Okay, let’s get right to it: the Broncos/Pats game. I saw most of the game and have pored over a buttload of photos from various sources. After all of that, my thoughts are as follows:

• First and foremost, whether the Broncos looked “good” or “bad” (I think there was some of both) is not the point. The point is that they were revisiting a chapter from their history — a chapter most of us had never seen, and that almost nobody had seen in color, a chapter that has become semi-legendary and is therefore worthy of further study, even if only as a re-enactment. That’s the value of a project like this, even if the uniforms in question look like shit. And I’m not saying they did look like shit, mind you — I’m just saying that’s not the real issue at hand.

• The vertically striped socks were fun, but where were the whites? The early-’60s Broncos (like every other pro team of that era) wore mid-level whites with their hose, and NFL rules still require mid-level whites today. True, many players nowadays have reduced the white component to just a sliver, but the Broncos didn’t even try yesterday — they just went with full-length stripes, which took things from sublime to ridiculous and, more importantly, was historically inaccurate.

It’s easy to blame the players and the equipment staff for this, but I also say, “J’accuse!” to Reebok, because they could easily have made the socks half-white and half striped (like these, only striped instead of solid). Hell, they gave the socks a white foot –why not bring the white up to the proper level? A major botch by everyone involved.

• The white-free hose led to some tomfoolery on the field, as Jabar Gaffney went candy-striped, plus I noticed a few players wearing two pairs of socks with the stripes misaligned, creating a sort of harlequin effect.

• Also worth noting that the short pants worn by so many of today’s players resulted in the stripes extending above the knee, which is not a good look. Not quite as bad as this, but getting there.

• In the olden days, Denver’s pants stripes were much thinner than the sock stripes, so there was always a clear distinction between sock stripe and pant stripe. But the pants piping on the throwback pants is much heavier, so it sometimes looked like the two sets of stripes were bleeding into each other (that photo doesn’t capture it so well, but I saw it a lot on TV).

• Temperatures in Denver were below freezing but the officials stuck with their throwback attire, including the white knickers, instead of going for the cold-weather slacks. Good for them.

• Y’know, helmets with TV numbers on the side always look so damn cool. I realize teams would rather have a logo on the side, and it’s hard to argue with that, but I wish more teams could find a way to marry the two approaches, like the Chargers used to do.

• Looks like Brandon Marshall used one of the socks as a towel. Here’s another view.

• Okay, so you wouldn’t want to see that Denver uni every week, and probably ditto for the color scheme, but someone on the Chris Creamer board created this — not bad!

• Very cool that they had this flying at the stadium.

• Oh, the Pats. Yeah, they looked swell. And Julian Edelman was doing the double sock stripe thing.

Amazing but true: I know this is gonna be hard to believe, but apparently there were also some other games in the NFL yesterday. Here are some of the visual highlights:

• Rare event in KC, as the Chiefs and Cowboys played a throwback game with no white jerseys. And since nobody has a black-and-white TV anymore, I see nothing wrong with it — let’s see more color-on-color matchups. Lots of additional pics here and here. (This game was uni-notable for another reason, as I’ll get to in a minute.)

• Chad Ochocinco finally broke out the pink chinstrap (or was it black strap a pink cup?). Meanwhile, his teammate Dan Skuta, who wears No. 51, had a No. 46 helmet. (Screen shot courtesy of Michael Kinney.)

• Love those Rams throwbacks (additional photos here). Interestingly, they didn’t spring for new helmets — they just swapped out the ram horn decals, as described in the opening graf of this story.

• Joe Skiba had told me that the Giants’ ghosted Reebok logos would no longer be a problem, but apparently he was mistaken. Naturally, I think it’s great. Too bad every team can’t have this “problem.”

• Owen Schmitt of the Seahawks had blood on his uni number yesterday. And how did that happen? He smashed his helmet into his forehead during pregame intros, with predictable results. Bright fella. (Screen shots courtesy of Chad Todd.)

• In that same game, David Garrard’s NOB was stretched into an arc (probably because the jersey had been glued or Velcroed to his pads). Not sure if the last “R” in his name was backwards or just stretched into a new shape, but it looked bad either way. (Thanks to Matt Takimoto for the screen shot.)

• Just what the world’s been waiting for: pink spats.

I hear there were some baseball games yesterday too, but none of those games featured vertically striped socks, so the hell with ’em.

End of an Era: The color-on-color aspect wasn’t the only unusual aspect of that Cowboys/Chiefs game. Reader J.J. Lauderdale explains:

The Chiefs’ wearing of their Dallas Texans throwback helmet snapped a 548-game streak of the Chiefs wearing nothing but their red shell, arrowhead logo, and white facemask — a streak that began on September 15, 1974, against the Jets. The Chiefs had worn gray facemasks in 1973 before changing to white in ’74.

This is the longest streak in NFL history for a team continuously wearing one helmet with no throwback, no change of logo, no change of facemask color, etc. If you ask people who had the longest streak, most people guess the Cowboys, Steelers, or Raiders and never get to the Chiefs. But many of the teams with the more classic helmets had their streaks broken during the 1994 throwback season (the Steelers, Raiders, and Cardinals, for example), when they wore throwbacks or blank shells. The Chiefs, however, wore their regular lids in 1994, keeping their streak intact.

The four next longest streaks in history are:

• Cardinals, 1960-1994: They wore that bird head logo on a white helmet for 499 straight games before using the blank shell for a throwback game against the Browns in 1994.

• Raiders, 1964-1994: Wore their current helmet for 446 straight games before going retro for the 1994 75th-anniversary season.

• Browns, 1975-2005: 434 straight games for the white-facemask version of their helmet. Then they switched to a gray mask.

• Cowboys, 1977-2004: 432 straight games between the 1976 bicentennial helmet (the one with the red stripe) and the first time they donned the white throwbacks.

Now that the Chiefs’ streak has been broken, the longest current streak belongs to the Bengals. They’re at about 238 games, dating back to 1994 (not sure exactly which week they last wore the 1994 throwback helmet, so it may be off a week or two).

Stellar research there by J.J. — thanks, buddy.

New Sponsor: As you may have noticed, we have a new advertiser at the top of the page: Homage Clothing, which produces some nifty T-shirts, many of them Ohio-themed. Check out their stuff, and thanks for continuing to support all our advertisers.

Singles Going Steady Fast: Today’s the last day for this batch of indie singles that I’m selling on eBay. I’ll put another batch up for sale later this week.

Uni Watch News Ticker: You know, uniforms are cool and all, but I’ve recently felt like my life was missing something, sort of an undefined emptiness that I didn’t know how to fill. Then Kirsten turned me on to this, and life is much, much better now. … New mask for Jason LaBarbera, continuing his Metallica theme (as spotted by John Muir). … You know what’s great about pink? Everyone loves it (with thanks to Mark Tang). … Also from Mark: Some great old photos from the Northeastern photo archive, including fantastic team portraits of the football and hockey squads, plus a spectacular Bruins photo. … Reprinted from Friday’s comments: Someone has created a very cool New Jersey Devils maize maze. … Yup, no question, Rush Limbaugh is gonna be great for the Rams. … Fascinating chapter in college football history is described in this video clip — highly recommended (big thanks to Brian Willette). … Jim Ransdell, who does the excellent Sports Design Blog, was recently interviewed on NPR’s Studio 360 program on the subject of this year’s NFL throwbacks. … Bears’ dark-blue pants are discussed in the last entry on this Q&A page (with thanks to Chad Todd). … Hmmm, didn’t MLB retire No. 42? (As spotted by Doug Steffenson.) … Jordan Farmar has changed his uni number from 5 to 1, which is the number he wore in college (with thanks to Matthew Wolfram). … “This is the most confusing uniform confrontation ever,” says Bill Blewett. “That’s the Lyman Raiders vs. the Phillip Scotties out here in South Dakota. It was a home game for Lyman (I think).” … Jeremy Brahm reports that the Rakuten Golden Eagles gave their rookie pitcher Hiromichi Fujiwara a necktie for being the “Promising Newcomer (rookie).” … Nice collection of cages from old catchers’ masks (thanks, Kirsten). … The Colorado Eagles of the CHL did the pink thing the other night, but the real news is that the ref got in on the act. “The linesmen were in the normal zebra stripes, though,” says Michael Putlack. … Nothing enhances the view of a football field like a nearby power plant. That’s from a bunch of power/energy-related photos by the great photographer Mitch Epstein. … Reprinted from Saturday’s comments: Big Klu as an Angel. … Some interesting info and photos regarding the Twins’ new ballpark here (with thanks to Brad Lappin). … Harvard goalie Ryan Carroll’s backplate reads “In fide et in bello fortes,” which translates to “Strong in faith and war” (with thanks to Tris Wykes). … Dan Hastings came across a Seahawks logo he’d never seen before, and neither had I. Looks like it was modeled on this old Eagles logo. Anyone ever seen the Seahawks version before? … Not sure I’ve ever seen baseball pants with the team name printed down the side. … Complete President’s Cup apparel wrap-up here. … Happy Thanksgiving to Teebz and all our other Canadian readers.

We have a lot to cover today, boys and girls, so let’s get started:

• The Giants continue to have issues with their Reebok logos, which of course amuses me no end. Alas, this is probably the last we’ll see of this particular problem. I can’t divulge all the details, but let’s just say it’s been addressed and shouldn’t happen again. Too bad.

• What are those orange tabs in Mark Sanchez’s helmet? Are those the radio speakers? If so, I’ve never seen them stand out so clearly like that.

• Speaking of helmet radios, Michael Vick didn’t have a green dot yesterday (presumably because he wasn’t always used as a QB, right?).

• And speaking of the Eagles’ radio-equipped helmets, they don’t just have a green dot — they also have an extra i.d. label.

• Braylon Edwards went double-sock-striped for the Browns, and Chris Johnson did likewise for the Titans-as-Oilers. (In a related item, Eric Taylor did the same thing on Saturday for the Edmonton Eskimos.)

• No photo, but I was really surprised to see Tennessee cornerback Ryan Mouton returning punts bare-handed — no gloves! (Not sure if he also went gloveless while playing defense.) As it happens, he fumbled twice, which makes me wonder if he’ll be wearing gloves — or returning punts — next week.

• Similarly, it’s surprising to see Rams TE Daniel Fells going gloveless — and with the old-school tape loops on his fingers to boot!

• Speaking of the Rams, they retired Deacon Jones’s number at halftime yesterday.

• Jeff Fisher looked like he was wearing his big brother’s too-big shirt.

• I don’t know if holding was called on this play, but I hope so.

• Kinda early in the season for the Texans’ annual Halliburton Day uniforms, no?

• Oh, right — this. Frankly, I don’t have a lot to say about it, other than the obvious: It’s a very poor piece of design, and it takes the Seahawks’ inexplicable fascination with that neon-snot tone (which I have never liked — not on the pants, not on the logo eyeball, not on the gloves) to its logical conclusion. In other words, they’ve taken the worst element in a bad identity package and blown it up to its full potential. Congrats!

