By Vince Grzegorek

As a fan, you might wear a ballcap when you go out to watch your favorite team. But for reasons of logic and convenience, you only bring one hat to the game — right?

Well, there is one man who fails to see that logic, and who appears to be undaunted by inconvenience. As pointed out in the comments section a couple of days ago, it looks like there’s a guy who sits in the first row at Jacobs Field and seems to change his hat during every inning of every Indians game. That would be Tom O’Toole, a 40-year season ticket holder who sits in perfect view of the camera every time there’s a close-up shot of a left-handed batter.

O’Toole began his headgear ritual in 1994, when the Indians moved from old Municipal Stadium to the new ballpark. He figured that he was on camera so much that he might as well have fun with it, neon-style. So he came up with the routine of changing his cap after each inning, meaning that he wears nine different lids during every game. Same rotation of colors, same innings, every single time. They even have a sticker on the underbrim denoting their designated times.

There’s a fantastic article on O’Toole and his bizarre and endearing hat routine in here, including the following highlights: He goes back to the first inning hat if the game goes extra innings; he only wears hats at the game, never anywhere else; he only makes it to about 20 games a year; and his wife has to wear the designated hat if he leaves his seat for any reason. The last one has led some random strangers around town to off-handedly mention, “Tom went to the bathroom in the sixth inning because Joanne was wearing the hat.”

For all the great info in that article, one important thing is left out — or, to be specific, nine things. They don’t go through the montage of hats, which is sad, because it is quite the colorful explosion of color that can only be truly appreciated all together in one place. Here’s the sequence:

• 1st inning hat: dull yellow.
• 2nd inning hat: hot pink.
• 3rd inning hat: neon yellow.
• 4th inning hat: neon green.
• 5th inning hat: neon orange, with wife, Joanne wearing it (is your girlfriend/wife cool enough to do this?).
• 6th inning hat: bright orange-ish red.
• 7th inning hat: yellow hat, red brim.
• 8th inning hat: red.
• 9th inning hat: blue.

Now that is fan dedication, in one of its strangest and most Uni Watch-ish forms. Although we might quibble with some of his color choices, Tom O’Toole’s obsessive dedication to uni-related ritual makes it clear that he definitely Gets It™. And if you’re ever watching an Indians game and you’re not sure what inning it is, refer to our handy guide and check for the man with the neon hat in the first row.

And now over to Paul with the rest of today’s news and info.

Research Project: I’m trying to piece together a timeline of bullpen cars and carts. When did they first appear? When and why did they fall out of favor? Which teams had particularly interesting or innovative vehicles or gimmicks? Which pitchers refused to use them? (Mike Marshall comes to mind.) Any other good stories?

If you’ve got any info on this front, please send it here.

ALL MEMBERS, PLEASE READ: I’m making good progress on restoring the missing names from the membership roster, but we’re not there yet. In case you’ve missed my pleas the past two days: A softwear glitch wiped about 90 names off the roster listing, and I need your help to get things back to normal. All members who haven’t already done so should please check the roster listing. If you don’t see your name there, please e-mail me your name, membership uni number, membership level, and why you chose your number. If your name linked to a photo, please re-send it. And if you’d like to help speed up the process a bit more, pick out your card from the design gallery and send me its URL. Big thanks for everyone’s help.

And if you’re wondering about the design of today’s showcase card, it’s based on the back of the Ohio State marching band uniform.

Uni Watch News Ticker: Good breakdown here of Arizona high school football helmets. … This isn’t me, I swear (good find by Todd Davis). … Speaking of the Rockies, good article here about their W-L record in all their various uni combinations. … Latest Euro-styled NBA teams: the Grizzlies and Raptors, who both played games in Madrid yesterday and wore the colors of the Spanish national flag. … Iowa has a new basketball coach who wants to add player names to the backs of the jerseys, but a new name-free uni set was ordered before he was hired and the numbers are positioned too high to allow for names. Details here (with thanks to Cork Gaines). … Is Colorado wearing reflective-outlined numbers or what? … Wake Forest wore a “Skip” patch last night, in memory of former hoops coach Skip Prosser. … Speaking of Wake, most of the team’s players go bare-legged. But as Zach Smith notes, several players appeared to be wearing striped leggings (additional shots here and here), similar to what Kobe Bryant was wearing a while back. … Latest college basketball team to go with the System of Dreck: UNC (with thanks to Jordan Woodson). … Carey Price’s white mask has now been painted (with thanks to Casey Barcomb and Dave Frolick). … “I was at the Pitt/Navy game the other night at Heinz Field here in Pittsburgh,” writes Doug Keklak. “They have a Steelers Hall of Fame exhibit on loan from Canton — I think it’s something they put together for the team’s 75th anniversary. I snapped some quick photos and put them into this album.” … You knew Chad Johnson was Ocho Cinco. But did you know Jonathan Papelbon had christened himself Cinco Ocho earlier this year? He’s even got it on his glove (as forwarded by Phil Johnson). … Jon Eisen just sent me a link to an archive that will take lots of time to explore. For now, though, here’s the cutest uni-related photo ever. … Yesterday I ran some old Detroit sports photos. As Doug Mooney points out, there’s plenty more where that came from. … Another small change for the Wizards: Player names, which had been white, are now bronze (good spot by Colin Wilcox). … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: Good video here featuring the Sharks’ equipment manager showing the art of skate-sharpening.

