Put the old M back on the hat. Go with colors from the originals. I recycled the BREWERS which could be this design or the block font. Either one works, but I chose this one. Could do without the lower case e, but none the less, looks okay. Barrel man needs a comeback so I put him on the state map for the sleeve. Added the hops to get something from the current set. Colored sanis need to make a comeback here also.
White Sox: home … road … alt. I put the alt together before you even had your White Sox tweak post. I always dug the collars from the late 70s so I had to include them. This is the only team that doesn’t have stirrups but the stripes certainly add to the overall getup. I created a new hat logo with a C that I think turned out pretty good. Never liked the big S and smallish O and X on the current logo so I combined them to make it work better for the alt. I know the three concepts don’t match each other but since they are never worn together I never thought that really mattered.
Cubs: home … road … alt. Obviously the pinstripes didn’t need much help as they have become a classic even though they really didn’t come around until later in the franchise existance. I just modified the logo a little, going back to an older version. The bear sleeve patch was always cool and needs to be a fixture. The roads is where the Cubs always seem to have had touble as they tend to change quite regularly. I went with a powder blue that is not quite as electric as some and it looks to work quite well. The horsecollar and red CHICAGO made the whole design come together. I tried some combos of blue lettering/numbering but the red by far stood out. I hope they never bring back the red cap bill. I know a lot of people don’t like pins on dark jerseys but the white ones from the 70s look mighty fine with the white pants in my opinion on the alts. Added the powder sanis to make it complete.
Pirates: home … road … alt. This is one team that vests work on. Either a team is a vest team or they are not. Hint Rockies? Not much to tweak here, but add the colored sanis and make all letters in PIRATES the same size. The Roadies are one of my favorites. The horsecollar being contrasted with the gray really came to life with the double yellow stripe. Hasn’t been done in decades and I fell in love once I started messing with it. The yellow alt with the red trim is of course taken from the late 70s. Kind of fun and should be a big seller for the fans….IMO don’cha know.
Rays: home … road … alt. Here is one team with no history to go off of. To me this means no horsecollar which has ties to the ancient past. Being in Florida, they definately need to brighten their look and do away with their drab getup they have. The sunburst is cool, stick with that. Kept the Devil Ray logo on the sleeve as well. The colors though are brighter, happier, beachier, Floridaier. Created a “watertable” on the whites and made their version of power blue more acqua for obvious reasons. They definately need to have more fun. Maybe they were a little gunshy during their latest overhaul after that first disaster!
Orioles: home … road … alt. Like the Pirates, not much to tweak here. My biggest beef is that damn bird they keep sticking on the hat. It didn’t work before, it didn’t work when it was a cartoon, and it doesn’t work now. Nothing more wimpy than that birdmark. So. In the beginning they had a B on the hat. There is still nothing more classic than a basic letter as the hat logo. Stick the old block B back up there an don’t worry about the Red Sox claiming it is a copied B idea from them. It was their once, do it again. The cartoon duck thing, older style that looks much classier, works well on the sleeve. Other than that, These guys are good, keeping the city name on the grays of course.
Padres: home … road … alt. Similar to the Rays, this team needs color. They had it once and I think they need it again. I always liked the brown/yellow scheme but it does lead to a bid of a toilet bowl conotation so I stayed away. Electric powder is the way to go for these guys. The alts obviously play off the past and I chose the best remaining wordmarks for the dailies. The sleeve patch is also a classic and should be kept but the hat has always had issues. They never seem to be satisfied with the interlocking SD, how it should be connected, the exact font, etc. I created a new hat logo with the setting sun SD. This is another beachy team and colors need to be used to make this statement.
One more thing, I created my own template in Autocad where I do all my work. It is what I know best so I just stay with that. Well, there you have it. For now. I will be doing more, and will get them to you when I get another good batch. We might not be in baseball season at that time, but oh well. Always enjoy your weekenders.
Wow, Ben, those were awesome. But wait … He isn’t done yet — Ben also sent me mock ups (without descriptions) for the following — and I’m sure if he’s reading this post, he’ll tell us all about the following in the comments:
Oakland A’s: home … road … alt.
Arizona Diamondbacks: home … road … alt.
Florida Marlins: home … road … alt.
Texas Rangers: home … road … alt.
~~~
Whew…that’s some work by the avid (or is it rabid?) UW readership. Great stuff one and all. I apologize for the length of this post, but I had so many great uni tweaks I wanted to put them all into one post — didn’t realize it was gonna be this long, but hey — more for you to enjoy. Thanks to all the submitters. Let them know how you feel about their tweaks!
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 Our man on the street, Jim Vilk, is back from the boonies for his “NC2A matchups”. He is gonna have a tough time with his uni matchups today — there are some outstanding potential ones, and a possible bunch of clunkers. Now, I don’t always agree with his choices, but he’s pretty discerning in his picks. How bout some nominees from you guys today? Scan the wires, check out the obscure games, find the doozies. You don’t want him to put USC/ND or The Red River Rivalry in the one spot, right? Post picks of your top (best and worst) games for his consideration down below. Thanks!
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Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: Aight…as the season winds down, we’re gonna get a little tricky with this scoreboard. Not all that tricky, but it might give you pause. Teams are pretty obvious, but that’s where the ease ends. Or maybe not. You guys are too good at this game to be stumped, especially with this one. But I’ll give it a shot anyway. As always, and if possible, please do NOT post the date of the game but link to Baseball Almanac or Retrosheet and post a link to the answer. If that’s not possible, but I believe it is, link to a newspaper story or something similar which details the game. OK? OK. Ready. Guess The Game.
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 ATTENTION UNI TRACKERS — If you’re on of those insane lunatics, like me, who has kept track of your teams’ uniform combinations for all 162 (or, if you track the Twins, all 163) games this season, think about gathering all of your data, plus a final writeup, for your tracking. I may post my Mets tracking tomorrow, depending upon the size of the post. I’m hoping to gather everyone’s tracking and (if Paul gives me the OK), possibly place them into one big file for inclusion in the archives. When you have your stuff ready, send them to me with the subject line “UNI TRACKING – (your team)”. If you made it this far, I thank you for all your efforts. You don’t need to be terribly brief in your write-up, but please don’t compose a novel either. Make sure you list any particular trends or unique factors. I can tell you this: The Mets sucked this year, but not surprisingly, they had better records in certain combinations — now, had they worn those combinations more or less often, would their record have been any different? Who is to say. All I know is, when all was said and done, the Mets wore TWELVE different combinations this season, sporting (shockingly) winning records in six of them. Stay tuned (if you care) for the full writeup.
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Ah…don’t ya hate it when those young whippersnappers think they’re faster and smarter and better lookin’ than you are? Pretty sure Mick does. Unfortunately, he’s wrong. But does this mean that Mick is only half-fast? Enjoy your Saturday Benchies. And remember, any resemblance between Mick and Rick is, well, purely coincidental.
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This and That: Did we ever get a linkie to the new UNLV basketball unis? I don’t remember. Forgive me if we did … I know this was posted (at least in the comments), but worth another look-see: SI takes a look at the AFL legacy unis … Speaking of AFL throwbacks, the Patriots and Titans Oilers will be wearing them this Sunday … Big game at Big Bend today, when the Irish meet the Trojans, and will the Irish break out the green like they did before the ‘77 matchup? … This is a few days old, but the Huff Post has a nice breakdown of Broncos Unis through the years … In one of those moments where “you remember exactly where you were,” it was 20 years ago today (don’t you feel old now?) … It’s gotta be the unis, right? Nope. Both football teams from Mizzou are winless in 2009, despite both wearing throwbacks last weekend … Fresh on the heels of Paul’s post yesterday on the Winter Olympics melted records medals, the London Olympics of 2012 has unveiled it’s logos — yawn … Wanna own one of them game-used, unwashed Bronco uniforms from last weekend’s Legacy game? Here’s your chance … If you’re not a baseball fan, or don’t live in the northeast, or reside in my condo (which has no heat, thank you very little), you might not know it was cold at Yankee Stadium last night — like really cold — Lots of Fudd’s and hoodies on the participants … “Bullpen? What Bullpen?” … For every king, a crown … Apparently the porthole was closed, but the velcro wasn’t … Looks like the seventh inning stretch at Yankee Stadium will be a little shorter now, but let’s hope the Steinbrenner’s don’t hire this guy to replace this guy … Rafa, dude, what’s up with the shorts? Did they belong to A-Rod’s outfit? … Does this remind anyone of this? … And finally, what happens when you go to an adidas school, but you’d rather wear Jordans? Well, if you’re Marcus Jordan, what do you think? (thanks to James Huening for the tip.)
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Alrighty then, that’s a wrap for this fine Saturday. Enjoy the football, because it looks like mother nature may deprive you of baseball. Oh, right, I guess there’s hockey and some other stuff too. Unitrackers, start your engines, and lets see some of them gridiron matchups you hope Jim will pick as his top 5 (or worst). Have a great Saturday
October 17th, 2009
By Phil Hecken
OK, it’s time to announce the nominees for the “Design A Cap” contest (the contest is now closed, but if you missed the original article, click here). Hopefully, one of the caps you’re about to see will be chosen by Coach Nemanich for his team, the Sartell Sabres. Lots to get to today, so lets begin.
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Our first nominee comes from Adam Hainsfurther. Here’s his submission. And here’s Adam:
I went with a bit of a hockey fans touch on this. This is a logo similar to an alternate logo for the Buffalo Sabres, using the S provided to us by Coach Nemanich. After throwing the S in front of Sword I proceeded to change the colors of both the S and the sword in four different combinations of Navy, Royal, White, and Silver. This is what I came up with (note: I rendered up the white hat thinking what the hell, personally I’d go with the silver before the white one, but the Navy and Royal versions are my two favorites)
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Next is Wesley Willis, who has two submissions, a home and an away. Here’s Wesley:
My name is Wesley Willis of Boaz, AL, and I am a avid reader of Uni Watch and I read it every day.