When Phil, Michael Princip, and I first proposed this design as an April Fool’s joke last spring, it was just a fun prank. We didn’t realize a bunch of idiots in the Seattle front office would take it as some sort of frat-boy dare. This would be flattering if it weren’t so depressing.

Anyway, now that we know the power of a Uni Watch April Fool’s rumor, next year I’ll be sure to propose something more useful, like the Mets ditching the black, or universal single-payer health care, or Guy Fieri developing laryngitis. Promise.

(Thanks to everyone who submitted tips and screen shots, including Bryan Stabbe, Mako Mameli, Max Sellman, Wayne Koehler, Steve Cadger, Chad Todd, and Mat Bernstein.)

Busy Week: On Wednesday, my annual NHL season-preview column will be running on ESPN.com. In addition, I’m going to have a companion column devoted to goalies’ new gear (not just masks, but also pads and blockers) — not sure yet if this bonus column will be running on ESPN or here on the blog. Plus I have a small NFL-related item running on the Page 2 index page right now (scroll down to the lower-left corner).

I’ll post updates here on the blog as things sort themselves out. Stay tuned, etc.

That’s all I can stand, I can’t stands no more: My Earthlink account had yet another major hiccup on Friday, the two primary results of which are as follows: (1) If you sent me anything between noon-ish on Friday and early Saturday morning, I probably didn’t receive it. And (2) I’m changing e-mail accounts.

So as of right now, Uni Watch’s new e-mail address is uniwatching [at] gmail dot com. All Ticker contributions and other uni-related correspondence should go to that address. I also have a new my personal address: plukas64 [at] gmail dot com (but please don’t use that one for uni-related stuff).

I’m keeping the Earthlink addresses active for a while and am forwarding them to my Gmail account, but please update your address books now. Thanks.

Uni Watch News Ticker: By now I’m sure you’ve all seen the very nice throwbacks that Oregon wore on Saturday. But just in case, there are plenty of photos available here. … Here’s a great shot of the thick memorial armband that the Pirates wore in 1932 in remembrance of team owner Barney Dreyfuss (with thanks to Bruce Menard). … New mask for Brett Johnson (with thanks to Zack Tanner). … Hey, is this the first time Arkansas has worn merit decals? (As spotted by Justin Bates.) … Reprinted from Friday’s comments: First 10 mins. or so of this podcast features Greg Coleman talking about his role as a NFL uni cop. … Steelers will be wearing their throwbacks twice this season. … Unusual scene in the ring on Saturday night, and Vitali Klitschko and Chris Arreola both wore black trunks for their WBC heavyweight title bout. … The Cubs wore that little cub-head patch on their left sleeve for most of the 1960s, but here’s Lou Brock wearing it on his right sleeve — weird (good catch by Matt DeLeon). … Speaking of sleeves, those green sleeve patches worn by college football coaches two days ago were part of a muscular dystrophy initiative. … Small item at the very end of this page indicates that the Cavs will be wearing a 40th-season patch this season (thanks, Vince). … Speaking of the NBA, I was up at their offices on Friday and saw all the new stuff for this season, and some for next season. Lots of interesting things in the works — stay tuned. … Ryan Simmelink has created a new web site called Baseball Backs, in which he creates Photoshopped versions of MLB rear-jersey views. … Some cool old University of New Hampshire sports photos here (with thanks to Tris Wykes). … Good eye by Chris Mangan, who notes that several NHLers are using a new brand of stick — a brand whose name sounds pretty damn good to me. Anyone know more? … Hey, remember how Sheldon Brown wore a Jason mask for pregame intros last week? That’ll cost him (with thanks to Kenny Ocker). … Terry Proctor sent along a nice Ruby’s Sporting Goods ad that ran in the Rochester Amerks program in 1965. … Happy High Heeb Holy Days to those of you who are observing (although if you’re really observing, shouldn’t you be off starving yourself in a corner and contemplating your sins, not reading a sports blog?).

Two days ago I Ticker-linked to this photo of a Wisconsin high school football player and asked, “Is this where football sock design is headed?”

I got a much more thorough answer than I’d anticipated from reader Jeff Bahry, who informed me that the socks are actually leg sleeves with elastic stirrup loops. “The fabric is comparable to higher-end polyester — not cotton,” he wrote. “They also feature a silicon band to
prevent slipping.”

The company behind this is a Wisconsin operation called Dye Sport, which specializes in sublimated graphics. If you click on “Team Sports” and then start poking around from there, you can get an idea of what they’re about — basically, if you have really bad taste some innovative design ideas, they’ll indulge you as far as you want to go.

The socks aren’t mentioned on the Dye Sport site, however, so I gave them a call and found myself talking to company founder Scott Yeomans. Here’s how our chat went down:

Uni Watch: So what’s the story with these socks? I’ve never seen anything like them.

Scott Yeomans: We developed that about four years ago. We test-marketed it on one Wisconsin high school — Lancaster — to see how it performed, how the kids liked it, blah-blah-blah. And they ended up winning the state championship in it. And from there, things really started exploding. And actually, the Lancaster coach told us they didn’t have any kids cramping up with calf cramps that season. Is it the socks, is it that the kids were in better condition or better hydrated? I can’t say it’s definitely the socks…

UW: What was the design that you did for them?

SY: I’m trying to remember. I remember how we were watching the state tournament on TV and the commentators and the camera kept focusing on the socks. “Look at those socks!” I think we had a gradient — white down at the shoe and fading up to royal blue — with an arrow design.

UW: And how many teams are wearing the socks now?

SY: Last year we had 30 teams here in Wisconsin. This year it’s close to 50, plus we have a team in Michigan wearing them. And we have a dealer now in Arizona — I just shipped him 70 pairs for a youth soccer team. And we have our own boys’ and girls’ soccer teams wearing them here in town — they’re just lovin’ ’em. So we’re gonna expand more into soccer, girls’ softball. And getting back to football, last year we had six Wisconsin teams wearing our socks in the state tournament, and two of them won their divisions, so we’re getting a lot of good exposure.

UW: Since these socks are open at the bottom, does the player wear an ankle sock under it or what?

SY: Some of ’em wear a full-length sock underneath; some of ’em wear a little ankle or no-show sock. It’s personal preference. But you have that stirrup strap to pull it down into the shoe, so it looks like a full sock.

UW: Why’d you choose to make it that way, instead of making a traditional sock with a toe?

SY: It’s less bulky, and it lasts longer. If a sock develops a tear or wears out, it’s usually in the toe.

UW: And again, just to make sure I understand, you developed this product yourself, and you offer it exclusively?

SY: Yes.

UW: Has there been any negative feedback from people who think these designs are too radical or whatever?

SY: No. You have your old-school coaches, but you have more and more younger coaches, and they seem to like the socks a little more cutting-edge.

UW: And, of course, you can offer this product in a conservative design too — it doesn’t make any difference to you.

SY: Right. If they just want a solid red sock, that’s fine. Most of them, though, they’ll put the helmet logo on the side, or the school logo.

And speaking of sock-related follow-up items: Back on Monday I asked about the sock logo that Maurice Stovall has been wearing. Turns out it’s the logo for a brand of compression gear I’d never heard of before: Sweat It Out. The bad news is that I just played into their hands by giving them free publicity; the good news, I hope, is that some of the NFL’s uni police guys read this site and will now start cracking down on this pernicious logo creep.

Gazoo Boo-Boos Up the Wazoo: I really messed up the part of yesterday’s ESPN column that pertained to the new S100 batting helmet. As originally published around noontime, the column stated that only three players had worn the helmet in a game: David Wright, Ryan Dempster, and Shane Victorino. But then, shortly after the column went live, Guy Serumgard informed me that Carlos Guillen wore the S100 on Sept. 3rd (apparently this was even noted at some point in the comments section on this site, but I either didn’t notice or didn’t remember), so we added a little “Update” graf to that section of the column. That was shortly before 2pm.

Then I went out and didn’t get back to a computer until about 9pm, at which point I found several e-mails from people telling me that Edgar Gonzalez had also worn the S100. Too late to add another update to the column — I’ll just run a correction in my next ESPN piece.

Not sure how I missed the boat so badly on this — I thought I’d been keeping track of the S100 situation. Interestingly, when I interviewed Rawlings exec Mike Thompson for yesterday’s column, the very first question I asked him was, “Just to make sure I have my facts straight, to my knowledge only Dempster, Wright, and Victorino have worn the new helmet — is that right?” He replied, “Yes.” Of course, it’s not his job to keep track of that — it’s mine — so that doesn’t absolve me. If anything, it’s another reminder that I need to do my own homework and not depend on others to confirm things for me.

Anyway: Let the record show that five MLBers have worn the S100 — unless you know of any others who’ve done so.

Research Query: Got a note yesterday from Matt DeLeon, who poses a very good question: “I was wondering if you knew the history of the ‘Property of’ T-shirts. Were there shirts that were actually the ‘property of’ certain teams? I would assume so, although a T-shirt would seem to be something worth giving away after a few uses. How far back do these shirts go, and what’s the history behind them?”

Excellent question! Anyone out there know anything about this? If so, give me a shout.

“Turntable? What’s a turntable?”: I’ve put a few more old indie-rock 45s up for auction on eBay, and I’ll continue to add more over the next couple of weeks. You can keep track of everything I’m selling here.

Uni Watch News Ticker: LSU will be wearing purple jerseys this Saturday against Mississippi State. “This is unusual because they generally only wear purple at home for non-conference opponents — this is a conference game on the road,” notes Ben Melancon. … New mask for Yann Danis. … The Swedish military has some uni issues (with thanks to Chad Todd). … Is it OK to wear ONOB is the jersey is given to you by the team? (Nice find by John Brooks.) … There’s a resurgence in sales of Expos gear, and it’s coming from an unlikely source (with thanks to Graham Bakay). … Jon Canella notes that Pedro Feliz always has a line of dirt on the back of his road jersey. “I’ve been noticing it since the end of May,” he says. “Superstitious? Not a good enough stain remover by the clubhouse attendant?” And before you propose any theories of your own, remember it only happens on Feliz’s road jersey. Weird. … A few months ago I got some e-mails from a Milwaukee marketing exec who wanted to redesign the Packers’ logo. I didn’t post his designs, because (a) I didn’t think they were very good, and (b) the Packers obviously aren’t going to change their mark. But I guess it was a slow news day at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal.

Lookie what I’ve got: a pair of the Broncos’ throwback socks. And if you’re wondering why I folded them down at the top, it’s because they’re the longest tube socks I’ve ever owned. Super-plush and comfy, though — Uni Watch’s highest rating! If you want your own, they’re available for $15 from the Broncos team shop (720-258-3300).