Now that the first slate of NFL preseason games has been played, a few new developments have come to light (aside from those green dots on QBs’ helmets, which we’ve already discussed at length). Let’s take a look:

• At first glance, it appears that the Chiefs are wearing an AFL logo patch. But upon closer inspection, it turns out that the patch includes little “LH” initials at the bottom, in memory of Lamar Hunt. Personally, I’ve always loved the AFL logo and am happy to see it in just about any context, and I realize Hunt was a prime mover behind the AFL’s inception, but this still seems like an odd memorial choice, especially since it’s so hard to see the “L.H.” initials. Maybe if all the original AFL teams were wearing the patch..? Visually pleasing conceptually puzzling.

• Great to see the Browns wearing their old striped socks again, instead of what they were wearing last season. Additional views here and here, just cuz it looks so damn good.

• Nice catch by Chad Wilcox, who notes that many of the Redskins with non-Riddell helmets are wearing the team’s stylized “R” secondary logo (the one usually seen on Joe Gibbs’s cap) on their nose bumpers Here’s another view. I like. Meanwhile, we’d all seen the team’s 75th-anniversary patch before, but it’s worth noting that it looks plenty sharp on the field.

• Speaking of anniversary patches, the one being worn by the Steelers doesn’t look as good. And although this is still appearing on the Bengals’ home page, it’s not on their jerseys, at least for now.

• There’s something weird about opening your season — even your exhibition season — in your alternate jersey.

• I wish the Chargers’ pants bolts had a few more jags in them. Otherwise, I think their new design looks sharp.

• Subtlest change of the year: Motorola has outfitted the coaches with new headsets this year. The microphone bar is much thicker and clunkier-looking than last season — apparently so the Motorola wordmark can be printed on it as much as possible. Just in case anyone’s missing the point, the wordmark is also now appearing on both sides of the upper strap. (Note, incidentally, that while Joe Gibbs wears earphones on both ears, most other coaches only have an earpiece on the mic side.

That’s enough for now. Look for further developments in the Ticker as more games are played (like tonight’s Eagles/Ravens and Niners/Broncos tilts).

Charge It: The story behind this commercial and its inconsistent lightning bolt designs (compare this view of LaDanian Tomlinson, in which the upper-front point of his shoulder bolt is pointing forward, to this one, in which it’s pointing backward) continues to evolve. Last week I posted a note from Steve Due of AIS Uniforms — the company that made the unis — which didn’t fully explain the inconsistencies. Now I’ve received a dispatch from Due’s AIS colleague Bob Halfacre (who, as elephant-memoried readers may recall, had some very strong opinions a while back on the subject of nameplate initials), which I think finally closes the book on this story:

We made the bulk of the uniforms in a week with no help with patterns from the NFL. All we had was a replica-style jersey from Reebok. So the jersey itself isn’t perfect. … When the commercial was filmed, the Chargers sent Antonio Gates, Philip Rivers, and LaDanian Tomlinson with their actual tailored game jerseys. The shots of those three players are a mix of footage of those players in their actual uniforms along with footage of actors in the jerseys made by AIS, edited into what looks like continuous football action. I noticed the problem when I saw the commercial the first time also.

This shot is actually LT in his real jersey. Now that I have studied it a little more, I can see the problem. We put the bolts on backwards. If you look, the actual pictures of Gates and Tomlinson have the bolt with the first jag inside low and outside high. The AIS jerseys have the bolts the other way.

This explanation matches up with yesterday’s Chargers/Seahawks preseason game, where all of the Chargers’ shoulder bolts had the upper-front point facing forward (additional views here, here, and here). So there you have it: an all-too-rare case of someone taking responsibility and admitting his mistake. Thanks, Bob.

Membership News: We’re almost caught up on membership designs. Lots of good new stuff in the design gallery, including, as you can see at right, our first Bad News Bears treatment. Also newly added: a San Diego Chicken design. (I confess that I had never noticed the Chicken’s jersey logo until member Michael Rawson asked for it on his card.)