Here are my submissions for the home and away caps for the Sartell Sabres.
The logo, which is maintained throughout both caps, is a classic-looking letter S with a black sabre through its center from the lower-right hand area to the upper-left hand area. The home cap is all royal blue with an white S and black sabre, and the away cap is a white cap with a royal blue bill and royal blue S and black sabre. I hope that you and Coach Nemanich both like what I’ve produced here, and thank you for your consideration. I created these two files in Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0.
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Our next cap entry comes from Keith Dow. Keith submitted this cap for consideration. Here’s Keith:
Since Indiana football isn’t on IU’s basic cable today for some strange reason, this contest was a perfect timewaster. Expect a few of these since I have a ton of fun making them.
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Moving along, we have Sam Stuber who offers this submission. Here’s Sam:
My name’s Sam Stuber and here’s my design. Hope mine wins!
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Our next entry comes from Nat Overholtzer. Nat didn’t include any write up with his submission, but he did include this cap. Thanks, Nat!
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Continuing along, we have an entry from Ed Westfield, Jr., who came up with these four designs. Here’s Ed:
Here is my entry for Sartell Sabres cap contest. I went with the
Virgina motif…Thank you.
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Our next cap comes from Chad Anderson, who came up with this design. Here’s Chad:
Here’s an entry in the Design A Cap Contest. I might try another.
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The next submission comes from Josh Skattum, who provided only logos. Here are logo one and logo two. Josh explains:
Hello I am currently living in Sartell, MN and frequent the site quite a bit. I have to say I was surprised to read a story posted on Uni Watch from not only my home state, but hometown. Here are a couple of my suggestions, both are taken from the Buffalo Sabres design.
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Next up is R. Scott Rogers, who has multiple submissions contained within his entry. Scott has quite the explanation:
Here is my entry in the cap contest for the Sartell Sabres. I grew up in Minnesota, and so have seen Sartell’s football and boy’s hockey uniforms in the past, and I drew some inspiration from those unis, which have nicely balanced royal and white with touches of gray or silver.
Working from Coach Nemanich’s suggestions, I imagined an “S” logo that could convey both the jaunty swooshing of a movie swordsman, a Zorro or Rob Roy, with the dynamic stance of a fencer. To bring in Coach Nemanich’s U-Va inspiration, I wanted to put a sabre blade figuratively in the hands of the Sartell “S”. I drew an “S” with a single fluid line that could be carved by a swordsman, with bulbs at each end like a fencer’s hands, and then put a cavalry sabre blade into the “S”’s hands. I angled the blade to give a sense of depth, to balance the slightly askew “S”, and to allow the “S” logo to work with either “Sabres” or “Sartell” jersey scripts in the future. (Outlined and drop-shadowed versions of the scripts on white and royal.)
I kept the double-outline of Sartell’s current cap logo, in part for continuity and to allow for better visual balance with the team’s white uniforms, and in part because the introduction of a gray-and-black blade in the blue or white letter requires the double outline. I’ve supplied images of the logo in Sartell’s current scheme of royal and white-and-royal caps, but I would suggest replacing one of these with a royal-and-gray cap to maintain a stronger connection to the school’s athletic identity.
I believe that my script “S”, which falls somewhere between the flatter cursive “S” used by the St. Paul Saints on their jerseys and the rounder one used for the 2001 All-Star Game in Milwaukee, allows this cap logo to integrate with the current uniform set without clashing, and also gives Coach Nemanich a strong logo to grow into as the team moves into its next uniform purchase.
In addition, I intended the cap logo to have at least the potential for use in other sports; I think it could work both on football helmets and on boys and girls hockey shoulder patches.
If four-color embroidery is prohibitive, the blade could be rendered in a single flat color that matches the outer outline, either black or gray. (I would choose gray.) The logo thus rendered loses a sense of depth and motion, but the image of the sabre blade remains clear.
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Moving along, we have our next entry courtesy of Jason Epstein, who provides us two separate design concepts: concept one and concept two. Here’s Jason:
I read your online column everyday, great stuff!
Please see attached jpeg for my initial submission for the cap design contest.
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Moving along, we next have Ben Smith who has provide us with this entry. Here’s Ben:
Here’s my submission, thanks for the challenge I had fun. — Pomegranates are too much work to enjoy.
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Next up is Jeff Bahry, who also just provided logos. Here are logo one and logo two. Here’s Jeff to explain:
Please find the attached two logo concepts for the Sartell Sabres. I used Corel X3, so the the color may not appear Royal on your screen. But, you get the idea.
GO SABRES!
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Our next submission comes from Doug Smith, who is decidedly old-school with his entry. Here’s Doug:
Hope you guys like it! Love UniWatch!
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Our next entries come from Eric Davila who has three options: option 1, option 2, and option 3. Here’s Eric:
Here are a few ideas I wanted to send in for the design contest. Hopefully they will like them.
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Next up is Joseph Baker, who has provided both a logo and a cap mockup. Here’s Joe:
I have attached my cap design ideas. I hope you enjoy them.
Thanks, joe baker
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Next up is Daniel Carroll, who offers this submission. Here’s Daniel:
Thanks for putting this contest online!
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Moving on, we have our next entry from Greg Gangemi, who came up with this design. Here’s Greg:
Attached is the hat concept that I came up with for the Sartell Sabres.
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And now we have Jeff Pudlo, who has 2 logos and 2 caps: logo one, logo 2, which correspond to cap one and cap 2. Here’s Jeff:
Two designs, both included along with corresponding logos.
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Our next submission comes from Vincent Hecker, who provides both a cap logo and a cap design. Here’s Vincent:
I dont know if you are still taking submissions for the cap design contest but i figured id send my work to you anyways. Basically all i did was redesign the S logo that the school already uses to make it look more sharp. Then I incorporated the sabre/sword logo behind the S. I guess that goes along the Virginia logo affect that the coach is looking for.
Im sorry that this work was all done in Microsoft paint (poor college student, cant afford photoshop), but i think it came out well for the best part. I have included the logo only in the first file. The second file is the logo as it would look on the hat. When i shrunk the logo down in paint to put it on the hat it really blurred out though.
Let me know what you think. I would appreciate the feedback from you and the coach.
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And our penultimate cap submissions come from Dan Grieve, who has created both a white cap and a blue cap. Dan didn’t provide any commentary, but the two hats are just great. Thanks. And as a last minute addition, Dan also came up with two ‘alternate’ submissions, white alt and blue alt.
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And finally, we have several submissions from Larry Torrenz, who not only created caps and logos, but (even though we didn’t ask for it) uniforms as well. So here are black jersey (with caps), blue jersey, gray road, and home white, as well as a school name alternate and a white alt; Larry also included a full uni mock and two wordmark/logos, here and here. Whew. Here’s Larry:
Thought I would take a whack at the logo request. Decided to keep it simple, with a little flair on the lettering.
Thanks for all the good work keeping the Uni-Watch followers well fed with uni-goodness…
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*Got One Late entry (rec’d last night after I’d gone to bed), but I’ll throw it in here right now. It comes from Shane Wisniewski, who simply provided this sketch with no comments.
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Well, there you have it. All I can say is HOLY SHIT WOW! What an outstanding effort from all of these designers. Every one of them is each outstanding in it’s own right, and I’m sure Coach Nemanich will have a difficult time choosing one. I hope that one of them will be selected as the “winner,” but they’re all great.
My thanks (deep, deep thanks) to each and every person who participated in this contest. Since the reaction was so great, I hope we can have a similar contest in the near future.
Like one of the designs? Make sure to cast your vote for the winner in the comments.
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After taking a weekend off to enjoy watch the Gophers, the Cardiac Kids Twins, and enjoying a Monday evening with #4, Ricko’s back with the Boys from Benchies. Who knew Mike was a ‘Bama fan? Not me … I always thought he was a guy who loved the Beavers. Anyway, here is your fresh Saturday Benchies. Welcome back Mr. Pearson, we missed ya.
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Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: Well, we’re into baseball’s second season, so what will today’s scoreboard game be? A post season game? Hmmm… Possibly. You’ll just have to decide that for yourself. However, when you see the picture, that answer should be clear. Please be sure to post a LINK to the answer, using Retrosheet or Baseball Almanac, k? Ready. Set. Guess The Game. Feel free to send me more scoreboards so we can keep the game going into the off-season. Just Drop me a line. Thanks.
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I get a lot of E-mail from UW readers, and I appreciate it, and try to read it all. Most of it is in response to a request or a contest submission, or what have you, but occasionally I get a random E-mail that turns into something neat. Case in point. Reader Ted Machnik sent me the following earlier this week:
Hi Phil:
I’m not handy with with templates and such, but I’m wondering if you could get your friend, Paul Soto, to come up with a couple of renderings of the Washington Nationals in the Expos original colours, trim, and fonts, circa 1969.
I think the scripted “W” would look very good on a tri-color cap. On the unis, “nats” where “expos” use to be. I would be curious to see how it would look.
Thanks.
Ted
Well, one thing led to another — I contacted Paul (”Pretty Boy Paulie“) with Ted’s request, and well, Paulie didn’t disappoint! So, I’m happy to share with you Paul’s Washington Expos, circa 1969:
For reference, here’s what the Expos looked like in 1969. Paul didn’t (yet) take a crack at the roadies, but he did a smashup job on the homes. He created four different logos for the Nationals based on the combined Nats & Expos script/wordmark. But he wasn’t done. He also mocked up six possible home unis. You can check them out here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Great work Paulie, and fantastic suggestion Ted!
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Aighty then. That’s gonna do it for today. Everyone have a great Saturday. Our man on the street, Jim Vilk is gonna be out in the boonies (for real) this weekend, sans access to the Interwebs. So, I’m temporarily taking back the “Top 5 and 1 Worst College Football Matchups,” so to help me out, everyone pick one best and one worst game today. Remember, it’s the overall matchup, so if one team looks great but the other, not so much, it doesn’t qualify. OK? OK. Thanks.