Congrats to Pierce Bassett, who won the soccer jacket raffle. And apologies to everyone else, because I’m celebrating the autumnal equinox by taking the day off and shutting down the comments. See you tomorrow, OK? OK. — Paul

Relatively quiet day in the NFL yesterday, but there were still a few noteworthy items. To wit:

• Joe Skiba had promised me that the Giants would wear their road gray pants if forced to wear their blue jerseys on the road this year, and sure enough, that’s what they did last night. Personally, I like it.

• Brandon Jacobs’s left-shoulder Reebok logo was sort of ghosted last night. The entire Giants team wore those sotto voce logos in the first preseason game last month, but since then the logos have been white. Not sure that’s all about — I’ll ask Skeebs, but he probably won’t tell me (at least not on the record), because anything involving Reebok is super-touchy.

• It’s official: The Giants’ new jerseys, with their fancy high-tech fabric, are a disaster. (For details on the fabric, look here.) I don’t know if they’re too stretchy or what, but there were all sorts of situations like this and this. Those two shots are both of Jacobs, but I noticed similar problems with other players. A bad scene. (Screen shots courtesy of Phil — thanks, buddy.)

• Meanwhile, the Cowboys unexpectedly (to me, at least) wore a stadium patch, based on this logo. Not sure if they’ll be wearing it at home all season or if it was just a one-game thing — will investigate.

• Those Falcons throwbacks were the bomb, no? Additional images here and here.

• NFL nameplates usually run the full shoulder-to-shoulder wingspan, even for short surnames. But not in San Francisco, where the Niners are using short nameplates for short names.

• Speaking of the Niners, here’s a small detail I’ve been meaning to mention: For the past several years, the Reebok logo on their pants has been black, but now it’s white — much nicer.

• Anyone know what that logo is on Maurice Stovall’s sock?

• Chris Johnson had his belt unbuckled.

• Stupidest move of the day: Many of the coaches were wearing polo shirts with their division noted along the sleeve or shoulder (on the left side for NFC coaches, on the right for AFC coaches). Because hey, nothing says cool like “NFC West” or “AFC West,” right? What a load of crap.

• Even weirder: Jim Zorn’s shirt wasn’t division-specific — it was conference-specific.

• And speaking of coaches, Brad Childress was wearing this rinky-dink headset instead of the usual Motorola rig. Anyone know what that was about?

Raffle Reminder: Today’s the last day for the SoccerPro.com raffle. Details here.

Just Sayin’: Awesome work by Phil over the weekend. In case you missed it, he’s running a cap design contest, plus he and Ricko have proposed an innovative solution to the NFL’s sleeve problem. Great stuff.

Uni Watch News Ticker: Buried on this page is the news that the Browns are going with the chocolate pants on the road all season. Interestingly, the lack of a stripe is cited as a comfort issue (with thanks to Charles Ryals). … New hoops uniforms for Nebraska (with thanks to David McGee). … New mask for Steve Mason (with thanks to Matt Lesser). … Also from Matt: Former Penguins goalie Mathieu Garon is now with Columbus, but he’s still wearing his Pens mask, at least for now. New design presumably forthcoming. … More new NHL masks, this time for Vesa Toskala and Chris Mason (courtesy of Matthew Gahm). … Good observation from Ben Beattie, who writes: “Georgia Tech’s Demaryius Thomas is using a ‘B’ first initial. According to his profile on the GT athletic site, his nickname is Bay-Bay, though he could be doing some sort of dedication to his father, who is named Bobby. Last year he had no initial.” … Got a spare five grand laying around? You can buy yourself over 50 old jerseys. … Other good eBay stuff: a tennis jacket, bowling sweater, basketball warm-up shirt (additional hoops warm-ups here, here, and here), track and field jacket, and baseball jersey (here’s one more). … Wait, here’s one more basketball warm-up. Look at that chest logo! … New hoops uni for Cincinnati. Here’s the rear view. … Those were some weird-ass trunks that Floyd Mayweather wore on Saturday night — fuzzy on the sides and dimpled in the front. … New AHL uniforms for the Texas Stars, Bridgeport Sound Tigers, and Abbortsford Heat (with thanks to Kevin Wright). … Now that’s a geeky look for tossing out a first pitch. “I think it was a game-used Bob Gibson jersey,” says Elena Elms. … Steve Johnston was at Comiskey on Saturday night and spotted this kid with a converted Joe Crede tee. “His sister did the same thing with her Nick Swisher T-shirt but she taped over the whole thing to turn it into a #15 Gordon Beckham tee, but I didn’t get a photo of that one,” says Steve. … Oh man, check out all these awesome NFL lunchboxes! … Steve Mandich has posted more pocket schedules from the Seahawks and Mariners, plus he’s begun compiling paperback book cover designs from a seminal category I’d forgotten all about: Bill Gutman’s sports biographies. … Reprinted from last night’s comments: According to this interview with Jeffrey Loria, the Marlins will have new uniforms and colors for their new stadium in 2012.

By Phil Hecken, with Rick Pearson

You may have heard the phrase before, since I used it last weekend quite a bit. “Just One More Bumper Sticker” syndrome is a phrase my running mate, Rick Pearson (aka “Ricko”) and I use to describe a (typically) football uniform that has one unique (or semi-unique) design element, but instead of just plain leaving well enough alone, the designers have to add one (or more) unnecessary, superfluous or extraneous element(s) rendering the entire uniform … well … not good. The “design” may look great on paper, or more likely, in Adobe or some other photoshop-type program, but it fails when actually put on a human being. Stick with me here.

With the official first weekend of NFL football finally upon us, and with Paul’s most-awaited column of the year (in my opinion, anyway) posted last Wednesday, Ricko and I are going to look at some of the uniforms on the NFL that suffer from OMBS (”one more bumper sticker”) syndrome, or are just a tweak or two away from looking REALLY good. We’re not touching the classics, we’re not talking about changing colors, logos or helmets — we’re just going to look at several teams whose uniforms are thisclose to being very good or great. Today, we will examine the five most egregious violators of uniform protocol — the Cards, Falcons, Bills, Rick’s own Vikings and the Bengals. With just a few minor tweaks (OK, in some cases they may be more than minor), we can improve these uniforms. Of course, many of you will disagree, but that’s OK because these are just our opinions. But when all is said and done, we think you’ll agree, the minor changes we’re suggesting will be changes for the better. OK? Good, let’s set the ground rules.

Ricko sets the parameters:

* We see it more as “editing” than redesigning.

* We stay inside the current design elements.

* That means…
> No color changes.
> No logo changes.

* We just clean up the overkill, the excess in “bumper stickers”, show a little restraint.

* We will consider past unis in making minor modifications.

* No dark monochrome combinations will be considered. (Well, Rick thinks there are a few that work OK)

Rick also wants to stress that we’re “not saying EVERYONE should make these, not at all. Just that if a few did, it would diminish the now-getting-routine proliferation of panels, yokes, wandering piping and meandering pants stripes.”

Many of the new looks are fun, and we left them alone. We’re also giving the Broncos a “full and complete pardon,” since, although that uniform may have been the precursor to the side panel and truncated stripe madness, they were the originator of that look. That’s good enough for us — you invent it, you keep it, it’s yours. We just think if a few teams would pull back on such things a little, there’d actually be more variety in NFL uniforms.

Ready?

Arizona Cardinals: The southwest birds underwent a major uni overhaul only a scant few years ago, going from one of the all time classics to one of the worst OMBS teams. Seriously — WTF? You’ve got shoulders that are a different color (on the roads) than the rest of the uni, little “panels” within those shoulder blotches, weird stripes running down the sides of the jersey, and some amorphous truncated stripe on the pants. Too much. So, what can we do to improve this cacophony of offensive visual malacuity?

Lets start by removing the side panels truncated pants “stripe”. This way, we keep the feel for the uniform, but remove the extra bumper stickers. Oh yeah, adding striped socks is a must too. The Cards don’t look too bad in red pants, so we take the same approach there — ok, maybe they need a real stripe. You want to add a throwbackish stripe instead (and some ‘matching’ socks)? Maybe that’s pushing it. Personally, I loved the ‘all white look‘ of the last generation of uniforms, so if I had my way, I’d remove the shoulder red, give them some real shoulder stripes, and stick the old logo on there for good measure. But that’s probably just wishful thinking.

For the home uniform, while it’s already better now than the road (at least being solid red, for the most part), it still suffers from the random white panels & unneeded black piping — plus those awful pants. If we remove the bumper stickers, and properly stripe the pants, here’s what we get. Not bad, right? Only other tweak you could make is to put the Cardinal logo back on the sleeve.

We start with the Cardinals because they seem to exemplify the alarming trend of making the pro’s unis look like NCAA Division II schools. Let’s keep that sort of stuff back in the college game. But the Cardinals are far from alone.

Atlanta Falcons: The southeast birds very much like the Cardinals. And again, this is only one or two less bumper stickers away from being a really good uniform. Especially when you consider that this season, the Falcons are throwing back with this beauty. Their current uni set (notice the beautiful throwbacks in that template) is light years away from anything resembling an NFL uniform, but with a few minor changes, it would look pretty damn good.

Simply removing the multicolored “chips” in the shoulders, and eliminating the superfluous side piping and truncated pants stripes yields a very respectable uni set. Of course, those shoulder colorizations could certainly go too.

One element about the Falcons uniforms is, if you take away the extraneous junk, you can dress them in several different (although no monochrome red or black) unis and they’ll look good in all of them. Seriously. All-white, black over red (hey, we like the red pants), red over black (just make sure the socks are a different color), red over white, white over red (even looks good without stripes), or black over white. It’s all good! They like to play mix-and-match, and we like that. Just get rid of the extra bumper stickers.

Buffalo Bills: OK, we think most of us agree this is the worst uniform in the NFL. It’s always running neck and neck with the Bengals (we’ll get to them shortly), but surely, it’s up there. It would probably take more than the removal of a few bumper stickers to get them looking anywhere near as good as the AFL throwbacks they’re sporting this season, but we’ll give it a shot. We can certainly improve the uni without too much effort. As with the first two offenders, we’ll need to remove the side panels and start there.

Simply getting rid of the panels is an immense improvement. But it’s still not very good. Yet. See, the Bills are one of those teams who think monochrome white (not terrible) or monochrome blue (awful, awful, awful) is a good look. Simply pairing the white top with blue pants is an improvement. Conversely, pairing the blue top with white pants is much better. (Ricko tweaks that look a tad further by adding the logo to the jersey and moving the TV numbers to the shoulders.) But it’s still a mess — two different colors (and not all that complimentary either) of blue, red helmet, shoulder “yoke” (for lack of a better term). Feh.

We strive to keep at least one unique element when tweaking the uniforms, and it appears as though the Bills are alone in that shoulder yoke. But do they really need a two color yoke on their road unis? No. So, lets keep the outline and decide on one color blue for the jerseys and pants. Not a fan of the navy? We’re not either, they’re more of a royal blue kind of team. See? Much better.

We’ve eliminated the visual cacophony that is the current uni. Now, lets fix the home jersey by simply keeping the minor adjustments and putting them in a more appropriate royal blue. Is it as good as this? Hell no. Like most people on the planet, we’d prefer they adopt that full time. But is this better than this? You be the judge.