The next batch of designs, which Scott should have ready in a day or two, includes a really brilliant request that’s gonna look sooooooo cool — stay tuned. Meanwhile, new members are still welcome, so keep those orders coming.

Uni Watch News Ticker: No photo yet, but David Conley reports that Tiger Woods’s baby girl, Sam, “was actually wearing a red jumper with a large Nike swoosh on it when they showed her on TV yesterday after Tiger won the PGA.” And if you’ll excuse me for a second, I need to go throw up. … Okay, I’m back: The Celtics have announced that Scot Pollard and Eddie House will be wearing Nos. 66 and 50, respectively. Why? According to Friday’s Boston Herald: “‘Because all the other (expletive) numbers were taken here,’ Pollard said, looking around a conference room that had the numbers of Bill Russell (6), Tom Heinsohn (15), John Havlicek (17), Robert Parish (00), Larry Bird (33) and Kevin McHale (32) hanging on the wall.” (With thanks to Matt Englander.) … If you’re into modifying the uniforms on your video games (as discussed in detail here), you’ll want to check out the customization videos on this page (with thanks to Trev Ulmer). … Shorpy continues to be a great source of old uni photos, including this shot, captioned as follows: “Opening Day at Hilltop Park, April 4, 1908. New York Highlanders and Philadelphia Athletics” (as forwarded by Bob Andrews). … Brilliant catch by Peter Fahey who notes that Red Sox uniforms often have an upside-down 8 (the bigger opening should be on the bottom). … Elena Elms reports that the Durham Bulls will be wearing Livestrong jerseys, to benefit the Lance Armstrong Foundation, on August 19th. … While doing a bit of membership-related research, Scott Turner came across this photo, taken in 1984. “How come Dorsett’s got a big star on his chest?” he asks. Good question. Anyone..? … If you haven’t read Game of Shadows, some of its most damning evidence about Bonds concerns his uniform: “[Giants equipment mananager Mike] Murphy could document Bonds’s physical changes via the changes in his uniform size. Since joining the Giants, Bonds has gone from a size 42 to a size 52 jersey; from size 10 1/2 to size 13 cleats; and from a size 7 1/8 to size 7 1/4 cap, even though he had taken to shaving his head” (with thanks to Matt Schudel for forwarding that quote). … Bryan Redemske notes that Chris Duncan, like all the other Cardinals, wore red shoes on Friday but switched to black on Saturday. … Matt Algeo reports that the Russian national baseball team wore throwbacks the other day. “Who knew there was a Russian national baseball team, or that they were around long enough to wear throwbacks?” he writes. Details and additional pics here. … Not often that you see “Sr.” on a nameplate. The player in question is Nebraska wide receiver Chris Brooks, whose young son is Chris Brooks Jr. (nice find by Brian Hansen). … Small item about Rick Ankiel’s uni number history about halfway down this page (with thanks to Tom Chalifour). … Dave Gardner sent along a few hockey-related links I hadn’t seen before, including a discussion forum for vintage goalie masks and a gallery of Russian jerseys. … “Found a cool gallery of lacrosse photos from the Victoria Shamrocks of the Western Lacrosse Association, a semi-pro summer box lacrosse league in Canada,” writes Thomas Langan. “Looks like some of the jerseys get recycled, as evidenced by the tape over the name. Some nice retro-looking jerseys too.” … “This blog entry has two uni-related tidbits,” writes Kim Kolb. “One is about a United midfielder trading jerseys with Beckham, the other is about some guys trying to steal the Galaxy’s laundry, leading to a chase through the bowels of RFK Stadium.” … The Twins’ recent I-35W memorial decal provides a uni-related connection for this excellent story about how a new signage typeface is being used on American highways. … Soccer note from Jeremy Brahm, who reports that Montreal Impact goalie Matt Jordan was injured with a broken jaw a month ago but is now playing with a mask. … My worst nightmare recently came true down in Virginia, where the Richmond Braves had a purple jersey promotion (with “thanks” to David Rosenthal). … Latest MLB team to pull the totally bush move of wearing their BP jerseys for a regular-season game: the Mariners, who did it yesterday, apparently because it was so hot and muggy and they don’t have a Cool Base road jersey option. … Speaking of the M’s, many of them are wearing a custom-designed undershirt. Details here (with thanks to Jerry Gardner). … Amusing column here about the PGA’s no-shorts rule (good spot by Alan Kreit). … Eyebrow-raising note buried in Phil Mushnick’s Sunday New York Post column (as spotted by Seth Horowitz): “The University of Utah’s new basketball coach, Jim Boylen, could be the guy we’ve been looking for. At Boylen’s urging, black has been eliminated from the team’s uniforms. ‘Our [school] colors are red and white,’ he explained. ‘Black is not one of our colors.’” … The Texans are the latest team to publish their jersey schedule for the upcoming season (good find by Seth Harris). … No photo, but Morris Levin reports that Bruce Froemming is still wearing his All-Star Game cap. … “Adam Gaylord plays his college baseball at Stanford, but this summer he’s been playing for the Waterloo Bucks of the Northwoods League,” writes Matt Nelson. Sunday he sported these nice stirrups.”