October 10th, 2009
The most obvious answer is sometimes the one we most easily miss
By Phil Hecken
Lots more uni tweaks/redesigns/overhauls from you guys today. Good stuff. Interesting Stuff. Fun Stuff. It turned out there were so many people who wanted to tweak the Blue Jays, they’re getting their own column. Lets get started.
In the first set of tweaks, I mentioned there were numerous submissions for the Toronto Blue Jays. While there seems to be much love for the powder blues (although they really need to realize that is 1-NOT a home uniform and 2-NOT a pair of pajamas), there seems to be some universal disdain for the lack of actual blue in the Blue Jays these days. And of course, there is always great admiration for the back-to-back World Series champion uni worn in the Blue Jays heydays. So, not surprisingly, many of the readers would like to ditch the black (I mean, c’mon — this is the best they could do) and would like to return to something along these lines (the one Joe Carter is wearing, not Gene Tenace). Some fans have really had enough, expressing their distaste for the black in interesting ways
So, with the Blue Jays in need of an obvious change, what do the readers offer? There are some really interesting ones to follow. So, let’s take a look-see:
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You may remember last time out we had a submission for the Twins from Matt Keller. He also provided me with one for the Jays:
I’m not legally eligible for a prize being 16, but I mess around in photoshop on occasion. (Here’s) a plain, but I think a clean looking Blue Jays uniform. It was made before the Twins uni, and if I could do it again, I’d like to change the numbers to something a little more retro.
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Our next submission comes from Ben Sibley, a man of few words, but great suggestions:
A modern twist to a classic uniform
Thanks
Blue Jays Logo
Blue Jays Home
Blue Jays Road
Blue Jays Alternate
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Next up is UW Stalwart and a gentleman who aided me with a column a ways back, our Calgary lawyer, Mike Styczen “Mike 2″ (who is also a Blue Jays tracker). I’m not sure if Mike wasn’t being tongue-in-cheek with his submission:
For your ongoing column on MLB uniform redesigns, I’ve got one (attached) for the Blue Jays.
Its not very imaginative. They already have their perfect uniform in their past, 1989-1996, and the logo dates back to their founding. The fans loved it, they won two World Series wearing it. I don’t see any need to change a thing.
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Um…thanks Mike. Moving along, reader Brian Cheung (who posts as “Random Reader”) is a man of many words. That’s fine, I enjoy when you guys explain your work. Here’s Brian:
Hey, LI Phil:
I just want to thank you for commenting on my mock-up Blue Jays road jersey. For a while now, I always wondered how they’d look with more blue in their jerseys and I finally decided to put my creative skills to use.
I’m actually a Yankees fan but I’ve just been bothered in recent years by all the black in the Blue Jays uniforms, that wacky font they use for numbers, and how the road jerseys and home jerseys don’t have matching fonts. To put it simply, I felt they could look a whole lot better.
I’ll start with their current road jersey first. I thought of it as being a step in the right direction for Toronto, since it employs a little more blue than the previous uniform in 2007, with that funky “Toronto” script in silver, graphite and white. After seeing this photo, I edited it by adding some red around the front logo and the numbers. I also made the cap blue, the sleeves blue, and tried to add blue accents in on the cap. I was quite surprised primary logo by changing the silver and graphite to shades of powder blue, in order to include a reference to the past in their current logo. I also darkened the blue jay itself, changing it from that light shade of blue to something more of a royal blue. I changed the blue border to red because red was always a color present in their logos and I thought their current logos looked very bland without red as an accent. I did the same with the road cap; I eliminated the silver and replaced it with powder blue and I also included some red to serve as a border.
Next was the jerseys. I actually used to like that wide font they use for names and that strange-looking font for numbers. But I got tired of seeing them and I suppose someone in the Blue Jays felt the same; the road uniforms changed in 2008 as the numbers were now in a different font, along with the logo on the front. But the road uniforms still had that italicized font. What I decided to do was employ the font used on the roads (I believe it is called Agency FB) and apply it to their home uniforms. I gave the nameplates the same font so that names don’t look like they take up half the uniform. I added powder blue to the numbers and gave them a red border. I kept the beveling effect as I see it as being a modernization of the classic Blue Jays number front, with that line running inside each number (I always thought it was cool and whenever I saw them, I always associated them with the Blue Jays). I altered the wordmark on the road uniform to make it powder blue—a nod to how the Jays once wore powder blue uniforms on the road. Originally, the wordmark was supposed to be royal blue but I realized the Jays would look too much like the Texas Rangers; I had to change it to powder blue to give the uniform its own look that won’t be mistaken for that of the Rangers.
For both the home and road, I got rid of the black socks, belts, and piping and made them blue. I also changed their all-black alternate uniform to make it an all-blue one. The team is named the Blue Jays after all, so it would only make sense to have some uniform have a lot of blue in it.
Hope you enjoy. I tagged most of the images just so others won’t try to pass my work as theirs.
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Still more Blue Jays tweaks came in, this one from Matt Murray (who you may recall had earlier offered submissions for the Milwaukee Brewers). I have to say, this is some impressive work for someone who’s still in high school! Here’s Matt:
Phil,
Attached are some Blue Jays uniform ideas. These concepts for the Blue Jays mix in a throwback look similar to the current Friday uniforms. I was also sure not to include the script “Jays” anywhere in these uniforms because THAT ISN’T THEIR TEAM NAME! I also kept the concept free of black. I reverted back to the old “bird on ball” logo for the caps. I opted to keep the maple leaf on the sleeves because that is pretty much the only thing I like with the current uniforms. It’s something that signifies the uniqueness of the franchise as the only team North of the Border. Both powder and gray away concepts are included. I haven’t gone to school for graphic design or anything like that, nor have I graduated high school! But I think it’s the thought that counts with the uni concepts. Hopefully I “get it!”
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Still on the Blue Jays train, next up is Brian Arnold, who I think sent me these a loooooong time ago when Paulie Soto and I did our Fauxback column. If he did, and I neglected to post them, I apologize. Anyway, getting the play they deserve, here’s Brian:
I sent this link as a email a while ago when you did an entry about “fauxbacks”. I just saw your recent call for submissions, so I’ll send it again, maybe it will get some attention this time. Blue Jays Home and Blue Jays Road.
Thanks,
Brian
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Phew…next to last in the Blue Jays tweaks, we have Sean Wilson. Here’s Sean:
Blue Jays. Changed base color to blue instead of black and killed the ridiculous beveling on the wordmark.
Liked what you did with some of the NFL unis, especially the Falcons. On the Bengals, though, you’ve got to have the tiger striped pants stripe
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Finally, we have UW Graphic Artist extraordinaire, Paul “Pretty Boy Paulie” Soto to round things out. Here’s Paul:
The Blue Jays have always had modern uniform designs. They never quite had an “old school” look. So what I wanted to give them here was a “classic” look. Complete with script wordmarks and serifed/bold numerals. Royal blue is their primary color, sky blue is their secondary and I kept the dreaded black as an accent color. An actual Blue Jay does have a black trim on their feathers. So, I can live with the black as long as it’s not the primary color. Plus I only regulated it to the road uniform. I feel it appears more appropriate there. We need more striped socks in the league so why not give ‘em some. Here we have blue socks with alternating stripes that has white/sky blue at home and white/black on the road. The last time I did a Blue Jay uni modification I used a primary logo that combined two of their best logos in their history. It would be a dream to see them use that logo on their home caps and as a primary logo. The road cap features a script “T” that is loosely inspired by their current alternate cap. Stay “classy” Toronto.
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“What about you, Phil? Don’t you have a Blue Jay mockup?” Well, sadly for you I do. I was never fond of the original wordmark/script, but I did love the bird. And I hate the current home and road scripts, with their beveling and black and gray. I was also not fond of the second generation font with the additional red. So I took their classic white and gray uniforms, and found the font to match those found in the Toronto Subway system. A very nice and basic font, but it’s classy and businesslike but not too formal. So — here’s the home and away look, with royal blue cap (also can use a sky blue cap at home and sky blue cap with sky blue trim and stirrups on the road). I just couldn’t bring myself to return the Jays to powder blue.
Well, there you have it. Obviously the Blue Jays should be the next MLB team to undergo a major overhaul. As we say, lots of “retro-inspired” designs, and a few who simply want to return the “blue” to the Blue Jays. My thanks to everyone who sent in a submission, and next time, we’ll get to the rest of the MLB overhauls.
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 OK, in case you missed it, last week, with the help of James Huening, I ran what we hope to be the first of several ‘unofficial’ polls to determine how we feel on uniforms. Don’t bother voting anymore, the poll is officially closed now. That poll, “Rate the NFL Home Uniforms” was an unmitigated success. We’ll have the results next week, but James wanted to give us a quick look at some of the preliminary results.
“Well, the votes are in. Some of the final results are still being tabulated, but the Uni Watch community has spoken and a team has been chosen as having the best home uniforms in the NFL. And it was truly a hard-fought battle for the top spot.
“If you recall, we asked you to rate each team’s home uniform from zero to five points. We also asked you to nominate a team as having the best uni and another as having the worst. Our top team averaged 4.24 points per response, barely edging out our second place finisher at 4.21. In addition, #1 was mentioned by 15% of you as having the best uni, compared to 12% for #2.
“The rest of our top five was equally competitive. The third, fourth and fifth place finishers’ average scores were 4.07 (9% of you thought they were the best), 4.05(6%) and 3.83(7%).
“So, to everyone who participated, thank you. It goes without saying that we couldn’t have done this without you and the response was overwhelming. We were hoping for 500, but we collected nearly 2,000 completed surveys! And people from literally all over the world checked in. We received responses from every continent. Yes, that includes Antarctica.”
Thanks, James. So now that the votes are in — which uniform do you think was rated THE BEST in the NFL? We’ll tell you next week, but why not give an early guess. Just post “Best: (insert team) ” down below.