On a quick side note, Ricko and I disagree on at least one point concerning the Bills. I wouldn’t mind seeing them in a red jersey (with throwback helmet) or especially in their current lids. Rick, however, remembers the Bills in royal blue, so to him, that red jersey is anathema. Hey, we can’t always be in agreement.

Minnesota Vikings: One of the more egregious offenders in the bumper sticker syndrome department. Actually, the Vikings have what appears to be a very cool and unique element to their uniforms — the attempted “replication” of the helmet horn on the jersey sleeve. Or, at least that’s what we’d like to believe. But, like the others, they take it too far by adding the ridiculous panel. And then there’s the pants. Piping and truncated striping again. Make it stop.

Our solution for the Vikings is relatively simple. Ricko simply removes the superfluous side panel to create the illusion of a horn, and of course, gives them normal pants stripes. I took that a bit further by putting an actual horn on the sleeve. Either way, it’s an improvement.

For the away jerseys, you could put the actual Viking on the sleeve, continue the “shoulder treatment” (as Ricko suggested), or go with purple horn (similar to the home mockup). I really like Ricko’s idea the best here.

Simple, keeping a nice unique design element (viking horn replicated on shoulder), and cleaning up the excess bumper stickers. Done.

Cincinnati Bengals: Viewed by many as the worst uniform in all of football (or at least a close second to the Bills), this could easily be a great and distinctive uniform, but for all the extra clutter bumper stickers. I mean, c’mon … seriously? Yet, the Bengals are very unique in distinct with their “tiger stripe” helmet and shoulder pads, but they get carried away with the panels, piping, etc. Our solution to the Bengals is surprisingly simple, but it fits in with the above teams. Lets dump the junk and focus on a truly cool element. And give them some real pants stripes. And no monochrome black.

The Cincy club is another who like to “mix and match” various tops and bottoms. That’s OK. We’ll start with the white over white. Now, damn! That’s a pretty good looking uniform, right there. But the white jersey, currently is the only one without the stupid panel down the side, so that’s an easy fix. How about black over white? Nice right? Keeps the stripes prominently but not to the point of beating a dead horse. And since real bengal tigers are more orange than black, Ricko thinks the orange jersey should be their main jersey, rather than the alt. I think we could all enjoy seeing this six or eight times a season. The key element here, though, is the white pants — they really look good with any of those three jerseys.

What about the black pants? Well, we’d prefer they don’t wear them, but as long as they will, we need to put on real stripes and make sure the socks are not black. What about on orange top? We’re getting a little crazy, here but OK. Still beats what they wear now. Finally, they don’t actually wear orange pants, but again, how about we replace those black ones? It’s a tad loud, but it could work. Better orange than black.

And we’ve still kept the unique helmet and shoulder stripes, which are the essence of the Bengals, and the beginning of a much better uniform. At least we think so.

Lime Green Hawks? On another note, the rumor mill is still ablaze about a possible Seahawks alternate — the one Paul wrote about on April Fool’s Day. Paul alluded to it in his NFL preview column, and we’ve all seen the leaked Madden screen grab. Even UW’s resident Seahawk uber-fan, and the man behind greenglare.com, Michael Princip has come up with a concept.

God save us all. Of course, Ricko and I are on opposite ends of this one — Ricko thinks the snot lime green alt (NOW rumored to be paired with lime green PANTS) would be ‘fun’ while I think it may be “ok” if worn ONLY ONE TIME and then permanently retired (unlike the Browns brown pants). This retina searing getup can only be a blight on the game, in my opinion.

And if you’re all hoping to see this, even once, whether it be with white or “blue” (not quite sure what that color is) pants … Be careful what you wish for. Can you imagine a whole UNIFORM in that color? That could set the earth a-spinning off its axis. Seriously.

OK, that’s going to do it for this week’s “bumper sticker” piece. I’ll be back with Ricko soon to offer some more modest tweaks to some of the other NFL teams. The worst offenders have been fixed. But our work is not yet done. Let us know what you think.

Our man in the street, Jim Vilk brings you his “Top 5″ Best and one WORST college football uni matchup from yesterday:

#5: How classic is Notre Dame vs. Michigan? And the game was pretty classic too.

#4: Iowa vs. Iowa State. A lot of yellow, but it works, so let it brighten your day.

#3: USC vs. TOSU. You probably won’t see this matchup in January, so enjoy it now.

#2: PSU vs. Syracuse. Love the contrast of blue and white vs. white and orange.

#1: UCLA vs. Tennessee. Very cool. Don’t change a thing, either one of you.

And the WORST uni matchup is….

Mizzou vs. Bowling Green. All black vs. brown pit stains? Bleah.

Thanks Jim. I’ll make sure to provide dissenters with your E-mail addy on request.

Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: I’m pretty sure I never gave you this one as a game before. If I did, in advance, I apologize. It’s probably not all that difficult anyway, but you never know. Teams are obvious, stadium should be obvious … all that’s left is determining when the game was played and the final score. As always, use a link Retrosheet or Baseball Almanac to post your guess. And, please let me know if you want to try a “Guess The Game” for football, since the season has now begun (don’t know how that would play out, but we can try it if you’re all up for it). OK? OK. Ready? Guess The Game.

Two words: “Foot Fault”

Whew. We wind down this post with a nice, full-color edition of Benchies. Of course, on ‘opening weekend’ of the NFL, the boys are out on the gridiron. Ricko didn’t fix their unis, tho — they’re fine just as is. So, without further ado, here’s your 11 Panel Sunday Benchies.

That’s a wrap. Are you ready for some football?

If you’re interested in sending me a MLB “uni tweak,” you know what to do. Probably gonna have a post on those I’ve received so far real soon. And, next weekend, all you graphic artists get ready, because we’re gonna have a contest … with an actual prize. So stay tuned. Have a fantastic Sunday everyone.

By Phil Hecken

Welcome back to part two of the Milwaukee Brewer makeover series. If you missed Part I, featuring some amazing mock ups by Chance Michaels and David Frost, be sure to take a look-see.

We’re on to part two today, however, and we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. So, let’s get it started.

We begin today with an amazing effort from David Timmerman, who happens to be the Editor of the Grant County Herald Independent, and who has been sending me many submissions over the past month or so. David has a lot to say, so I’ll let him say it in his own words:

Taking up your challenge on changes to the Brewers uniforms, I tried to mix some history into the current uni set, staying away from wholesale changes. A lifelong Brewers fan, I wanted to see some history incorporated into the mix, some more subtle than others.

Thoughts on current uniforms

When the Brewers unveiled their newest jersey in the spring of 2000, it was supposed to usher in a new era with a new ballpark, but due to an unfortunate crane failure which took the lives of three construction workers, as well as the roof in right field, Miller Park was still a year away from opening. So the Crew took the field in the new unis to say goodbye to historic Milwaukee County Stadium.

After jettisoning the ‘Notre Dame’ look of an intersecting M and B (and eliminating the moldy green bats of the fairly generic logo) they came out with one harkening to a past – not the Brewers past, mind you, but a past. And I liked the logo very much – That B for Brewers is certainly unique and rich feeling, as is the M that graces the hat. I like the touch of barley under the M as well.

The logo is similar to the one for Miller Park, which hovers over the scoreboard. Now why they didn’t make that logo more animated (like having the balls rotate, or the lights blink for a homer) I have no idea.

When it came to the jerseys, I was less than thrilled by final version, mainly due to font selection which I blaming on Laurel Prieb, who was one of the VP’s at the time, related to the ownership of the Minnesota Twins, and more importantly, married to Wendy Selig-Prieb, team president and Bud’s daughter. That choice of Garamond/Times/serifed typeface, similar to what the Washington Capitals were using at the time should never grace a uniform, but there it is. I have to note that it is the same font chosen for the seats and rows within the park as well.

Now I think uniforms should stick with tradition as much as they can, but I also don’t want teams trying to look to a past that they never had. Most teams usually incorporate a block-style for the numbers, and while I would never want the Packers to alter their uniforms, I think the Brewers should have some leeway. Now what I would love to have is a toned-down version of what the Brewers had in the 90s, liking the shape of the numbers, which did have too much layering going on. Since I cannot find that, I went with a font, SquareSlab, that I find is similar to what the Eagles used when they revised their unis.

Another issue I had with the unis was the lack of either piping or striping. Very few teams incorporate neither on their jerseys, the Cardinals come to mind, and I think their main reason is, beyond tradition that is, because their chest graphic is so large and detailed, it would be over-doing it. Otherwise, I think every team should have one of them, but since the Cubs utilize stripes, and the retro jerseys have it as well, I went with piping.

I just couldn’t decide on whether to go with a single pipe, or dual-colored piping, much like the Braves. On the road jersey, it felt like a bit much, but looked good on the home jersey. I went with multiple stripes on the sleeves to harken back to 1970, which was a remnant from the Pilots.

Another thing was the color scheme. There have been three Milwaukee Brewers teams in the history of the city. The first was the 1901 team that played for only the inaugural season of the American League, jetting to St. Louis to become the Browns, who then became the Orioles. The second, and more famous of the first two was the American Association Brewers, who were the ones implementing the BarrelMan logo. Bud Selig had always wanted to return to those days, which included a blue-red color scheme, which was probably copied from parent club, the Braves. But strapped for cash, Selig had to go with the Blue-Gold color scheme of the Pilots when they were moved from Seattle.

Now on the current Brewers uniform, the gold has shiny specks in it, and is a truer gold. But Baseball players shouldn’t sparkle! Although I love the 80s Brewers, I didnt want to go with the yellow. So what I tried to go with was something slightly lighter than the ‘old gold’ the Jets used on their throwback Titans of New york unis last year.

Road Version – One of my biggest complaint for specifically the away unis was the fact that they removed Milwaukee. In understand that maybe this was done to have one cut for patches on the uniforms, but if you can have multiple colors for the dark blue, alternate uniforms, as well as the throwback unis, you can cut Milwaukee and slap it onto front. For the road jersey, I altered the grey, adding more blue, and darkening them a little. I wish I could mock-up one that was alittle shinier, similar to Georgetown’s unis and harken back to the late 1940s satin jerseys teams wore for nighttime games on television, but that may be a bit gaudy. I brought back BarrelMan for the road uniforms….I also think he may look good on a hat….