The Diamondbacks unveiled their new uniforms last night. I’ll have a full review in my next ESPN column, which will run tomorrow. But for now I want to talk about one specific aspect of them: alignment.

When the Dbacks’ new logos were first leaked a few months back, I held off on commenting, because I had a feeling that the typography (rendered in “minor league comic book fonts,” says Uni Watch design director Scott M.X. Turner) would look very different when rendered in fabric than it did on the computer screen.

Turns out I was right, but not in the way I expected. Whatever else you may think of the new unis, it looks like they’ve got a major problem with the way the chest insignia breaks across the jersey placket. In short: Because of the logo’s design, they had to split the “a” into two halves, and most of the time it doesn’t line up. This shows up again and again (and again) in photos from last night’s unveiling event, and even, to a lesser extent, in MLB’s official merch photo.

Other teams occasionally have placket problems, but I can’t remember seeing anything quite this bad, especially on on a consistent basis. One reason it looks so jarring, I’m sure, is that this is a new logo, so we need to get used to it before we can adjust to seeing a misaligned version of it. But still. Didn’t anyone realize this was going to be a problem?

Some additional context would be useful. I don’t have time to check every other MLB team’s logo/placket intersection, but I’m sure one of you is already heading off to research that — right?

Uni Watch News Ticker: Amusing note toward the end of this page about Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema’s tie (and don’t worry, it nothing to do with purple), courtesy of Jim Polzin. … Nice contribution from Ali Kushan, who writes: “I saw this picture while looking at the 2006-07 St. John’s University Media Guide. It dates back to the late 1920s and is of former Redman James Collins.” … Miami will wear “95″ helmet decals on Saturday, in memory of Bryan Pata. … In other remembrance news, Notre Dame and Air Force will both wear helmet decals this Saturday in memory of Gregg Lewis, who played for Air Force and was also the son of Irish assistant coach Bill Lewis. … What’s worse than pink ice for hockey? A purple tennis court, with a purple-clad player to match (send your emergency room bills to Chris Juengel). … Rugby news from Eric Bangeman, who writes: “Thought you might be interested to know that the Springboks, South Africa’s national rugby team, will be wearing 1906 throwback jerseys in their match this weekend against Ireland, to commemorate 100 years of Springbok rugby. Also, I think you’d like the Northampton Saints’ socks.” Indeed. … There’s been a lot of chatter in the Comments section lately about the 49ers’ overuse of their “SF” logo. That problem might become moot, because the team may move. … Our recent discussions of how the basketball is depicted in NBA logos (if you missed those entries, look here and here) has led several readers to do a similar analysis of soccer team logos. “I continue to be fascinated with how many soccer teams use the old late-’60s/early-’70s pentagonal-panel ball in their emblems,” says Scott M.X. Turner. “That ball was in use for maybe five years on the top circuits, yet it’s THE go-to ball for emblem designers.”

Among the many annoying things in American politics these days, one of the most irksome is the lazy shorthand of “red states” vs. “blue states.” It’s a false dichotomy, since most states are “blue” in the cities and “red” everywhere else. I live in New York state, which is considered so overwhelmingly “blue” that neither Bush nor Kerry bothered to campaign here in 2004. But that’s because most of the state’s population is concentrated within the tiny area of New York City, which has 8 million people, most of them Democrats. Rattle around upstate New York for a few hours and you’ll find a political (and geographical) landscape that you could easily mistake for, say, rural Indiana. “Blue”? Get real.

Unfortunately, the red/blue paradigm has become so pervasive, and the political scene is so divisively polarized, that many TV news anchors and commentators now avoid wearing red or blue ties on Election Night, for fear of appearing biased toward one party or the other. And what color do they wear instead, the color that is now becoming the de facto uniform of objective political neutrality? Well, think about what you get when you mix red and blue…

That’s right: my worst nightmare.