In addition, a special thanks goes out to Adam Walter, who’s doing most of the heavy lifting on this endeavor, with his incredible data crunching and analysis.
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Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: As the MLB season winds down this weekend, I’m running out of scoreboards…so, either you guys will have to keep sending me some, or we’ll be putting the game on a temporary hiatus. No worries today though, as SlimandSlam hooked me up with this one (although partial credit has to go to Squiddie)– and while in and of itself, it’s tricky, a little detective work on your part (read: the photo you’re about to see was run in one of my earlier columns) will help you solve it. Remember, PLEASE do not post the actual score and date, but rather, use Retrosheet or Baseball Almanac to link to your answer (if possible). Ready? Guess The Game. I think tomorrow we’ll try a football scoreboard, but I’m not sure how that will go over. Let me know what you think.
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A Little Bit of This and That: Somehow we all missed the fact that the official team outfits for Canada’s 2010 Winter Olympics team were unveiled in Vancouver, and some are calling them, “Hoser chic,” while others are suggesting it smacks of a Conservative conspiracy and others noting similarities to an iconic Canadian military symbol. … The Oregonian is getting a lot of mileage out of their Dress The Ducks thingy, even encouraging opposition fans to clothe the U of Zero Ducks in the worst possible combo … This item was posted earlier this week, but it proves once again that worst uniform polls should be decided by UW readers — in fact, in the coming weeks, we’ll be doing just that — stay tuned …Turns out they had to update the poll after readers had other thoughts about those worst unis … This article on the Islanders’ affiliate the Bridgeport Sound Tigers states they will wear uniforms this year that resemble those of the Islanders’ 1980 Stanley Cup dynasty. Unfortunately, no pics accompanied the article — little help? Teebz? … Apparently, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Which means every team, league and sport will be getting in on the pink uniform action … We all know that the Mets sucked this year, but according to NBCNewYork.com, the real villain in the 2009 Mets season was the shade of white used in the Mets’ home uniforms (sorta old news, but a nice shout out to Paul Lukas and the blog in the fourth graf) … If you thought the San Francisco 49ers were mixing too much purple into the red and too much yellow into the gold, well, you’re not alone … Pretty much no one knows that the NBA was segregated for it’s three first years of existence, which may not seem odd until you realize that Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier in the same year the NBA was founded. Roger Murdock Kareem Abdul Jabbar is directing a tribute to the Harlem Rens, the “greatest team you never heard of.” (since you read UW, you have heard of the Preston Rivulettes). The Documentary will be called “On The Shoulders of Giants,” and there are sure to be some great unis in it … The soon to be defunct UFL unveiled its helmet art yesterday — and I hope the league is around long enough for someone to work on a full uni breakdown column with me … The FAU Owls, who have one of the best unis in college football, will be playing their 100th football game ever today … Pretty cool look at the Princeton University logos here … Did you ever want to know how Ice gets laid? If you said “a couple drinks, sweet talk and Flunitrazepam,” you’d be wrong. … When you play the “fourth” sport in a big city and you haven’t been relevant since the mid-80’s, what do you do? Why, rebrand yourself of course.
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That’s a wrap for today. Next weekend I hope to have the “Design A Cap” submissions all flickr’ed and ready, we’ll have the results of the voting on the “NFL Home Uniform” poll, and more. And that’s just next weekend. And there’s even more good stuff coming tomorrow. Nice college football today, and still some meaningful baseball in Detroit and Minnesota (where the Twins are hoping for one last miracle before they shut the dump down cede ownership to the Mall of America). That could get very interesting because if the Twins and Tigers end up tied, the Twinks are supposed to host a tiebreaker on Monday — but there’s a twist, because the Dome might be busy. So they’d have to play Tuesday. Hmmmm.
Anyway, let the folks who mocked up some new Jay’s unis know what you think, and don’t forget to take a guess at what we, the Uni Watch community, thought was the best home uniform in football. Oh, and think pink.
October 3rd, 2009
By Phil Hecken
There seemed to be great interest by UW readers in developing new concepts for Major League Baseball teams, following previous columns in which readers tweaked the ChiSox and the Brewers (see here and here). I put out the call for you guys to send me your submissions for any MLB team, and you didn’t disappoint. In fact, there were so many submissions, it’s going to take two posts to get to them all. But we will. So, lets see what everyone came up with, shall we?
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The first two in this batch were actually featured before, but I wanted to include them in this post so they’d receive full comparison:
Jason Krause had a couple mock-ups for his hometown team, the Colorado Rockies:
I based these Colorado Rockies jersey mockups off of the old school logo of the hockey Colorado Rockies before they became the New Jersey Devils. I made them a pull-over top such as the Blue Jays and the Cards from the 70’s.
I created two different home looks, as well as an alternate that pays homage to the Colorado Flag. The black jerseys are also a big hit out here, so I created a look for one of those.
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Alex Rocklein sent me some mockups for the New York Mets. Very interesting. Says Alex, “I attached some Mets uniform concepts. Some are outrageous, but there is considerably less black.”
Indeed, when it comes to the Mets, less black is usually much better. He has come up with three new uniform concepts: a clean new home and away set, with all the black removed (but where are the stirrups???); and two alternates. The first, featuring pinstripes (I guess we can say they’ve reduced the once venerable pins to an alt) and a royal blue top with “New York” in fancy block letters. As you know, I’m not a fan of the “alternate/softball” tops, but if the Mets could replace the black tops with this one, I’d be 100% behind it. Finally, Alex came up with another home alternate, and it is considerably more colorful. He combines a new alternate cap, featuring a blue crown and an orange bill, with a new orange alternate top (plus he has put the script “Mets” on the blue alternate).
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OK, you may remember seeing those before, but the rest are all brand spankin’ new.
Another longtime reader, a Yankees fan no less, Kenny Jacobson saw the above section on New York Mets uniform concepts (when I first posted it), and, having already done some up, thought I’d like to repost them. With pleasure, Kenny, with pleasure. Here’s Kenny:
I’d posted these in the comments this summer but maybe you could get them out there.
I’m a Yankee fan but would really like to see the Mets go back to a classic look.
Home
Road
and if you MUST…
Alt
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Got another submission from Uni Creator Alex Rocklein, (see above for his first uni tweak of the Mets) who this time has been working on some fixes for the Oakland A’s. I’ll let him explain:
I updated the primary (A’s in the circle) because the one they use now is outdated. I added cream to the scheme (now looking similar to their rivals across the bay) and added some piping because, let’s face it, who doesn’t like some piping?
I kept the away set relatively the same because I think it’s one of the most underrated sets in baseball. Threw some alts in there for the sake of having them. I feel like the solid color alts need to be limited by teams because when you watch a Cubs/ChiSox game in which its royal blue on black it feels as though I’m watching Spring Training or a couple of Thursday Night Slow-Pitch Softball games.
Also, matched the A’s “A” from the logo to the one on the hat (right now they use two different “A”s).
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Another uniform concept submission comes from reader Daniel L. Dennis, who has got some proposals for the Texas Texases Rangers. Here’s Dennis:
I read the blog quite often, and I hope these are along the lines of what you’re looking for.
First of all, the Rangers erred greatly in not having their team name on their home jerseys. The Texas Texases (as Paul is fond of calling them) need an identity, but this minor facelift would probably suffice. It’s simple, it’s elegant, and above all, it’s somewhat unique (no comparison to the Angels, please – besides, I think the Rangers were using this typeface first).
Here’s the home jersey. All I did was go back to red as the primary color, and arch the team name like they did in 1972 with the original wordmark. Back then, the bigger “R” and “S” stood for “Robert Short” – today, they don’t really stand for anything, but it’s a nice treatment IMHO.
The away jersey is pretty much – well, gray. But the wordmark gets the same treatment.
Now for the alternate jersey. Seems like every team needs one. This time, I got rid of the blue (too many bad flashbacks to the Dallas Cowboys of the ‘70s, who always seemed to lose when wearing their blue jerseys), and went with the primary red.
Not sure I’m sold on the NNOB treatment, but at least it stands out.
Sleeve patch stays the same, and stripes on the pants go red and blue. Same with the sleeve stripes on the home and away. The red alt can keep the white trim.
This is what Nolan’s boys need to be wearing next year – and it wouldn’t take that much to pull it off. Oh, yeah, and I got rid of that gawdawful typeface for the NNOB.
Now don’t go selling this to the Rangers!
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I received two concepts from “losalkyle,” who tweaked the San Diego Padres and the Seattle Mariners. A man of few words, this sentence accompanied his Padres tweak: “Take the light blue in their primary logo and make it the uni color.” The next one was simply an attachment, with the subject “Mariners Powder Blue.” That should be pretty self-explanatory. Here it is. If you’re reading this and want to identify yourself, please do!
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Next up is Matt Keller, who actually sent me two submissions, but the second one is going to wait for the next batch. His first tweak is for the Minnesota Twins. Here’s Matt:
I’m not legally eligible for a prize being 16, but I mess around in photoshop on occasion.
1st off, I’ve eliminated those dreadful pinstripes from the Twinkies’ away uniforms. I think what I’ve done is pretty O.K. looking.
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Our final uniform tweak for today comes from Matt Murray, who unfortunately missed the Brewer tweaks which ran a couple weeks ago. But I promised Matt I’d include his mockups of the Milwaukee Brewers in the next set of uniform concepts. So, here’s Matt:
Mr. Hecken,
Attached are my uniform ideas for the Milwaukee Brewers. I might be a little late, but I think can still contribute to the discussion.
I like the Brewers current color scheme, but I think the current script and wordmarks are just a failed attempt at a classic look. I combined the navy and gold scheme with throwback lettering to create a modern look that reflects the past of the program. Both the home and away caps have the ball and glove “mb” logo, and the beloved beer barrel man on the sleeve. I’m a big fan of thick piping on pants and sleeves, but not on the front of the jersey. I used cream for the home threads and a powder blue(ish?) grey for the road uniforms to further compliment the historical aspect. A red mock-up is included. Thanks!