I wanted to set these uniforms apart from others, so I reversed the lettering, making it white. Like I said, I like the M, so I kept that on the hat. Another area I had a conflict was on the back – I really like having the numbers in white, but I wondered if it conflicted with the numbers in blue on the front. Also, what to do with the piping. I show both here……

Home uniforms – Similar to the road uniforms, there are a few changes. We stick with ‘Brewers’ across the chest, and I retain the gold drop shadow, although part of me wants to alter the tail under the letters to make it much larger. I bring back a revised ball and glove to the hat – The ‘fingers’ would be raised as on many new hat logos. I had real conflicts about this – do you alter the logo in any way, make it look more like a glove, make the M and the B more subtle? (David even added a red version of the uniform — [PH]) What color do you make the elements? Is it even a good idea, or should this log be saved for the throwback jerseys? I like the new Curly B, and would like that on the hat, but in the end I went with modifying the ball in the logo to simplify it, but wouldn’t be against somehow incorporating a metal stud in the shape of a ball…I also don’t think the home team needs nameplates on the back. The teams in the 80s didn’t need them, and it seems to be the only think the Yankees and Red Sox can agree on, so it should be good enough for the Brewers…

Different colors – I thought another alternative could be ‘colorizing’ the jerseys, going red, or blue, or green for St. Patty’s Day.

Pretty good start, right? Well, David had more — much more — in store for me. We’ll get back to him in a little bit, but let’s see what else we have.

Moving along, our next few sets of uniforms come with a little less description, but the effort is top notch.

Next up is Paul Radetsky, who simply writes: “This a first attempt at something like this … I’ve done some uni-design for All-Stars for the league my son played in … (I’m a) Graphic Designer by trade.”

And what did Paul create? Only this amazing concept set.

He didn’t describe it, but it’s obviously a complete home, away and alternate set. The home jersey is actually a vest, with pinstripes, and a unique font. The cap is a fauxback, featuring a blue brim, white crown (with blue back) featuring the classic “ball in glove” logo. On the sleeve, Paul has added a throwback Milwaukee state patch with the “ball in glove” (BIG) logo contained within. The away set returns the word “Milwaukee” to the chest, in the same font as the home, and keeps the sleeve patch the same. He uses a solid blue cap featuring the current Brewer “M” logo. Finally, the alternate is a solid blue jersey, featuring not a wordmark but the “ball in glove” logo on the left side of the chest, same patch as on the home and away, and a third cap similar to his home proposal, only this cap features a blue brim, gold crown (solid all around) and the “old school” BIG logo. Two sock options are provided — one a solid blue sock with the BIG logo, and the second, a blue stirrup with gold sanitary (real nice throwback element there). Each of these elements is shown clearly on his mockup.

Stellar job Paul!

Our next submitter is reader and poster Andrew “Greenie” Greenwood who has some nice ideas to share. Here’s Andrew:

I’m bringing back the ball and mitt. The colors are the gold used back in the 80’s and a brighter blue than they use now. Ball and mitt on hat, current brewers script on home chest with new colors. Home jersey is not white, but more of an eggshell. (I love the cream of the Giants, and that off-white skews toward orange, so i figure the Brewer’s cream should skew toward gold, making it an eggshell color.) Blue sleeves on away grey jersey with blue belt. Milwaukee written vertically arched in blue and gold on the chest, both with blue socks. Also kept the M on Wisconsin outline as a sleeve patch for the home team.

And with that intro, here is Andrew’s creation. When I first saw it, I thought Greenie was going for a “vest” on the away jersey, so I asked him about that. Turns out, as usual, I was wrong. “Those blue sleeves were actually inspired by the Milwaukee Bears throwback they wore this year,” explains Andrew. “It looked so nice on the field, I wanted to bring back the look. The slightly different blue that I used is actually from those Bears jerseys too.”

Superb job, Greenie.

We now return to David Timmerman, who liked the idea of tweaking the Brewers so much, he continued to send me submissions. He continued to fine-tune his home and roads, and added some new powder blues (a nice harkback). His next missive went like this:

Well, I worked on revising my template, so I am ready for future projects. In addition, I made revisions to the home Brewers jersey:

• Increased the size of the tail under the name on the front of the jersey
• Increased size of B on ‘Brewers’ nameplate, also skewed the rest of the name for better arching over number
• Eliminated the gold piping (looked like too much after I revised the piping template)
• Added stripes to the sanis
• Fine-tuned the Ball & Glove logo (two-tone ball has ying-yang look about it)

I didn’t say what I did with the Powder Blue unis, but I increased the flag from the Road Milwaukee logo, and only kept the ‘Pilot’ striping. (As with many of David’s creations, he sent me a second powder blue concept — [PH].) To tell the truth, the toughest part was deciding on the hat (ball&Glove versus others, what color).

This is my latest, with striped sanis since I know you guys love the sanis, and a yellow brim (could not go with a yellow front, and still not crazy about it…). Also, I felt that maybe in these high-definition times, the color I had utilized for the powder blue was too vibrant, so I scaled it back, maybe as the unis looked like when they were unveiled in the flannel days…

Sorry, don’t mean to be a bother, just a fun project to work on…

No bother at all David, they keep getting better. But David is still not finished. We’ll be back with the next batch in a sec.

The next to take the plunge was Zach Davis, who, like all who submitted suggestions, did a tremendous job. Zach states, “My basic idea was to take the pre-strike Brewers uniform and update it for 2010. I tried to keep everything classic yet modern at the same time and logically evolve things as if the mid-’90s redesign never happened. Of all the Brewers logos I’ve always loved the old ‘Wisconsin’ logo, so that takes center stage with a newly designed ‘M’. The Ball-in-glove logo goes through some color shifting — the yellow outline becomes white and I’ve added a yellow outline to the glove itself. In doing that I absolutely fell in love with the ‘ball’ part of the ball-in-glove, so I’ve separated it and made it the official third logo (and replaced the ‘Milwaukee Star’ in the ‘Wisconsin’ logo with it) and I think it looks fantastic, even slightly harkening back to the Pilots. All the fonts are new and I threw in a custom script logo for the hell of it. The uniform set is classic without (hopefully) being either too stodgy or too ‘retro’ and I especially liked being able to give a nod to the Pilots in the styling of the third/sunday uniform. The caps are nods to the history of baseball in Milwaukee, combining stylings of the Brewers with that of the Milwaukee Braves.”

Here’s a “full look” at Zach’s masterpiece. Another tremendous effort from a dedicated Uni Watcher. Great fonts, and I love how a couple of our submitters, like Zach, are “harking” back to the old Wisconsin outline logo.

Next up is Kevin Callahan who is the Creative Director for Alterra Coffee (alterracoffee.com) here in Milwaukee.

And here is what Kevin created for his Brewers redux.

Kevin states, “As you can see I am a big fan of the “Barrel Man”, which I feel is a much stronger and livelier logo than the much ballyhooed “mb Glove”. The glove logo is simply clever and that’s all. Barrel Man is clever and has a personality that is lacking in the glove logo.

“I kept the Pilots’ Blue and Gold even though Red, White and Blue would be more traditional. While it is imperative that the city name be on the road uni, I understand that “Milwaukee” is possibly too long.”

Fantastic job on those Kevin. Can’t say I am a huge fan of the abbreviation (although, there is certainly precedent for that sort of thing in baseball). And here we have another submitter who has put a logo, rather than a wordmark, on the “alt” jersey. Nice work!

Winding down, our penultimate submitter is Steve Prestegard, who has a slighly different take on the new look for the Crew. Here’s Steve:

I freely admit to being not much of an artist. I can visualize concepts, but the execution … well, to quote John McKay, I’m all for it.

While there are certainly better concepts out there, I think the concepts are off the mark in one important area. None of them use the colors of beer, and they usually use colors that are quite overused — namely, navy blue and red. (Arguably, those colors and the royal blue and gold are more befitting of beer cans than beer.) The colors in this concept are black (for dark beer), gold (lager) and cream (the head).

The first one is a very simple Germanic M (yes, it looks very similar to Detroit’s D) using black and gold. The next two are home (cream) and home alt uniforms, followed by road (tannish-gray) and road alt unis.

Anyway, do with these what you will. Ein prosit.

Thanks for those Steve. Those were actually sent to Paul, and were part of an inline message, so I apologize for them having a “black” background — not sure what happened, but, especially with the black alts and cap, it makes them more difficult to see. Still, you guys will get the idea.

Winding this massive post up, we return, one last time, to David Timmerman, as he completes his masterpiece of uni concepting:

Well, here I am once again with my thoughts on the Brewers jerseys. In my reimagining of the jerseys, I would have four jerseys for the team (Home White, Road Grey, ‘Ghost of the 70’s’ muted powder blue, and 80’s throwback striped.

I have never been a fan of the full-color alternate unis, which look too much like a team’s batting jerseys in my eyes (The ‘Black’ Sox are one of the few exceptions). The Cubs especially look awful in those royal blue outfits (well, at least even more putrid then they normally look for this long-time Brewers fan). So if I was the owner of the Brewers, those navy alternates would be on a truck for the clearance rack.

But, looking to make a buck off anything (and taking a positive cue from the college and NFL practice unis unveiled) I would put some style into the spring training / batting practice jerseys. I like the choice for batting practice caps made a few years back, and think some choices on the batting jersey, which is also worn exclusively during spring training, could lift sales.

So here is what I came up with — retaining the darker tones that usually grace the practice uniforms, while tossing the stripes and piping. I have added muted blue strips below the armpits, similar to some football uniforms, but these are not meant to reach out of the pit onto the front of the jersey, merely run down the sides. With Milwaukee training in Arizona, these strips would be made of a highly breathable, and stretchable material, and utilize ‘Dry’-Cool’ fabrics.

Since they will be used for spring training, going with a block letter/number combo to reduce costs. Also, unlike the the regular season jerseys, no drop shadowing. Thought about making the front numbers blue or gold, but just couldn’t pull the trigger. Also, going with a simple sock.

During spring training, would go with the powder blue pants (matching the armpit strips), but they would be worn above any pants before a game. Also went with a pullover with a button instead of a full jersey..

I also wanted to add some detail to the jersey, but couldn’t decide what to do. Thought about placing letters on the front (R for rookie, C for captain) as well as incorporating some small stripes on the sleeve or front to represent each year the player had been with the team…

Still not quite finished, David came back up for air and asked, “what did you think was better, the bright powder blues, or the more muted look?” Obligingly, I told him, and he even created a uniform just for me, which he called “Powder Phil.” Flattered was I by this gesture, but it’s really just combining a couple disparate elements from his different concepts.

Thinking David was done, I was ready to call it a post, but, hey, what’s one more missive and one more concept? Here’s David, one last time:

to annoy you, whipped up one more jersey, this one more reaching out to my creative side then necessarily looking to to create a new Brewers jersey, per say.

Being an amateur historian of certain Wisconsin teams, I know that teams from the state that wear blue and gold often place their numbers in a circle at some point in their history. Marquette, who often tried something new when it came to uniform design, had blue circles around the numbers. The Packers, when they were still using Blue and gold, before they donned their namesake green, first encircled their numbers in a gold ball on the front of their jerseys.

So I thought, why not the Brewers? Baseballs are round, and what better way to determine the arch of the nameplate on the back than with a circle. I decided to add a tint to the home jersey, because I think a few teams can pull that look off, and also incorporate the jersey number on the pants as well.