I first noticed the purple tie phenomenon in 2004, and I had a feeling it would snowball this year. I wasn’t home on Election Night (I was invited to the campaign victory party for a local candidate), and I don’t have a DVR, so I asked a few DVR-equipped readers to scour the airwaves for purple-clad talking heads. They came through beyond my wildest dreams, documenting a staggering number of examples. Check out this roll call (colors may vary a bit, due to the vagaries of TV screen shots, but I’ve been assured that all the neckties in question were in fact purple):

Lee Cowan; Charlie Rose; Jim Lehrer; Paul Begala (who’s a Democratic consultant, so why the hell is he trying to look unbiased?); some unidentified guy on MSNBC; Mort Kondracke (who has always looked like a rodent, but never more so than in this screen shot); Lou Dobbs; an unidentified guest on Fox News; Brit Hume; Howard Fineman; the Fox-4 Dallas male anchor; David Gregory; Carl Cameron; Brian Williams; Bob Shrum; two guys on CNBC (looks like the one on the right is Bob Barr, except it doesn’t make sense that he’d be trying to appear unbiased); David Shuster; Bill Hemmer; and George Stephanopolis (doesn’t look purple, I know, but trust me).

Oh, and then there was Margaret Warner.

While we’re at it, purple was also the dominant hue of the recent Iraqi elections, thanks to that dye they used to indicate when a person had voted, which led to an endless stream of photos like this, this, this, this, this, and this. If this is what democracy’s all about, maybe totalitarianism isn’t so bad after all.

(Mega-thanks to everyone who helped out with the TV research for today’s entry, especially Mark Graban, Chris Hilf, Phil Primato, Jim Ellwanger, Jeff Olson, Gaylord Fields, and Brian Temke — great work, guys.)

Uni Watch News Ticker: On Monday I ran a screen shot of Cedric Benson’s decal malfunction. Turns out he wasn’t the only one having decal problems over the weekend. (Big thanks to Matthew Butch.) … Smart question from Jeff Dunnavant regarding Don Zimmer’s ever-changing uni number: “What did Zimmer do in 1999, his 51st season in baseball? Bernie Williams would have been wearing 51 for the Yankees and, we know he didn’t switch.” Good point. Anyone got a 1999 Yankees yearbook? … Photo of the Year candidate submitted by Bryan Redemske, who says, “This is what they wear in western Nebraska. It’s from the Spencer-Naper vs. Stapleton playoff game in Stapleton, Neb., on Monday.” … According to this article, Sunday’s Vikings/49ers game, which the Niners won, 9-3, “marked the second straight season that [placekicker] Nedney accounted for all of San Francisco’s points when the club wears throwback unis at home. Last year, Nedney’s five field goals lifted the Niners over Tampa Bay, 15-10.” (Nice catch by Dominic J. Litten, who also points out the fine sock stripings of Archbishop Moeller High in Ohio). … Very, uh, unique jersey design (and ultra-modern playing facilities) displayed by the semi-pro Carolina Heat (with thanks to BJ Lanier). … The Diamondbacks are slated to unveil their new uniforms tonight. … Even in Japan, Jose Reyes still does that stupid untucked-jersey thing. Also, as Bryan Redemske notes, the MLBers are wearing their road unis, but Jacque Jones has a Cubs home cap. … Excellent tidbit from Bryan Koval, who writes: “I was flipping through my Nittany Lion Club newsletter, and there was a brief column with Brad ‘Spider’ Caldwell, the Equipment and Facilities Coordinator for the Penn State football team. He described a change to the Penn State uniform that took place this year, and I didn’t even notice it! For the first time, Penn State had the blue stripe painted onto their helmets, instead of using a blue strip of tape. Caldwell said that the equipment staff fixes dings to the paint with a magic marker, and it gives the team easier access to the holes on top of the helmet that are used to inflate the padding.” … Check out this cool Georgia Tech helmet history wallpaper, courtesy of Byron Wages. … Eric J. Discher notes that the “J” on Martin Brodeur’s mask appears to be slightly narrower this year than it was last year.

It was a small item — just one sentence, in fact — buried in the middle of an article about the Devil Rays in Sunday’s St. Petersburg Times. But it put a smile on my face and may have brought a frown to Shawn Camp’s. Here’s what it said:

“Don Zimmer signed up for another year as a senior adviser — his 59th in the game.”

And that means one of the most unique and inconspicuous rituals in sports will continue, because Zimmer changes his uniform number every season to match the number of years he’s worked in baseball. I’m not sure when he started doing this (anyone..?), but I think was in 1998, when he wore No. 50 to commemorate his 50th year in the game. It’s hard to find rear-view pics of him (photographers apparently can’t resist his captivating facial visage), so there are some gaps in the photographic record, but here he is wearing No. 53 in 2001, No. 54 in 2002, No. 56 in 2004, and No. 58 this year.