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OK, that’s going to do it for this first batch of uniform concepts from the fantastic UW readership. The next batch will be coming real soon. One interesting thing about this exercise, while I didn’t call for any specific teams whose uniforms needed updating/changing/tweaking, I got (so far) a bunch of submissions for the Toronto Blue Jays. How I didn’t see this team as the obvious choice for a uniform upgrade in the first place is beyond me, but I give myself a huge “DUH” for neglecting to ask for specific submissions for them. Let me tell you, the four or five I have received so far are tremendous. So, if anyone else wants to try their hand at tweaking the Toronto team, send em along. Of course, any teams you want to upgrade are fine as well.
As long as we’re on the topic of upgrading/tweaking, it sounds like it’s official that the Miami Marlins will be getting new uniforms when they move into their new digs (there’s a link in that article to the New York Times article [registration required]) where owner Jeffrey Loria mentioned the new unis. Now, I don’t want to step on Paul’s toes in calling for reader submissions for new Miami Marlins uniforms, since he’s been known to have done those type of things on the mothership. However, if you have done, or in the process of doing a Miami Marlins mockup, feel free to send it my way as well.
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 Is this the end of the world as we know it? Apparently so. Yesterday evening, several readers reported seeing Chris Berman state that the oft-rumored Seahawks alternate lime green jersey is a reality. Will it actually be worn this Sunday? And, will if so, will be paired white pants, as in the Wikipedia entry? Or, blue pants, or, heaven help us, lime green pants? And, what color will the jersey numbers be: White? (just imagine this) or blue? Perhaps we’ll know more tomorrow or later this evening. But if Boomer reported it, Wiki posted it, and Madden mocked it … it must be true, right?
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
[*late night edit: I just watched the repeat of the "2 Minute Drill" and here's what Berman said: "The Seahawks will unveil their bright green -- I guess '80s retro-ish green uniforms -- It'll be a 'Green Day'. I think they'll have the time of their lives." (The latter reference was because Boomer spent a portion of the segment discussing LPs {"albums to those of you under 30"}.) So that's what we have to go on. Who knows -- PH]
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Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: OK, got another submission from our resident ’scoreboard finder’ SlimandSlam, who has brought to you another good one. Shouldn’t have too much trouble with the teams or the stadium, but the game itself may prove more elusive. As usual, please post the answer in the form of a linkie from Baseball Almanac or Retrosheet. Date, location and final score please. Ready? Guess The Game. Anyone interested in football? I think we’ll try a football scoreboard guessing game tomorrow…see how that goes. Thanks, Slim!
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 UW #1 Seahawks Fan Michael Princip has been tracking the Oregon Ducks and all of their 2,456 possible uniform combinations this season. He’ll be updating it after each game. Tomorrow marks the debut of his first tracking graphic on UW. It will be a regular feature through the end of the Ducks season. Sounds like a fun little idea. Assuming the Ducks wear the rumored throwbacks tomorrow against Cal, this will be updated with the final score. Otherwise, Mike will insert whatever uni they choose to wear. Check back tomorrow to see the result and the uni they wore!
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Ah, time for Mick and Mike to relax and (presumably) enjoy a game on the tube. And that’s a biiiiiiiig couch, innit? Enjoy the wit and wisdom of Mick in today’s Saturday Benchies. Yakitty-yak…don’t talk back.
***
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This and That: Seems that the Huskers will be donning vintage 1962 uniforms today, complete with black numbers on white helmets. According to the article, “Fans are wearing red, as usual, but retro red. Women are asked to wear red dresses and carnations.” Good times, good times, except, Nebraska hopes, for the Ragin’ Cajuns. Unis and helmets should look like this. … The Yom Kippur religious observance is going to force New York football fans to have to choose between games this Sunday — first time the Jets and Giants have kicked off at the same time (other than when playing each other) since 1984; both teams are 2-0, and the Titans (Jets) versus Oilers (Titans) are wearing AFL throwbacks … And speaking of throwbacks, Navy plays Western Kentucky on CBS today, with Navy to wear replica 1959 uniforms — it’s in honor of the dedication of the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium — check out the program cover from that day! … The Florida State Seminoles will wear white at home for the first time — ever — against USF today; not just the normal white over crimson, but white over white! Nice. Of course, the best thing about FSU games are the uniforms worn by the fans sitting in the stands … The Turkeyfoot Middle School, which, not coincidentally, is located on Turkeyfoot Road, is under pressure to change its name — no, they’re keeping “Turkeyfoot,” but they may be dumping their mascot and nickname, because that is much worse than “Turkeyfoot.” Try saying “Turkeyfoot” five times fast … The LeBron James farewell to Cleveland Cavaliers 40th Season is just jam packed with giveaways, and here’s the list … Reader Ed Westfield shot me a note, “In Any Given Sunday, the Miami Sharks never wore white jerseys on the road, or anywhere. So, I wanted to see what it would look like.” … Let it be known: it is NOT OK to profit of Tim Tebow’s name or likeness! Is that clear? Unless, of course, it’s the University of Florida that’s doing the profiting, natch [*NOTE...I was alternately getting a "404 not found on website" and the article, so if it comes up 404, I apologize] … Speaking of the Gators tho, ESPN has posted an “instant classic” video game, sure to be great fun for all Gator haters … Of course, political correctness is still the hot topic at UND, where the school must get permission from the two Sioux tribes in North Dakota in order to keep using the nickname, “Fighting Sioux,” or face NCAA sanctions, including being banned from post-season play — and they need it by October 1st … Wanna have more shoe combinations than Oregon has uniform possibilities? (Like, 2 million possible combinations???) Now you can. … Here’s a little uniform story that slipped below the radar: seems that UW readers are not the only ones who want to ditch the black — especially when your team is called the “Cardinals” and, “We have the Cardinal as a mascot and our colors are red and white. I don’t understand why you would want to change that.”
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OK folks…that’s a lot to digest. Still time to participate in the Design A Cap Contest that started last weekend — just follow the directions there if you’re still interested. Some great college football matchups today, including a bunch of throwbacks — wonder if any of them will make the Top 5 uni matchup list tomorrow. Enjoy your Saturday everyone!
September 26th, 2009
During last Tuesday’s Mets-themed shindig at Two Boots, Scott Turner (who’d been “accidentally” spilling beer and pizza on me all night in retaliation for my having declared him ineligible for the Mets uni quiz) sidled up to me and whispered, “I know what those Iraqi baseball uniforms are going to look like.”
He was referring, of course, to Iraq’s fledgling baseball team, whose inaugural uniforms are being made by Jerry Cohen of Ebbets Field Flannels.
“Oh,” I said, “Jerry showed you the design?”
“He didn’t show it to me — I worked on it myself.”
I raised an eyebrow, added a few more points to Scott’s column in the Coolest Guy on the Planet sweepstakes, and then got swept up in the rest of the evening’s frenzy (read: had several more beers). I’d forgotten all about our little exchange until Friday, when Jerry Cohen sent me this.
I sent Scott a quick note: “So you designed these?” Here’s his reponse:
Sort of. Jerry was given instructions — royal cap and jersey with new Iraq flag, gray pants, royal stirrups (check with Jerry on that, but yes, I think they asked for stirrups, or at least blue socks that would be visible). He passed that on to me with further instructions (general layout) and I put it all together. So I didn’t really design them, but what you see is me bringing instructions to fruition. I’m not the architect or developer here — I’m the contractor.
We both worked to make this as EFF Traditional as we could — the piping, the clean look, the lettering and numbers. We’d have preferred something in the national colors — red, black, green and white — and a shot at designing something timeless. But you work for your client. Ultimately, the only thing that matters is the Iraqi team feeling good about what they’re wearing. Jerry’s and my wishes don’t matter.
Not an earthshaking design from an aesthetic standpoint, natch, but it’s interesting to hear about the process, no?
Unfortunately, I then had to run upstate for the weekend (later on maybe I’ll tell you all how I had a chance to score free tickets to the induction ceremonies in Cooperstown and blew it because I forgot to bring my cell phone), so I didn’t get to ask Jerry about the socks, or follow up with Scott about the TNOB. I’ll try to get more info from them later. Meanwhile, look for a finished jersey to be unveiled shortly on The Rachel Maddow Show, which has been covering this story’s progression.
Short-Notice Raffle: Our friends at SportsCrack are once again offering a free T-shirt to Uni Watch readers — winner’s choice of any tee they carry. To enter, send a blank e-mail with your name in the subject line to the raffle address (not to the usual Uni Watch e-mail address, please) by 5pm this Wednesday, July 29th (please note that this is a shorter raffle period than usual, and also an earlier closing time on the final day). One entry per person, but anyone enrolled in the Uni Watch membership program at the time of the drawing can send four entries. The winner will be announced on Thursday.
Clevo Reminder: Remember, Uni Watch gathering in Cleveland this Thursday, 7pm, at the Prosperity Social Club. I believe one of our more prominent Pittsburgh-based readers may be in town for the proceedings, which should put the Rust Belt quotient into the red zone. Looking forward to it.