Kept the piping to a minimum, and modified the tail under ‘Brewers’ which looks more classic, or generic, depending on your opinion

I thought about incorporating a circle with payer number on the sani, thus making it more likely players would actually show them off, but have not in this example. I also kicked around using the ball and glove on the hat, making it fit entirely in the circle, but did not in this version.

I am not certain any team had a similar design, but please let me know if I am wrong (not counting the old star on the back of the Hollywood Stars) Also, maybe you think this look would fit better with another team…I could alter it to that club.

OK. That’s really all from David. But what a tremendous effort on this part, huh?

I apologize for the length of this post, but I wanted to give all the submitters their due. If you’ve made it this far, I thank you for your patients.

Just truly great stuff from all those who participated. I actually had three more people who had contacted me about ‘fixin’ the Brewers’ but after the initial contact and interest in the project, they didn’t get back to me. Still though, quite an impressive array of jerseys.

And moi? Did I have any ideas for Brewers concepts. Sadly for you, I do. Lots of them, but I’ll spare you the gory details and just show you the two I’d like to see someday. Like many of the submitters, they borrow heavily from the Brewers past. For the roadie, I’d love to see something like this: powder blue, blue stirrups with gold sanis, script “Milwaukee” and for a cap logo — the Wisconsin outline, which is replicated on the sleeves. For the homes, how about this? A cream-tinged uniform (after all, Milwaukee is the “Cream City”), with the BIG logo as a sleeve patch and topping an all blue cap. Once again, stirrups are blue with gold sanis. The original road “BREWERS” wordmark adorns the front.

That’s really all for today folks. Big, big round of applause for all who submitted their designs. Let them know you appreciate their efforts, and tell them what you think.

With baseball season winding down, if you’d like to submit your suggestions for “uni concepts” for your favorite (or any team), please send them my way. I’ve already received a bunch of submissions for different teams, and I will be sure to feature them and more at a future date.

Got a note from regular James Huening on an event that may be of interest to golfers and charitable types out there. Johnny O, you down with this?

Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: You guys may have noticed that we have a weekend visitor who goes by the name of “SlimandSlam”, who enjoys the GTG bits a lot, and is frequently one of the first (if not the first) to guess the game. Well, “Slim” contacted me this past week and graciously offered a few scoreboards up to me. So, for that, I’m quite grateful. This will be the first of those. As always, we need date, location and final score, all of which can be done by posting a link from Retrosheet or Baseball Almanac. So, here we go with Slim’s first submission. Ready? Guess The Game. Thanks Slim!

Well, football season is here and that means for the boys of Benchies, it’s touch football time. What? You thought they only played softball? They’ve been away from the game for a while tho, so things could get dicey. On that note, enjoy your Saturday Benchies.

OK, that’s it. Good college football today (Go Trojans!), and “Super Saturday” hopefully some tennis, weather permitting, for all two of us tennis fans. And tomorrow, a full schedule of NFL games. Plus, there’s a few baseball teams still worth watching AND there’s golf playoffs, where they narrow the field down to 30. Not to mention other sports as well. Basically, a uni watcher’s dream, this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday.

As several readers have noted, Aaron Heilman has been wearing deluxe logo-emblazoned stirrups lately. There’s a story behind that — a story in which Uni Watch and I have a minor role.

It began in mid-July, when Heilman had already been wearing standard, logo-free stirrups for about a month. That’s when I got the following note from Jeff L., a Uni Watch reader whose sister happens to be married to Heilman:

I always hoped [Aaron] would someday don stirrups and even started bugging my sister about it when he was in spring training. I had been planning to bring him some stirrups when my wife and I visited them this summer, but he jumped on the stirrup train before I got there. … I nervously check the TV highlights to make sure he has not fallen off the wagon. …

I have an order holding with a local sporting goods store for a dozen of Twin City Knitting’s MB700 stirrups with the Cubs logo on the side. I first saw them on Uni Watch. I’m going to give him a couple pairs when the Cubs come to L.A. (where I live) in August. Maybe they make it onto the field, maybe not. I think it’s worth the cash for the extras.

My problem is I’m not sure what size he wears. I think 7″, but maybe not. I have to get a dozen in the same size, and I’d like the order to go out early next week so they will be here in time for the August series. Do you know anyone in the Cubs equiptment dept. who might be able to find out? Obviously I could ask Aaron himself, but I don’t want to jinx anything, and I’d also like to surprise him.

I don’t have a contact in the Cubbies’ equipment room, and I didn’t want to ask anything that might get back to Heilman and ruin Jeff’s surprise. So I told Jeff I was pretty sure Heilman was wearing either 5-inchers or, more likely, 7-inchers (I confess that I gave more emphasis to the 7″ model because that’s my personal preference). He thanked me, asked me to keep the whole thing private, and that was that.

Fast forward to last Saturday, when several readers told me Heilman was wearing the logo hose. “Hmmm,” I thought to myself, “I wonder if that was Jeff’s doing.” Sure enough, I got another note from him on Tuesday:

As you have heard by now, Aaron is wearing the “C” logo stirrups that I ordered for him. Thanks for confirming his 7″ style. I would never have even known they existed if I hadn’t seen them on Uni Watch.

Interestingly, just before I gave the stirrups to him, he had actually gone back to wearing long pants in a recent game against the Dodgers. I met up with him for dinner afterward and presented him with two pairs of the logo stirrups but was resigned to thinking this phase was now over. To my surprise, he thought they were cool and has been wearing them ever since. Apparently some of his teammates think they’re cool too. Could a stirrup revival be next?

Jeff has now given me permission to write about all of this, so here we are. Kudos to him for going the extra mile with his brother-in-law.

As for Heilman, he’s always struck me as more interesting than the average ballplayer. In his Mets days, his entry music was “London Calling” (leading to lots of stains in Scott Turner’s underwear), and now this — nice.

Raffle Reminder: I’m currently raffling off a free college football helmet from Gridiron Memories. For details, look here.

Uni Watch News Ticker: In case you missed it yesterday afternoon, here’s my annual college football column on ESPN. … Whoa, look at the bizarre facemask worn by Hub Reed of the Pistons during the 1964-65 season (great find by Jeremy Brahm). … New football uniforms for Towson. … The longest NOB in sports has a new home (as noted by Adam Elkana-Hale). … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: New mask for Pascal Leclaire. … Cool slideshow of the Predators’ logos being prepped for on-ice application here (with thanks to Nick Church). … “While you were out, I made my annual pilgrimage to the Iowa State Fair,” writes Steve Young. “As I was walking around, I stumbled upon the booth for Living History Farms. It’s a living museum that demonstrates farm living throughout Iowa’s history. Part of the museum is a simulated 1870s town called Walnut Hill, with a baseball team, the Bluestockings, and they had a Bluestockings uni on display.” … Good Luc Robitaille jersey story here (with thanks to Andrew Kleinhans). … No photo, but an interesting observation by Michael Jaworski: “Bobby Cox was wearing a catcher’s mitt while in the dugout throughout Thursday’s night’s Marlins/Braves game, or at least he just got ejected in the 8th. The dugouts down here are the only MLB dugouts without any kind of rail or fence, so Cox wears the mitt in case a line foul ball comes at him in the dugout. I’d never seen that before.” … Bizarre observation from James T. Huening from last night’s Bears/Browns game: “Just as I started asking myself ‘Why am I still watching this game?,’ I noticed that Bears third-string QB Brett Bazanez doesn’t have George Halas’s initials on his left sleeve. That’s odd. Wait a minute — he has them on his right sleeve.” … Nice little video clip about the Penn State equipment staff prepping the team’s helmets, and another one about some classic helmets from the team’s past (both courtesy of Bryan Koval). … After wearing a single-flapped S100 on Tuesday and a double-flapped S100 on Wednesday, David Wright went back to a Cool-Flo yesterday, almost certainly making him the first MLBer ever to wear three different helmet styles in three consecutive games. … So much going on in this softball shot. The third basegirl has a mask, a bow in her hair, and nail polish, the runner has a mask and a Little League patch, and can someone please explain why softball players still wear short? (With thanks to Matt Mitchell.)

Holiday Schedule: Phil will offer his usual 13-course tasting menu over the weekend, and I’ll have some sort of content on Monday — maybe a real entry, more likely just a photo from my Sunday barbecue party. Either way, comments will be open. Back to regular content on Tuesday.

By Phil Hecken

Last weekend, I treated you to you humored me with my attempt to bring you a look at how the American League teams would look if their uniforms used the colors (or at least the ‘major’ colors) from the flag of the City or State in which they play. In case you missed it, click here. Today, I’m back for more, with the same treatment of the teams in the National League. As with the junior circuit, there were some interesting looks. Some teams did indeed look better sporting different colors, while others were worse, much worse, or almost identical.

As with the American League, I have done my best to faithfully recreate the current uniforms using the new colors. In most cases, I have removed only the player NOB and occasionally the front numbers. In addition, since stirrups are necessary (there is no arguing or debating this point), I have included them as an essential uniform element. Sometimes I needed to remove a patch, but usually I kept them in (although in some cases I did not change the color scheme on the patch, either because it changed the nature of the patch too much or because it simply proved too difficult). With that, lets begin.

Arizona: We begin with a state flag, even though for all intents and purposes the Diamondbacks play in Phoenix. Yeah, you can see why I’m not going to show the D-Backs in that colorscheme. With the red, yellow and blue from the Arizona flag, the Snakes would sport a road uniform and a home uni that aren’t much different from their current get-up, but visually I think this one is also more appealing than the current duds. The use of the yellow as a highlighting element and on the socks really brings out the colors much better, in my humble opinion.

Atlanta: Next up, alphabetically, are the Braves, and while I’m not especially enamored of the flag itself, I LOVE the colors. The blue and yellow are really a striking combination and one which several major league teams have used in the past, only to go away from as they progressed into other uniform styles. But it’s a great one and I wish some teams would consider it or even adopt it (or return to it, as the case may be). That being said, here are the Braves in their home uniform and the road kit if they were to use those shades of blue and yellow. While some would argue the current Braves uniform is classic (and if you toss out the two disgusting alts, I’d tend to agree), I think they look even better this way.

Chicago: Like their neighbors to the South Side, the Cubs hail from the Windy City. But that’s where the similarities end — both in their uniform histories and every other way. So their uniforms may bear a slight resemblance (with the flag treatment) from a color standpoint, but that’s about all. I did several versions for the Cubs, because I really like the colors of that flag. Using the powder blue as the predominant color, here’s one version of the roadie. By using the red as the dominant color, we get this. Neither look is any where near better than their current style. The home is even worse, at least in this version. Maybe I should have used red more heavily than blue in that one. However, like I did with the White Sox, I created a powder blue version. Doesn’t work as well, as one of my (someday to be codified) “rules” is if you’re going to wear powder blue, your “base” color must also be blue.