The reason Zimmer gets away with this every year — aside from being, y’know, so cute and cuddly — is that the uni numbers in the 50s tend to be unclaimed, so he can switch every year without taking anyone else’s number. Things are gonna be different next year, though, because the Devil Rays already have a No. 59: Shawn Camp. But he shouldn’t mind giving up the number, because he wore No. 58 with the Royals in 2005. And that number, now worn by Zimmer, is due to become free as soon as the calendar turns over at the end of this year.

(Incidentally, given all our recent chatter about retired numbers, just imagine the hassle of trying to come up with a number to retire for Zimmer.)

Uni Watch News Ticker: In case you missed Florida’s miserable mismatched/gator-patterned sleeves on Saturday, good views are available here, here, here, and here (with thanks to Ryan Armbrust, who also sent along some shots from Columbia’s 2003 homecoming game, when the team wore 1934 throwbacks — very cool). … The Maine-Endwell Spartans, a high school team in upstate New York, wear their team name on their socks — in purple, no less (with thanks to Eric Hawkins). … The whole “wear pink for breast cancer research” phenomenon scaled new heights of silliness the other day when the minor league Stockton Thunder dyed their ice pink — and, oh yes, wore pink trim — for their game against the Phoenix RoadRunners (thanks to Bryan Long). … Bitchin’ hosiery stylings at St. Stanislaus High School in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi — check out the baseball and basketball teams (bonus points to Chris Lemley). … Good catch by Richard Craig, who writes: “As a longtime Charger fan, I saw something Sunday I can’t remember seeing before. They wore the powder blue throwback jerseys and fielded a player with a true bolt-to-bolt nameplate: San Diego State’s own Akbar Gbaja-Biamila, whose nameplate reaches across the white shoulder trim and onto the yellow bolt itself.” I don’t remember this happening with David Diaz-Infante, or Rolf Benirschke, or Ralf Mojsiejenko, or anybody else with a long surname. They always seemed to squeeze the letters closer together before. Of course, if our head coach were still playing, his nameplate would overlap the entire bolt on both sides. … According to a note in last night’s Comments section, someone on the Raiders — maybe Kirk Morrison — was wearing an American flag belt buckle during last night’s Raiders/Seahawks game. Can anyone get a screen shot? … Over on Chris Creamer’s board, someone posted a link to this amazing history of the Arkansas Razorbacks logo — great, great stuff. Uni Watch’s highest rating.

It was no surprise that those Bills throwbacks looked awesome yesterday (you can bask a bit more in their magnificence here, here, here, and here). But it was surprising, at least to me, that the throwback helmets were completely blank in the back — no NFL logo, no American flag, not even the usual warning decal. The rear helmet view was so plain that the molded lower contour on the Riddell Revolution helmets — a contour that I’d frankly never noticed before — suddenly appeared much more prominent.

After a bit of photo research, it turns out that the Bills’ throwback helmets were blank last season as well. Not only that, but the Chargers’ throwback helmets are blank on the back side too, all of which is very odd, since the throwback jerseys still have Reebok sleeve logos, the NFL Equipment collar logo, etc. How did the helmets earn a logo creep exemption?

Other NFL notes from yesterday:

• Byron Leftwich had the two-towel thing going on.

• More hosiery shenanigans from Clinton Portis: Look closely and you’ll see that he was wearing burgundy leggings over white shin pads and no socks (here’s another view).

• As if the Vikings didn’t have enough problems: purple gloves.

• Here’s something I’ve been meaning to investigate: There are always all sorts of people on the sidelines wearing garish vests — the guy with the red X, the guy with the orange K, and so on. Does anyone know which vest symbols match up with which specific duties?

Uni Watch News Ticker: In what is no doubt an NHL first, the Rangers and Panthers wore Puerto Rican flag patches for their exhibition game on Saturday, which was played in San Juan. … Latest Japanese baseball observation from Jeremy Brahm: Check out the bizarre glove worn by Osamu Hamanaka. … “Here’s the worst prep uni ever,” says Uni Watch Nebraska bureau chief Bryan Redemske. “It’s from St. Cecilia High School in Hastings, Nebraska. I challenge you to find a worse one.” … LSU, which usually wears white at home (and also on the road, natch), broke out the rarely seen purple jerseys for Saturday’s game against Tulane. … My latest eBay score: this super-cool 1928 uniform ad (better pics to follow when I actually receive the item). … Unfortunate news out of Toronto, where Brian Tallet’s totally bitchin’ stirrups are already a quickly fading memory. He was pajama-pantsed during yesterday’s game, and Mike Priest took a truly disturbing photo of him in the bullpen. Didn’t realize MLB was now offering boot-cut pants. … Latest Nike brainstorm: Outfitting the English rugby team in longjohns. Full details here. … And Nike also appears to be taking their mismatched-sleeve program to new extremes (with thanks to Seth Harris). … To give credit where it’s due: Jonathan Carone notes that Nike has actually improved the look of D-IAA Liberty, which has gone from this and this to this and this. “We no longer look like an Arena League team!” he says. … Classy move yesterday by the Nationals, who all wore their pants hiked up high in honor of teammate Nick Johnson, who broke his leg on Saturday. … The Padres ran their annual “Shirts Off Their Backs” charity promotion yesterday, marked by a special Swinging Friar right-sleeve patch. … If you didn’t check the site over the weekend, be sure to scroll down to webmaster John Ekdahl’s Ryder Cup coverage — great stuff.