Uni Watch News Ticker: “Slight change” in store for Clemson’s football uniforms, according to a small item buried on this page — just search on the word “uniform” (with thanks to Benji Boyter). … Al Cummings attended a USA/Ireland rugby match way back in May. “One of the US players had his shorts ripped to shreds while pulling out of a tackle and needed to go to the bench for substitute shorts,” he says. … Back on Friday I mentioned that this softball helmet seemed to have a molded ponytail channel. I soon heard from Matt Savoie, who works for Schutt and informed me that the helmet in that photo was this Schutt model. The molded channel is called the Ponytail Port, a Schutt exclusive. … Vintage untucked-design hoops jersey here (thanks, Scott). … Nick Merklin notes that Joba Chamberlain didn’t have the Yankee Stadium cap patch on Friday night. … Did Brett Saberhagen always pitch with his sleeves rolled up, or just in that photo? … Those high-tech swimsuits that rewrote the record books have been banned. … Perfect gift for the Cowboys fan who has everything (with thanks to Brinke Guthrie). … Weird scene prior to Friday night’s Braves/Brewers game, as Ryan Church somehow ended up wearing Matt Diaz’s BP jersey (with thanks to Bo Brewer). … “I found an entire rack of baseball and softball jerseys at a vintage shop in Barcelona,” says Ed Westfield Jr. “I think they might be for Japanese corporate teams. Can anyone identify these further?” … Interesting report from Adam Chkautovich, who writes: “October 9-11, there will be a ‘world record’ baseball game. You know where this is going — they’re going to try to play 48-hour-long game here in St. Louis. Interesting thing about it is that they are going to re-create the 1944 World Series matchup with the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Browns, including retro jerseys.” … The Giants will wear a memorial patch for owner Sue Burns today. … The Longhorns will wear throwbacks on Thanksgiving night. “The jerseys say ‘We Are Texas,’” says Ryder Kouba, “but the school’s famous Cronkite-narrated motto is ‘We’re Texas.’ Fuck Nike.” … John Wagner put his Uni Watch Stirrup Club hosiery to good use over the weekend. “The other teams went nuts for them,” he says. … Meanwhile, Greg Riffenburgh wore his new stirrups to an Angels game. … Some very unusual umpire attire on display here. Must have been a case of the umps’ luggage being lost — a topic we’ve covered before (screen shot courtesy of Chris Creamer). … Stomach-turning note from Tris Wykes, who writes: “During my time as a football student equipment manager at Minnesota, we used to give offensive tackle Mike Giovinetti a hard time about his hairy back. One day, he had a teammate shave his number into it (he’s posing there with running back Chuck Rios). The hirsute numerals were a big hit throughout the program.” … More Pat Patriot info here (with thanks to Mike Cooperman). … Lots of rumors about the Browns wearing brown pants this season (with thanks to Alex Kinkopf). … Andy Lasiewicz lives in China and took some baseball pics in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. Among the more notable details: a uni number on the thigh, an unusual catcher’s helmet, and some team names in English, others in Chinese. … Here’s an awesome shot of a very long NOB. Bonus shot here (big thanks to Mako Mameli). … Andy Rawlings sent along a bunch of really great MISL pocket schedules. … The Twins’ new stadium will include bronze statues of Rod Carew and Harmon Killebrew, both of whom recently donned period uniforms and posed for photos that will be used by the sculptor (with thanks to Karl Anderson). … Despite my steadfast opposition to logo creep, I’d never complain about seeing the old ABC helmet logo anywhere, anytime. That scan, taken from an unused ABC logo decal, comes our way courtesy of Christopher Lampling. … Just what the world needed: DNOB — domain name on back. That’s from Saturday’s Burnley/Portland Timbers match (with thanks to Michael Orr). … New football uniforms for North Dakota. Key quote, from UND coach Chris Mussman: “Nike has a uniform builder; we played around with it and presented the uniform to the staff. That’s how we came up with it. It didn’t take that much time.” … Speaking of stirrups, check out this gorgeous pair of Colt .45 hose (awesome find by Paul Hirsch). … A new ACC rule change may lead to color-on-color football games (with thanks to Benji Boyter). … Let’s please have a round of applause for the incredible job Phil is doing on the weekends. Dude packs as much info into two days as I do into five. Kudos, buddy.
July 27th, 2009
Several people have complained that the Patriots’ AFL throwbacks feature the Pat Patriot helmet instead of the team’s original helmet design, which used the old tri-corner hat logo. “If you’re gonna honor the AFL’s origins, go with the team’s original 1960 uniform!” these people say.
I haven’t added my voice to this chorus, mainly because I love Pat Patriot. And really, who doesn’t? Not only is he a great logo character, but there’s the great story of how he originally appeared in a 1959 cartoon by Boston Globe artist Phil Bissell (who later ridiculed his own creation, saying Pat looked like “a lopsided Chinaman”) and became the team’s logo because team owner Billy Sullivan was a tightwad who got permission from the Globe to use the character for free. How could the tri-corner hat compete with that?
Ah, but it turns out that the tri-corner hat has its own backstory, and it’s a good one. I learned about it from reader Rick Subrizio, who recently visited the Pats’ Hall of Fame at Patriot Place in Foxboro. Turns out they’ve got a small display devoted to the original design, which was submitted to the team by a fan named Walter Pingree. Pingree sent the original logo concept to Billy Sullivan in either late 1959 or early 1960, along with this handwritten letter, which read as follows:
Dear Mr. Sullivan,
As a rapid [sic] football fan and delighted with our new Boston Patriot’s [sic], Pro-football team, I would respectfully like to submit my original idea for the Patriot’s [sic] uniforms. Red, white, and blue colors are a symbol for patriotism. I believe this uniform to be unique and colorful, and indeed worthy of the fine team I know we will have here in Boston. I am looking forward the the [sic] coming season with eagerness and much enthusiasm and you can count on me as one who will be there to root the team on, win, lose, or draw.
Sincerely,
Walter J. Pingree
Mr. Pingree’s faith was soon rewarded with this letter from Billy Sullivan, on the letterhead of Sullivan’s company, the Metropolitan Coal and Oil Company. Here’s what it said:
Dear Mr. Pingree:
I can’t begin to tell you how much we appreciate your thoughtfulness in reference to the uniform.
I am sure it will please you to learn that we are planning to adopt it, and, as the first step, we are having a uniform designed along the lines of that which you suggested.
A couple of changes have been made, but they are relatively slight. I think you will be happy to learn that the Boston Globe is taking a color picture of one of our players wearing the new uniform, and it will appear before long in that fine publication.
I will look forward to meeting you in the near future, but meanwhile, I do want you to know that we are very grateful for your thoughtfulness.
Sincerely,
William H. Sullivan
So it looks like ol’ Billy got that logo as a freebie too. Wonder if Pingree got so much as a free pair of tickets out of the deal. Meanwhile, I’d love to see Pingree’s original uniform drawing and that Boston Globe photo. Anyone want to hunt for that in the newspaper’s archives?
As if providing these photos and letter transcriptions wasn’t enough, Rick Subrizio also decided to do a little research on Walter Pingree. “I found a reference on a Patriots fan board saying that he was ‘an employee of the Boston and Maine Railroad who designed these unis based on those he remembered from his days at Somerville High,’” says Rick. “Not sure if that is accurate, as Somerville High’s teams are called the Highlanders, but perhaps they were the Patriots in the past.”
And now that I know the story, I find the original logo a bit more appealing, a bit more endearing. Here’s hoping they finally revive it for a throwback game at some point — if not for this season, then at some point down the road.
Research Query: If you’re a past or current member of the military, I’d like to hear your opinions on baseball teams that wear camouflage uniforms. Again, this is only for past or current military members. If you fit that description, and would like to chime in, contact me here.
My Dinner with Joba: Did you know there’s a steakhouse inside the new Yankee Stadium? It’s true! And since red meat and baseball are two great tastes that taste great together, one of my ESPN editors and I had dinner at the new restaurant last week. A full account of the evening’s events is now up on Page 2.
Maybe not such a great idea after all..?: People who’ve placed ads in the Uni Watch Classifieds tell me that response has been good. But very few people are actually placing ads. If you folks aren’t into this, no biggie — maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Here, let’s try a price break: Instead of $25 per week (and $20 for members), let’s make it $15/week (and $10 for members). Full submission instrux here.