Cincinnati: The Queen City has a rather nice flag, and I’m surprised (well, not really) that the Reds didn’t make greater use of the “block” C in the flag, opting instead for the wishbone. And while they have used a block C on their caps, they’ve used that wishbone as far back as 1905 (according to Okkonen) and probably before that in the 19th century. Anyway, the predominant colors of the flag are red (thankfully — they are called the “Reds”) and blue. So their “new” uniforms won’t be all that different from their current ones. For the home uniform it was basically a matter of slightly altering the current red, and replacing the black with the blue from the flag. For pants stripes, attempted to mimic the three “stripes” on the Cincy flag, and performed a similar treatment on the stirrups. For the road uniform, it was more of the same, although on that one I kept the pants stripes red. It’s funny, while I don’t especially mind the use of the drop shadow (because it’s black) on either current uniform, it really looks kinda awful when it’s depicted in dark blue on the “city flag” version.

Colorado: With the Rockies, pretty much all bets off are with the current colors. However, I have always liked the current font, and with new colors, we get a nice fresh look. And while red, yellow and blue are a common element in many cities’ flags, it’s an interesting twist when applied to the Rocks. For the road uniform, I think it’s a nice look. Nothing to write home about, but pretty nice. Of course, since pinstripes do not belong on a road uniform (another of my “rules”), I removed them. It renders the uniform much more plain, but that’s tough. Personally, I like the way the yellow interlocking “CR” looks an the cap. For the home uniform, I rather enjoy this look, using mostly blue for the lettering and numbers. Probably should have continued the all yellow lettering for the cap, but that could easily be corrected.

Florida: The Marlins, they of the teal and black, get a nice new treatment when we take the Florida flag colors. Mostly red and white, but with a seal of an almost ‘orange’ hue, it was my pleasure to undertake this transformation. I think the “orange” and red work well as complimentary colors, and here’s how this was conceived in the home uniform. I had to keep the teal coloration of the marlin, though, since I’ve never seen a red or orange one. Doesn’t look that bad. For some reason, for the away uni, I didn’t use any of the orange element (but adding a heavy dose of white, which is a very prominent color from the flag). The result is rather plain. This is one I’ll take another shot at someday, adding in some of that additional lighter coloration.

Houston: Take a look at that flag — now you understand why the Astros have that old school engine loaded with oranges out beyond the left field fence. Anyway, the flag is mostly aqua (I guess) and white, so the Astros’ uniforms will reflect that. Although the flag has a smidge of red in it, I elected to keep the away duds as well as the home set in just aqua and white. Not a good look. Not that their current uniforms are all that great, but the city flag treatment is decidedly not an improvement.

Los Angeles: It’s really hard to mess with an all-time classic uniform like the one sported by the Dodgers. But since my purpose was to see what all all teams would look like in city flag colors, the Dodgers must be included. Even without seeing what follows, you can probably guess it won’t be an improvement. You’d be right. First of all, for the home uniform, with red and green as two of the three colors (and I HAD to keep the front jersey number red, right?), it was hard to avoid it looking like a St. Patty’s Day fashion jersey or a Christmas special. Not that the stirrup coloring is a saving grace, but I think it’s OK. Well, not really. For the road uniform, took the opposite tack, using red as the primary color and sublimating the green as much as possible. Decidedly not good. You can’t mess with success any more than you can polish a turd (and please don’t post that “Mythbusters” episode where they prove you can, in fact, polish a turd).

Milwaukee: Kind of a busy flag, no? Another flag where I’d consider the main color to be kind of an aqua. And, of course, there’s the wheat stalk with the chaff (I’m not sure any of those are the correct terms, but work with me here), which will serve as the other color for this uniform redux. There’s also some kind of gear or ferris wheel, a boat, and some images in there. No offense to the good people of the Cream City, but you really need a new flag. OK, no editorializing here, just the unis. So, with that as our base colors, we get a home uniform that looks different than the current one. Different, not better. Not so sure using the color of the wheat helps there. So for the road uniform, I substituted the wheat (gold) color for the the red from the word “Milwaukee.” I think that’s a little better. I also removed the drop shadow to keep things somewhat more orderly. Seems like the Brewers could use both a uniform and a flag makeover. We may have some on the board who agree with that.

New York: As we saw in the American League city flag swap, the colors of the New York City flag are almost identical to those of the New York Mets (even though the accepted version is that the Mets took their royal from the Brooklyn Dodgers and their orange from the New York Giants). So, it shouldn’t be all that surprising when you see the NYC flag road uniform for the Mets. Added, obviously, orange to the bill and some sock stripes. Might be a tad busy, but it sure beats the hell out of the black they’ve added to the road uniform. Since the Mets play in the borough of Queens, I did mock ups for them with those colors as well. Despite using yellow, that road uniform and home uniform don’t look good at all. I realize that the pinstripes are their official uniform, but they haven’t worn it in a month, so I went with the “snow white” version. However, when we adopt that to the City of New York flag colors, it’s fairly similar to their current uniform. If I had more skill and time, I’d remove the black dropshadow from the home and away sets, but the intent was to keep the uniform as close to the current as possible. Meh.

Philadelphia: Hmmm. Didn’t some other Philadelphia team recently wear the City flag colors on their uniform? Not so sure how well that was received. But, in the spirit of this exercise, lets see how the baseball team from the City of Brotherly Love fares in city flag colors. Surprisingly, for the home uniform, not as bad as I had imagined. But what about the away kit? Actually, I like that one even better. I don’t think anyone will be clamoring for the Fightin’s to be changing their color scheme any time soon, but it’s not an altogether bad look. Again, although the blue is not quite as dark as I prefer, there is something about combining blue and yellow that just looks right.

Pittsburgh: OK. This one is too easy. The Pirates already proudly use their City’s colors as the basis for their uniform. Seems to be a common theme amongst the Steel City teams. I wonder if that’s deliberate? Anyway, you won’t be surprised to see the Pirates when they sport their road unis and home duds.

San Diego: Finally, a City whose flag has MUCH better colors than those being sported by the team which plays there. And since the Fathers have quite the myriad uni history, I’ll get a bit saucy here. Lets start with the homes. I made the red from the flag the dominant color, and I like it. I like red and yellow (or whatever actual shade you want to call those two colors). I think this is a definite improvement over their current colorscheme. For the roadies, and recognizing the crazy uni past the Pods have, I went with a yellow base with red wordmarks/numerals for the Friars. Yeah, it’s bright (unlike this post’s author) alright, but I also like this. Better than sand, that’s for sure. This is another team that is just begging for a uniform overhaul, and while perhaps taking the city flag colors isn’t the direction they should go, it’s better (IMHO) than what they’ve got now.

San Francisco: Another kind of plain flag, but definitely workable. One of the nicer things about the San Francisco home uniform is that it’s not pure white — tis cream. So if we keep the cream base, and take the brown and yellow (from the eagle and border) plus the blue, we get a very nice looking uniform. (The yellow crown on the cap is a shout out to Stuby). Now those may look too “Padre-ish,” but since the Pods don’t use those colors anymore (either in their current look or in my city flag look), that is what we get. For a slight twist on the cream home base, instead of straight gray, for the road uniform, I made the base a with a slight blue hue (from the “SAN FRANCISCO” on the flag). I think that one looks pretty damn sharp. However, since the current uniform is also a classic, I can’t argue the city flag colors look better, but they’re certainly pretty good.

St. Louis: For our penultimate uniform, we find another instance where a the colors of a city flag closely match that of the team (was this intentional? — hard to say, since the animal for which the team is named is a cardinal, and cardinal is indeed, red). Surely, it’s convenient, if coincidental. Even the yellow in the flag is replicated by the yellow in the bat. But as a result, the uniforms won’t differ much at all from those currently worn by the Redbirds. Other than changing the stirrup stripes, the home uniform is virtually identical to the current one. For the road uniform, I added red to the crown of the cap and played slightly with the stirrup stripes. But basically, city flag = team uni colors with the Cards.

Washington (DC): OK, if there was ever a city flag I would have expected to be red, white and blue, it would be Washington, D.C. Nope. Just red and white. So, making the Nationals uniforms, with their red, white, blue and gold only two colors will take a bit of chicanery. Lets start with the road uniform. I already like the red better than their current blue. Since the cap and “Washington” are in a nice, matching script, this looks fine. Those god-awful beveled numbers don’t look so hot (this part of the uniform is just CRYING for a reworking), and I removed that stupid beveled interlocking “DC” patch altogether. Fix the number font, and this is a winner. OK…on to the home uniform. Decency dictates that I remove the beveling from the wordmark, for unless you have two or three colors, it looks AWFUL. Well, it looks awful anyway (no offense, Todd Radom, I’m sure they told you they liked that design), but it looks better in one, solid color. Same problem with the beveled number on the back as on the roadie, but it’s better on the home, because at least the fonts work together. I did need to add a black border around the number font however, but at least that’s not BFBS, but black for necessity’s sake.

Well, there you have it. The National League rendered in city flag colors. I don’t want to say this ‘project’ was a complete waste of time, because I think we did see a few uniforms that look better in different colors (or at least the colors of their flags). But since we won’t be seeing any of these teams move to these colors any time soon, the project was more fun, and more for my own edification, than as an appeal to teams to change up their uniforms (or at least the colors). Still, some of these do make you think that maybe, just maybe, what they’re wearing now needs a change. What do you think?

Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: This one is probably way too easy, but then again, maybe not. As always, the clues are right there for you on the scoreboard. Location, Date and Final Score, please. Ready? Guess The Game.

Once again, if anyone has any scoreboards they’d like to contribute, please shoot me a line.

When football season rolls around, are you guys interested in a “GTGFTS” edition? I’m not so sure how that would play out, but it may be worth a shot. Let me know if you’re interested in that.

Alternate jerseys. No stirrups. T-Ball. Must be softball. Enjoy your Saturday Benchies.

That’s all for today, folks. Couple announcements and a whole mess of different stuff coming tomorrow. Have a great Saturday.

By Phil Hecken

Today, I’d like to introduce what I hope will become a semi-recurring feature here at Uni Watch. I’d like to take a look at certain teams, teams that seem to be in need of a unichange. Whether that involves a tweak, a logo change, a complete overhaul, or some combination of those elements, I’d like to work with some of the ‘graphic artists’ we have and (much to your chagrin, submit some of my own work) to come up with some changes to the uniforms of certain teams. I don’t know whether I’ll announce the “upcoming” teams in need of a change, or whether I’ll just ask for suggestions and go from there. Maybe both. After you’ve read this article, if you’re interested in participating in any capacity, drop me a line.

Today, I’ll be joined by three great readers, James Huening, who has been a great help in gathering photographic evidence of many of the current and former uniforms you’re about to see below, Robert Marshall, who has tweaked a design or two of mine and who has come up with his own unique spin on what he’d like this week’s team to don for their uniform, and Michael Emody, who’s created a number of unique and sometime throwback-ish (fauxback?) designs (and is the genius behind the lead photo). As if the title and the header pic weren’t enough of a tipoff, today we’re going to be looking at the Chicago White Sox as a team who may just be a candidate for some uniform improvement.