I’ve never given much thought to sumo “uniforms,” because the combatants basically just wear diapers. Okay, so there are different colors (including you know what), along with the occasional bit of flag-based imagery, but still — come on.

Or at least that’s what I thought. But as with virtually all things Far Eastern, this one has come under the gaze of reader Jeremy Brahm, who recently sent along the following primer about the special ceremonial belts — which look more like skirts or aprons — that some sumo wrestlers wear:

I bet you didn’t know that wrestlers actually have two belts that they wear each day for the highest level (or “Makunouchi” in Japanese). These wrestlers wear these belts in addition to their regular wrestling belts at ceremonies and before starting the day’s bouts. Take these guys, for example — actually, the guy in the middle is the yokozuna, which you can tell because of the big white belt with “lightning bolts” that he’s wearing (here’s another example).

Some of these ceremonial belts have very bad sponsor creep. Here’s Japanese wrestler Chiyotaikai wearing the Coca-Cola logo, and here’s the Bulgarian wrestler Kotoohshu — that’s basic basically an advertisement for a Bulgarian yogurt. (He’s also worn the Japan-Bulgaria Friendship Association logo and the Bulgarian flag with a horse.) Somewhere there’s a picture of Japanese wrestler Takatoriki with a Pepsi ad on it, but that was about 10 years ago, so it’s hard finding something like that on the web.

Here are some other interesting belts, as worn by the Georgian wrestler Kokkai; the Estonian wrestler Baruto; the Russian wrestlers Roho and Hakurozan; the Mongolian wrestler Kyokushuuan; the naturalized Japanized citizen Konishiki (who can be seen wearing a Yomiuri Giants jersey and throwing out the first pitch here); the Japanese wrestlers Kasugaoh and Shunketsu [who appears to be wearing an anime design]; and the American wrestler Sentoryu.

I would almost say this next picture, of the Japanese wrestler Tamarikido, is like wearing a college sweatshirt.

Then there’s this kind of sumo outfit, but that’s a separate category.

Wart(burg)s and All: Got an interesting note yesterday from reader Jesse Gavin, as follows:

I’m a recent graduate of Wartburg College, a Division III school in Iowa. While in school, I spent a lot of time working for the student TV and radio stations, usually covering Wartburg’s athletic teams. Therefore, I cringed a little bit when I found out that the football team would be wearing new Nike home uniforms this season.

However, it didn’t occur to me until later that the new home unis might cause a conflict with the road uniforms, made by Adidas, that had been unveiled last season. So what happened when Wartburg went on the road for the first time this season last Saturday? The road uniforms were now adorned with an IIAC [Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference] patch on the exact same spot where the Adidas logo had been visible last season. A source within the program tells me that sewing the patch onto all the away jerseys was less expensive than buying new ones.

Hmmm, Nike takes over home jerseys, Adidas logo mysteriously disappears from old jerseys. Coincidence, I’m sure.

Uni Watch News Ticker: Marhsall will mark the 35th anniversary of the school’s landmark victory over Xavier with “1971 Young Thundering Herd” helmet decals this Saturday (with thanks to Craig Bates). … Georgia Tech’s 1970 throwbacks looked my-t-fine last night. Too bad they didn’t wear period-appropriate socks, though. … Latest high school team to go with the Nikefied sleeve treatment: Ontario High, in Mansfield, Ohio. “The’ve also got some pant stripes thrown in there,” says Mansfield alum Clint Whittington, who provided the pics. “I’m not sure they look so good together, not that many things would look good with that yellow sleeve.”

New ESPN column today — here’s the link.

Meanwhile: Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a new hosiery hero in our midst. That would be Brian Tallet of the Blue Jays, who on Tuesday night earned himself a lifetime Uni Watch exemption by wearing some picture-perfect stirrups. Here’s a closer look — note the bloused cuffs (which didn’t drape exactly right, but I blame that on the polyester, not on Tallet). Very, very nice.