Uni Watch News Ticker: While preparing today’s entry, I realized that the favicon Kirsten designed for our Candela Structures site looks a lot like an upside-down tri-corner hat. … Man, there’s quite a bit going on in this photo. Details here. … Two days ago I mentioned that former bench coach Bryan Redemske had been involved in a cycling crash. If you can stomach it, here are the somewhat gruesome results. Heal up fast, Bry! … FNOB alert. That’s Mike Roberto (duh) of the SBHL’s Fayetteville FireAntz, whose roster also includes Mike’s twin brother, Matt Roberto (with thanks to Denis Kirstein). … This guy sells a lot of cool sports-related printed matter (with thanks to Larry Weiderecht). … Marc Wermund has taken lots of photos of the Fort Wayne Tin Caps’ new stadium, Parkview Field. “It has the second-largest jumbotron in all of the minors, ‘rooftop’ seating beyond right field, a home run deck, seats with waitstaff, some lawn seating, a kids’ play area, and dollar beers on Thursday — you can’t beat that,” he says. Check out his photo albums here and here. … “Here’s a weird hockey sock that goes back to the early ’50s,” says Terry Proctor. “It was worn by the old Quebec Aces. They were white with green knees (no jokes, please) and the two stripes were red. Looked like Christmas stockings. That’s Jean Beliveau in his Aces uniform. The club kept that style of socks through 1967. I saw them play in Rochester several times from 1960 on.” … There are sooooo many things wrong with this cap (as spotted by Doug McConnell). … It’s all true, the only reason ESPN lets me write for them is that I’m a Mets fan, otherwise I’d be out on my ass. … Actually, my editor and his boss are both serious Seattle fans, so there goes that theory. … Oooh, this is cool: NFL pencils (good find by Roger Faso). … Brian Erni notes that yesterday’s edition of Newsday had a slight Cardinals mix-up. … Josh Outman and his picture-perfect stirrups were on the mound for one inning at Yankee Stadium last night. It was a drizzly, foggy night in the Bronx, but Outman’s exemplary hose cut through the gloom like a beacon in the night. … Oooh, wait, fellow Outmaniac Ted Kerwin attended last night’s game and got several additional pics of Outman in all his glory. … Dan Cichalski notes that Outman didn’t always wear stirrups. … The other day I mentioned that the Mariners’ compass was missing Ichiro’s jersey. Ben Cook says this is nothing new. “He appears to wear it all the time on the dark and grey jerseys but seems to go back and forth with the white jersey.” I suspect there’s no master plan here — more likely the compass is missing from one of his home jerseys, so he’s compass-clad when that other jersey is in the wash and then compass-free the next day when the normal jersey is in the wash. … It’s gotta be the shoes pants (with thanks to Stephen Melton). … Tallegega Superspeedway now has a 40th-anniversary logo (as noted by Josh Neisler). … Breaking news from Robert Marshall: “Chance just had a record-setting turn at cat bowling. Six eclipses the previous record of five set by Jesco. He way behind before that, and if he manages a two or better with his second ’shot’ in the 10th frame, he’ll have the high game by one. It was some seriously clutch cat bowling, Paul — comeback of the ages!” … Interesting piece on the authentication of MLB memorabilia here. … CC Sabathia’s shoes, donated to the Hall of Fame after his first Yankee Stadium start, are the largest shoes in the HoF’s extensive collection (with thanks to HoF curator Tom Shieber). … Central Michigan is switching from New Balance to Adidas, which means new football uniforms. “I think its big and ugly, especially compared to last year’s design,” says CMU alum Jason Bowman. “You’ve got no white, no third color to outline or give a pop to the letters or numbers or anything. The New Balance font was at least unique and it worked for their scheme, but the big block lettering needs some white outline or something. The piping is unnecessary as well, but you’ve got to live with it. The rumor is the away uniform is the same except white with maroon letters, numbers, and piping.” … Speaking of new football uniforms, Washington’s new set will be unveiled on Saturday (with thanks to Lee Ziegler). … Ingenious page here: It lets you search Flickr by color (very cool, Kirsten). … Jeffrey Moulden notes that Tennessee has been wearing a seriously ugly baseball uniform. To see, go to this page and click on the March 27th game. … Someone in the comments a few days ago mentioned that Rogers Hornsby served as a Mets coach in the franchise’s early days. That prompted Phil to track down this. Man, that really does not compute. … Speaking of Phil, he’s all decked out for a trip to Flushing. … Good spot by Matt DeMazza, who writes: “Apparently the Ducks use the old-school B-shaped nets (which haven’t been used by the NHL since the early ’80s) during warmups. I go to plenty of Rangers games and have never seen this. I don’t think I’ve seen it anywhere else, either.” This is the part where I say how I always liked that net design and kinda miss it, and then you say, “Geez, Paul, you always like everything old, it’s so predictable — stop living in the past!” And since we’re both right, we shake hands and go out for a beer. … Either there was some dust on the lens, or else someone was throwing their rosary beads at Lem Barney (with thanks to Aaron Bell). … Annals of Youthful Sports Journalism, Vol. 1: Some journo student from Penn State called me yesterday and spent about 10 minutes asking me a bunch of questions for a survey of sports bloggers being conducted by him and some of his classmates. Among the questions, and my responses, were these: “Is homophobia a problem in women’s sports?” (I have no idea, but it wouldn’t surprise me), “Should bloggers be held to a high ethical standard?” (sure), “Are professional journalists too close to the athletes they cover?” (good question), and “Have you ever had to censor discussions on your site?” (only when Powers posts too many photos of his snowblower). They said they’d send me the full survey results when they finish crunching all the numbers. … Annals of Youthful Sports Journalism, Vol. 2: Yesterday morning, a reader sent me a link for a article-plus-slideshow about uniform typos over at the Bleacher Report site (which encourages people to write but doesn’t pay them). The author of the article turned out to be a high school kid who, according to his bio on the site, is looking forward to studying journalism in college this fall and is using Bleacher Report “to hone my writing skills,” or something along those lines. Apparently by “hone” he meant “steal,” and by “writing skills” he meant “material from other people,” because almost all of his story’s photos, and some of its text, were lifted wholesale from an ESPN column I wrote in 2007. I wanted to drop him a quick “WTF?” line, but I couldn’t find a “Contact” link, so I just left a comment congratulating him on his plagiarism skills. Things got mildly surreal about two hours later, when a Bleacher Report “community coordinator” (I believe this is slang for “intern”) tried to pimp the kid’s story — which was based on my story — to me. “Hey Paul,” he wrote, “I have one article for you to take a look at today. Here is a great top-10 list of the worst typos on modern sports uniforms. Thanks and I hope this is something you could use on the blog.” I sent back a note suggesting that he scroll down to the comment I’d left. About half an hour after that, I got a note from a Bleacher Report “community GM” (the site’s co-founder, as it turns out), who apologized for the whole thing, said the article had been taken down, and said the writer would be reprimanded. Can’t wait to hear how they handle that — what are they gonna do, cut the kid’s non-existent pay? Of course, given the current state of journalism, plagiarism is probably the only viable career path the industry has left, so the kid’s on the right track. I figure it should take him about, oh, 11 years to become an editor at some place I write for. And then he’ll get assigned to me, and I’ll remember this whole incident, and he’ll be too clueless to remember and be a real moron of an editor to boot. And then I’ll have no choice but to feed him to a crocodile or something. … And speaking of uni typos, I got a note last night from former MLB pitcher Jeff Bajenaru (who, by coincidence, was born on 3/21, just like me), as follows: “I saw your article from two years back on uni name typos. I made my major league debut in Sept. of ’04 and my name was misspelled on the back of my jersey (Bajhenaru) for the White Sox. I do have a hard name to spell and pronounce (’Badge-in-arrow’).” He’s looking for a photo and will send it along later.
April 22nd, 2009
by Phil Hecken, and UW Design Expert, Paul Soto
Well. “Pretty Boy” Paulie Soto is back with a fresh batch of incredible stuff. And I do mean incredible. If MLB ever needed some design changes to the alternates, or some fresh new looks, the designs that follow would be a good start. If you don’t remember Paul’s earlier work, you can look here and here, where I had commissioned Paul to create “fauxbacks” and some “home/road flips.” Truly amazing stuff. I asked Paul to continue with his efforts at reinventing MLB uniforms, this time by creating alternate and new uniforms, some entirely new, and some with some tweaks. He didn’t disappoint. The new uniforms are fresh, the alternates are mostly spot-on, and the tweaks are outstanding.
Now, personally, I hate alternates. However, given that most MLB teams feel the need to have at least one, sometimes two, and even three alternate jerseys, we may as well make sure they’re better than the current crop. I tasked Paul with designing some new and better alternates and to adjust the current unis as he saw fit, and to take us through each team he addressed . I’ll add a paragraph following each set of some of my own thoughts to these spectacular creations. So, without further ado, let’s have a look-see.
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Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: Paul really likes the Angels current uniform, and especially, he “digs the numerals!” But there’s too many teams that wear Red/Blue. So why not give them a color combo that isn’t in use in the MLB … maroon and gold. Since they want to be associated with LA now, Paul figured they can don the colors of USC. Without an NFL team, the Trojans are the next best thing. Here’s what Paulie created for the road uniform.
I LOVE this new uniform set. The Angels have been through several different uniforms in their 40+ years, but they’ve never had maroon and gold. Paul has hit one out of the park with this effort. The Angels would do well to consider this next time they decide to redo their uniforms.
Toronto Blue Jays: Paul asks, “Why do the BLUE Jays wear Black?! … F***! marketing!” He wants the Jays to ditch their disastrous duds and switch back to their old typeface and awesome logos … and is wearing some kind of blue in your unis too much to ask? He combined their first Blue Jay head logo with updated version we saw in the late 90’s.
Another new uniform set. And with the Blue Jays’ current duds, it’s hard to argue that this isn’t much better. While I personally was never a huge fan of their old unis and fontface, it WAS the Blue Jays. They should dump the current set ASAP and do something like this.
Atlanta Braves: Paul digs their navy alternates, they’re much easier on the eyes than the red jerseys. But what bugs him is the navy numbers on the back. Paul thinks all they need to do is just add some red and look how much better that is!
I must admit I am not a fan, at all, of the current Braves alternates, either their blue or their godawful red. Paul has certainly made the blue alt look different. It’s a great effort, but I still don’t like it. But that’s just me.
Chicago Cubs: Paul states that this is one of the finest uniforms in the league. He’s just not a big fan of the “walking bear” sleeve patch, and suggests they switch back to a fan favorite … the “angry bear” head. It speaks volumes on the current state of Cubdom. Wrigley field also has a pretty cool logo that is rarely seen. Why not throw it on the home jerseys like the White Sox did for some time? Paul took that minor tweaking and added it to their alternates, and also provided some pizazz to their bland road uni.
I have to agree that the current Cubs home uniform is one of the finest in the land, so a minor tweak or two like Paulie has provided is really all that’s needed. I love that really cool Wrigley logo — what an interesting twist, especially for the blue alts. It’s tough to improve on the classic pinstripe whites, but that blue alt can certainly do with a change.
Arizona Diamondbacks: Paul thinks “D-Backs” shouldn’t be on a home jersey, and I agree. He feels it looks odd to begin with but if they must do it, they should keep it on an alternate. Their home jersey looks a little more legit with their primary “A” logo on the left chest.
Let’s face it … this is one of the worst uniform sets in all of baseball (take a look back at some of the tweaks Paul came up with for the D-Backs in his earlier features). There’s not much of a way to improve this uni, but I think Paul has actually done just that with these. Tough (but not impossible) to polish a turd — which is what Arizona’s uniforms currently are. I was never a fan of the purple and teal, but at least that didn’t have the abbreviated “D-Backs” on their homes. The black alt Paulie suggests keeps the “D-Backs” in tact, but keeps it off the home whites. Good stuff!
San Francisco Giants: Mr. Soto loves script on a jersey! So he came up with this (which he says used to appear on their dugout jackets): Much better! … He asks, “Why’d they stop using it in the first place?”
When you have a word (actually, two words) this long, it’s tough to make it look good on a jersey. Script is equally difficult to pull off. I think Paul’s done both with this nifty away jersey. The Giants would do well to investigate the possibility of making this their new road uniform. Wonderful job.