Bill Blevins, who provided the screen-grabs, reports that Yankees TV announcers Michael Kay, Al Leiter, and Ken Singleton “spent over a minute talking about the fact that Tallet wore actual stirrups in the proper manner. The talk was entirely pro-stirrup, and I did not detect irony in their tone.” Apparently they also showed a quick video clip of Leiter wearing stirrups back in his Blue Jays days (although that couldn’t have been too exciting, since Leiter’s stirrups in those days were exceedingly uninspired). Unfortunately, the MLB.TV game video is from the Toronto broadcast, where the announcers didn’t even mention Tallet’s fine example.

Tallet’s an interesting case. In his minor league days, he sometimes wore stirrups and faux stirrups (nice cuff level, despite the bogus hose). I’ve been unable to find pics from his 2002 and 2003 cups of coffee with the Indians, he was definitely long-pantsed during his two Cleveland appearances in 2005. Then he caused a stir at the beginning of this season — his first with Toronto — by showing some stirrup, which upon closer inspection turned out to be of the faux variety. But as the season progressed, he shifted to full-fledged pajama mode, and as recently as two weeks ago he appeared to be a lost cause. Who’da thunk he’d end up with the season’s best sock stylings so far?

About yesterday’s post: As you may have seen, I ended up taking down yesterday’s interview with Joe Hilseberg, at his request. Many of you have asked why, but the specifics are private. All that matters is that Joe is a stand-up guy who had good reason to make the request, so I honored it. I want to make it clear that there was no pressure put on me by any outside parties, nor was this a case of a source coming back to me and saying, “Oh shit, I didn’t think you’d print that!” This was simply a friend of the site ending up in a tough spot through no fault of his own, so I helped him get out of it. End of story.

No, I can’t tell you more, and no, I can’t e-mail you a transcript of the interview, so please don’t ask. Let’s move on, shall we?

Uni Watch News Ticker: With Georgia Tech wearing throwbacks tonight, I’ll be appearing at 6pm eastern on the school’s flagship station, WQXI 790. I’m told we’ll be discussing the topic of throwbacks in general. … Check out this totally rulin’ 1959 Wilson advertising poster that I scored yesterday on eBay. I’ll post better photos of it when I get the actual item from the seller. … Big, big kudos to Andrew Shieh, who came up with a photo of last weekend’s Navy placekicker jersey typo. … Good catch by Jonathon Binet, who notes that the sleeve patches worn by many of the Nationals are curling and puckering. Additional views here, here, here, here, and here. … In yet another great catch, Dustin Ray has noticed that MLB umpires’ “EG” memorial patch for Eric Gregg is disappearing from many umps’ sleeves, often leaving behind a sticky residue. … Speaking of memorials, this obituary for longtime MLB exec Syd Thrift mentions that he’s the one who got underbills changed from green to gray (or so Thrift always claimed — some other sources dispute this). … On Monday I mentioned that many NFL players’ waistband towels now feature the Wilson wordmark (instead of the Wilson “W,” as had been the case for the past several years). That prompted the following note from a source at Wilson: “Good catch on the towels. We did change to the script Wilson logo this year, to match our current branding (I know…logo creep). If someone’s still wearing the ‘W,’ I assume it’s because the team had old inventory and is just using them up. Each team receives 528 towels per year and a lot of the northern teams seem to go through their allotment slower than southern and/or dome teams.” … While he was at it, the Wilson sourced added this: “If you look closely this year, you’ll see that NFL game balls have the team names stamped on them, below the NFL shield panel. In the past, the home team supplied the balls for both teams; this year, each team will supply their own footballs when they are on offense (similar to college).” … The Raptors have finally confirmed what everyone already knew: no more purple. … Here’s something you don’t often see anymore: the old ABC helmet logo, as worn on Sept. 9th by Ken Huckaby. … The Cardinals retired Bruce Sutter’s No. 42 on Monday night — an odd move, since 42 was already retired for Jackie Robinson. … In case you missed it in yesterday’s Comments section: With the Falcons having signed Morten Andersen Tuesday, lots of readers are wondering if the ageless kicker — who hasn’t played in the NFL since 2004 — will wear his old-school Dungard facemask. … Nice piece here making fun of the Vikings’ unis (with thanks to Jennifer Hayden). … Lots of negative reader reaction yesterday to the new U.S. cycling uniform, and it’s easy to see why. … Cork Gaines notes that there was some serious logo creep discussion in yesterday’s Doonesbury (where the item being discussed for adornment is a prosthetic leg). … Browns WR Josh Cribbs is inviting a fine by wearing an unapproved memorial tribute to a recently deceased teacher (thanks to Dave Sterling for the tip). … Webmaster John Ekdahl has added several new features to the Comments section, including the use of gravatars. For details on that, go to yesterday’s Comments and scroll down to Nos. 139 and 144.