Seattle Mariners: The Mariners wear a different number typeface, on their alternate, from their other jerseys. The typeface doesn’t bother Paul one bit … but what does bother him is the inconsistency. So, he’s added the typeface to the road and alternate jerseys. He thinks the standard block typeface can get tiresome. Anticipating your reaction, Paul notes, “Yes I am aware that is an incorrect apostrophe (on the “alternate cap”) but I’m trying to stay accurate to their old logo.”
The original Mariners jersey set was probably my favorite, but I realize they’re never going back to that, other than when they “throwback.” That being said, I like the new typeface and it is definitely more of a Safeco than a Kingdome font. I like how Paul has “standardized” this typeface throughout. Again, I could do without the blue alternate, but since that’s never going to happen, what Paul has come up with is preferable to what they currently have. I don’t mind the apostrophe on the alt cap — at least it’s not a “single open quote” like the Orioles use.
New York Mets: This gives “BLACK OUT” a new meaning. Paul would LOVE to see Mr. Met on the sleeves, and I have to admit, he’s done Mr. Met proud. Paul states the old team mascots have been making a comeback in the MLB, so why not give Mr. Met his due and get him on the jersey!
Wow. Paul did something I think most Mets fans can only dream of — removing ALL black from the uniform set. The pins with Mr. Met is fantastic (although I would settle for the current style with the black removed) and the ’snow whites’ without the black drop shadow is something we haven’t seen since they first introduced the ice cream man! As far as the blue alternate, I’m not a fan … BUT … they have worn one before and if it means getting RID of the current black alternate, then BRING IT ON! Another great job Paul! Hey Mr. Wilpon — can ya, you know, think about this instead of the black jerseys and the Domino’s Pizza patch?
Florida Marlins (soon to be Miami Marlins): Paul’s on an anti-black crusade, and I love it. I’ll let him speak to this amazing creation: “Ok many of you may not agree with this color change but you have to agree that the black has to go! Black just doesn’t say ‘South Beach.’” (Check out the “Miami” road uni!) “I like it when teams in the same city share the same colors … I’m not sure if the Heat would look right in teal and orange though. I realized that it takes a lot of work to design a whole new logo and typeface for a team (as you can see by my prototypes). I wasn’t satisfied with my cap logos so I modified their current logos to fit the new color scheme.”
Another WOW! Double WOW! Seriously, this is something the (soon to be) Miami Marlins strongly need to consider when they move into their new ballpark. My god, Paulie has REALLY gone deep with this whole new uniform set. This is fantastic! What better way to christen a new stadium than to break out new uniforms, especially when your current set is not all that great. How awesome would it be if they did something like this? I’ll tell you. REALLY AWESOME. The colors are great, the fontface is superb and the style is modern without being too contemporary. Perfect!
Washington Nationals: Paul feels “The Nationals on field product is mediocre at best … but you gotta admit they look sharp.” That changed when we were introduced to their “Patriotic” alternates. They reminded Paul of this guy. But if you must rock the stars and stripes, Paul thinks this looks a little more tasteful. No?
Yes! Another team who’s finally beginning to get it right (see Paul Lukas’s forthcoming MLB preview column on ESPN if you haven’t yet seen what the Nats have done with their uni set — especially their new roads), the Nats also introduced the garish blue alt. Ugh. Paul Soto’s cleaned that up, and done a nice job of it. This is one alt that needs to go the way of the horse and buggy. Unfortunately, they will be wearing it this year. Too bad they can’t tweak it just a little, like Paul has done here.
Baltimore Orioles: Paulie thinks it’s great to see “Baltimore” on their road jerseys. Why not give it an alternate jersey and cap? Just an experiment. Now Paul knows their Maryland flag patch has been well received (and he does like it) but thinks the old Cartoon bird would like to get some exposure.
Not only did Paul do a bang-up job on this uniform set, he got rid of the incorrect “O`s” cap they’re donning this season. Well done, sir. The “Baltimore” on the black jersey is a nice touch. The Orioles have done a great job with their new uniform set for this year, and Paul’s tweaks make it even better.
San Diego Padres: Paul liked their previous “Padres” wordmark, and thought it would look much better on their new unis. He says, “Who doesn’t love the swinging Padre?! Let this guy go full time on the jerseys!”
Who doesn’t love the swinging padre indeed! Nice tweaks, Paul. All we need to do is work on removing the sand from the cracks.
Texas Rangers: Paul totally agrees with Mr. Lukas’s critique of the Rangers new duds. The number typeface looks like the old typeface with warts. Mr. Soto wanted to give it more of an appropriate Western feel. Paul also wanted to return the team name to the jersey. “I hope you guys liked the way this turned out as much as I did.”
Well, I certainly do, Paul, I certainly do. Getting “Rangers” back on the jersey is a step in the right direction, and that funky ‘western’ font is intriguing. What a great tweak. It just goes to show you how much a slight alteration can go a loooooooonnnng way! Great job, again.
Detroit Tigers: Now Paul wouldn’t change anything on their uniforms but if he had to he would switch the cap logo and give them an alternate. They have such awesome logos why not put them to use. “I’m not saying it MUST be done but wouldn’t it look nice?”
I have to agree with Paulie here, there is no need for an alternate with the Tigers. But, man, if they did have one (or two), these aren’t bad.
Minnesota Twins: With the Twins THANKFULLY moving out of the Metrodome and into a shiny new outdoor stadium, Paul had the idea of giving the Twins a classy old school look. Gone are the grey pinstripes.
Another “wow” Paul. Me likey! The Twins will need new unis when they head into the great outdoors, and these would be a fantastic uniform set. I especially like what he did with removing the pins from the roads. They never looked good.
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Well, there you have it. Fantastic job with these Paul! I may not agree with everything you’ve done (mainly because I don’t think MLB teams need alternates). However, this was another outstanding batch of possible new uniforms for the current teams. All of Major League Baseball, from the executives down to the equipment managers, would do well to take a long, hard look at these and offer them up to Majestic the next time they consider any changes to their uniforms. Thank you so much Mr. Soto for your time and energy in bringing this fine set of alternates and new looks to Uni Watch! Great, great stuff.
Paul Soto will be back for Cinco de Mayo, when he’ll be offering some new designs and takes on the “Los Uniforms” MLB continues to promote. Until then, thanks again Paul! You da man.
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Uni Watch News Ticker: Uni Watch Prexy Paul Lukas checks in with this look at the Southern Alabama Jaguars, who will wear throwbacks in their Tuesday game against Auburn … Northwest UW correspondent Jeremy Brahm informs us The Softbank Hawks have just added another sponsor to their uniform, but it is a Softbank company, Softbank Mobile. Softbank Mobile has had a company with a family called the Whites, and “the father is actually a dog. Well, on the Hawks home uniform there is a picture of a dog. (Here’s the road uniform). At least they had the background colors match.” … Travis McGuire noticed that many of the Oregon Ducks are wearing high stirrups. Perhaps there is hope after all. (Note: photos are in a photos tab above the headline) … Seen late in Sunday night’s comments and also sent from Doug Keklak, the Pens are ditching the powder blues, which is a travesty, but their record speaks while wearing them — not usually good … Neil Parsley was at the Blue Jackets – Blues game Sunday night and noticed that Chris Mason, the Blues’ goaltender, was wearing different socks than the rest of the Blues. You can compare Mason’s socks to the defensemen in the background. They actually look like the socks the Blues wore from the late 90s till 2008 … Nicholas Kowalski has been busy in the Life archives, and notes, “if you saw these and the related pics from the LIFE archive — The huddle pics are like a Twilight Zone still or something.” … Chris Smith delights us with these wonderful soccer socks — and the very special reason they were being worn … Nice spot by Larry Bodnovich who spotted this MSU kicker wearing shorts, no facemask, no faceguard and his number is 00 — “Pretty comical in my opinion.” … Ryan Goldstein remarked about the first game at Citi Field, Georgetown against St. John’s over the weekend, with 22,000 or so in attendance. “A player in one of my classes said they are used to about 20 people coming to home games…what a difference!” … Terry Paffenroth has a question for the board: “I’m a Packer fan and am now again living in Wisconsin and I have never seen this photo until today and have never read anything that has ever hinted to this. Might you or someone you know be able to put a story to the photo?” … also from Terry, this great photo of some youth footballers from 1939 … the aforementioned Doug Keklak has added some more submissions — “What’s better than sexy girls in short shorts? Those same sexy girls wearing stirrups! These are the ballgirls the University of Washington employed.” … Also from Doug, “Upon further review, I think it’s a piece of caution tape, rather than the nameplate I thought it was at first, but still, I have never seen the QB designated as such to keep contact off him in practice (apparently a red jersey or vest wasn’t available!) That’s a Pitt QB, as back in the day, their training camp was held in Johnstown at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.” … Douggie concludes his ticker contributions with this: “Some cool vertical striped socks from my alma mater, Johnstown High, playing at game at none other than the home of Slap Shot, the War Memorial.” (All these photos are from the Johnstown Tribune Democrat at various times during 1971) … And rounding out the ticker, Jim McCue weighs in with this: “As a Pepperdine alumnus (B.A., Telecommunications, 1991), I always follow the school’s athletics programs on the website. I was aware of the school’s football program back in the 40s -50s, and the Sports Information Dept. is finally putting up information about the program’s history, including a photo gallery. I went through the photos and was happy to see that my alma mater wore some classic unis and had some unique posed photos. I especially like some of the unusual ‘team photos.’ Rather than the standard rows of players, they are somewhat scattered in groups with the coaches in a group near the front. I also like the team portrait with the coaches up front with a chalkboard. Maybe the next NFL team in the LA area should be based in Malibu rather than the City of Industry or elsewhere. “
March 31st, 2009
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, I started up Photoshop to work on re-doing the rest of their logos.</p>
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