Before we go any further, though, I want to direct your attention to this fantastic article on the White Sox uniform history, authored by none other than UW Prexy, Paul Lukas. It’s an excellent primer for what follows, and the knowledge gleaned and shared by Mr. Lukas in that work will greatly assist in understanding why the Sox are a perfect candidate for a uniform change. So take a few minutes, read the article, then come back here and we’ll begin.

Great article by Paul, yes? Yes. So, lets begin with the Sox’ current uniforms. For their home uniform, the wear a pinstriped uniform in black, gray and white, with “Sox” in Olde English script on their left breast. As often as not, they will break out a black alternate top, also with a script “Sox”. For their road uniform, the team from the South Side wear a grey based uniform with black and white accents, and “Chicago” spelled out across the chest in script. Also, with the roads, they will break out the black alternate with alarming regularity. They rarely show sock, but when certain players do, they’re black. I’m sorry, what was the name of your team again? Clearly, this will not do.

Not that the current uniforms are all that bad; in fact, personally, I feel they’re one of the nicer uniform sets in the bigs, although the use of that softball top should be curtailed. Not eliminated however. As much as I despise alternates, this one does have a time and a place. We’ll explore that below. But, for a team who has changed uniforms with alarming regularity, and the current set has been in use since the beginning of the last decade, it’s time for a change. But to what? Let’s see what we can come up with.

If you read Paul’s piece (and I know you did), you’ll have a pretty good idea of the uniform history of the Sox. Clearly, over the years, the boys from the Windy City have really been all over the map in terms of uniform design. Some of these have been very good, some have been pretty basic, while others have been fairly wild, and others have been, well, what the fuck? pretty unique. They have worn pinstripes, they’ve worn powder blues, they’ve donned predominantly blue, predominantly red, uniforms with a black dominate, and some combination of colors over the years. They’ve even worn all dark blue uniforms (which sometimes looked black), and even changed the sock stripe patterns over the years. Still not convinced this is a team that could use a uniform change? It’s only been close to 20 years since their last one — they’re due.

Finally, before we look at the proposed changes, we must also look at one phemenon (which the Sox of course invented), and in which they still partake with regularity — the wearing of throwback uniforms. Why do they wear throwbacks so often? Perhaps the Sox themselves are auditioning uniforms of yesteryear (yes, I know that’s a Negro League throwback, but it’s still a throwback) with an eye towards the future. Most recently, they’ve worn their pennant-winning 1959 duds, and, because they were chosen to play in this year’s Civil Rights Game in Cincinnati, they got to break out their 1964 powder blues. In the past they’ve worn throwbacks from other years of their myriad (and other Chicago teams) histories, including the first ever throwback in history. Yeah, this team is crying out for a new (or old) look.

So, let’s have a look-see at some proposed uniform changes. There won’t be a lot of “ground rules” on this one, because some of the designs are very close to being throwbacks (but with a twist or two), while others are more “fauxbacks” — which we never clearly defined — but basically is a uniform which was never worn, but is evocative of a feel or style from years gone by. We’ve also come up with a few ’sorta’ new uniform concepts, but we’ve avoided entirely new uniforms altogether. Perhaps that is for another column. Finally, since the team is called the “White Sox,” we’ve insisted upon actual socks being worn, that they be predominantly white, (either sanitary or stirrup) and sometimes, they be at least two different primary colors. OK then, we’ll begin at the beginning.

We start with the road uniform, and we basically begin with some tweaks of the current roadie. Let’s start by putting the team back in red with red socks and white sanis. Gotta have stripes on those bad boys. Lets flip the sock/stirrups next. Hmmm. OK, they do have a history of not wearing white sanis, but maybe that’s a bit much. Of course, one of the “future” uniforms I have proposed, is putting teams whose main color is not blue in “powder” uniforms. If we’re going to turn the Sox red, then maybe they should think about a powder red road uniform. Interesting.

The Sox wore the black prominently for a number of years, so how might they look if we replaced the white outline with black. That’s interesting as well. Although I personally detest two-tone hats, I will admit that on some teams, they do work. So, let’s add a black crown with red brim (and eliminate the stirrup in favor of a full sock). That’s kind of cool, no? Would it look better with a solid black cap? I don’t think so. We could probably safely change the belt to black though.

Keeping with the current thought line of tweaking through adding (or subtracting color) but keeping the current uniform in tact. Let’s work on the home uniform. Notice, we keep the black/red style, both for the cap and the outline, and we return the stirrups, with a slightly different pattern. That red belt has to go — for the home uniform anyway — so here she is with black belt. Nice. Very evocative of the 1959-era unis.

I’ll take a break now, and turn the floor over to Michael Emody who has some different ideas for the Sox.

We begin with Mike’s “throwback” to the 1940’s era uniforms which were quite elegant in their own right. Two versions here, both with the “Big S” surrounding the “o” and “x” in both black and blue hues. The black features the “TV numbers” on the sleeve while the blue has the uniform number on the right breast. For the road uniform, Mike has come up with several. The first two feature the same 1940’s logo, one in gray and the second in a powder blue evocative of the shade they wore in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Both feature the uniform number on the right side, and the left sleeve contains the current “white sock on a diamond” which is found on today’s uniforms. The gray uniform is predominantly blue based, with blue striped stirrups, while the blue is rather 1970’s-esque, featuring red stirrups and a red sleeve patch. Taking both of those road uniform concepts a bit further, Mike created two similar unis, but flipped the sock and stirrup combinations, which are reminiscent of the 1969-1970 uniforms. Great concepts Mike.

Moving along, Mr. Emody has gone with additional ‘fauxbacks’ from a different period in White Sox uniform history. This home and away set, which he has nicknamed “Blue Monday,” which brings back visions of the late 1960-early 1970 uniforms. The home features blue pinstripes, blue belt, black shoes, and blue TV numerals and lettering in the Olde English style. The road is powder blue with blue TV numbers, and a white “Chicago” in script with the word “White Sox” on the tail (very reminiscent of the late 1960’s powder blue). The stirrups are blue with white and powder blue stripes (like the home), and black shoes. The pants and shoulders have a blue and white stripe. Finally, Mike created two additional road options, both of which are gray. The first takes elements from the 1950’s black and red color schemes, with “Chicago” in script with a tail featuring “White Sox” (a la the roadies from the late 1960’s and early 1970’s), including a more modern numeral underneath the script insignia and on the left side of the jersey. The second uniform set is similar, only white has been swapped for black, and a TV number has been added to the right sleeve. A black “white sox” patch is found on the left sleeve of both uniforms, and the stirrups are black with red and white stripes and white sanitaries.

Great, great designs, Mike. Interestingly enough, I first noticed Mike’s White Sox uniform tweaks when he posted this in the comments one late evening, shortly after I had posted my first uni tweak. Recognizing we were “on the same wavelength” with the Sox, we began this collaboration.

Lets now take a look at some additional possibilities for new Sox uniforms. The boys from Chicago obviously like their throwbacks, as evidenced by the many number of throwback uniforms they’ve donned over the years. So what if we were to outfit them in a modern uniform with an old-style feel? Notice, no stirrups. But, nice stripage on the socks. We can change the sock colors or patterns. They wore that particular style (obviously not with a modern cut) back in the teens, and would continue to wear it (largely unchanged) until 1931. Not a fan of that style? No worries.

In 1932 through 1935, the Sox introduced this jersey design. So how about we modernize the uniform using that as a base? Well, we’d have this design. Again, no stirrups. And again, we can change the sock pattern.

Obviously, when fully half of your name is “Sox,” the socks are uber-important. The fashion trends of baseball have of course, largely relegated hosiery to being an anachronism. But, if any team should wear socks, and proudly, well — the White Sox should. Lets take a look at that powder read proposal again, this time, with an eye towards returning this beautiful sock styling from the 1970s. They wore that sock with both the red pinstripes and the powder blues of that era. But the powder blues, frankly, don’t cut it with a red base. So let’s put them in powder reds. Interesting. A slight twist on that pattern is to remove the circle and replace it with the current shoulder patch, like so. If we were to equip the Sox in real old school off-white stirrups, we’d get something like this.

Couple other “fauxback” possibilities exist. The White Sox only wore this particular uniform for one year, 1930. Don’t know why they shifted away from it, but it provides an interesting uniform possibility. Finally, in terms of really harking back, they might consider this possibility, which could be worn as an away uni. Crisp and clean, but yet still fairly modern despite it’s age.

Certainly, some food for thought. And now on to Robert Marshall.

Moving on, I’m now joined by Uni Watch OCD DIYer, Robert Marshall, who is fixing to fix ALL the major league teams uniform stylings, but for today, he’s just going to share with his vision for the “perfect White Sox uniform.” When I asked him if he were excited to help fix the Sox, he was more excited than Wilt Chamberlain in a sorority house. Since “rpm” (and several new variations of his ‘handle’) loves him some Sox, he’s taken great care to craft what he feels would be the ultimate uniform for the South Siders. One home, one road, no alternates. However, he does provide several cap options and a special “Sunday” option for the sanitaries. With that, I give you Robert:

i make no apologies for being old school in my aesthetic, especially in baseball, a sport so bound by tradition. and i am not normally so dogmatic unless i hear lunacy when it comes to taste (to each his own), but here are the chicago white sox as they should be, case closed, no debate, might as well close the comments section. if you disagree, you are wrong, lay of the goof-balls. it keeps what works, and draws from the past to fix what does not. take the tv numbers off, fix the hat and ‘rups (not all teams need stripes, but these do), add a patch and this is fabulous. if there is curiosity on the road digs, it’s grey not blue for the cornmother’s sake.

Love that graphic, Robert. Looks like he keeps that face in a jar by the door (either that or it’s a ripoff of Charles M. Schultz). Pretty schweet huh? Kind of in line with what it seems a lot of Chicagoans are pining for, at least in terms of the home. The home uniform would be evocative of the “Go Go Sox” (the uniform was worn from 1951 through 1963), while the road would be of the 1969-1970 vintage. A black cap (with four variations) would be worn with both, the current shoulder patch, and white socks and sanitaries with thin black and red stripes. For Sundays, the sanitaries would switch to black.

I have to say, Robert, a fine, fine job.

Winding down, one cannot but think of the White Sox without noting that for a fairly long period, they wore an all dark uniform. Although it was dark blue, it sometimes appeared almost black. Even when the Sox were going through their crazy fauxback/throwback phase from 1976 through 1981, they occasionally donned the all dark uniform. So — could they pull the look off in the 2000’s?

They wear that black alternate jersey enough — why not pair it with some black pants? Of course, there are stirrups on that mockup — it would be MANDATORY for any all dark uniform today to have full socks (or stirrups) of contrasting color. In order to pull it off, they’d need some form of white stirrup (the last of those two having gray sanitaries). Of course, so long as the socks were of contrasting color, you could skip the stirrups and just wear … gasp … white socks. How might that look on the field of play? Something like this, perhaps? Might actually be doable.

Of course, if they’re going to throw back to the all-dark look, they may as well kick it old school style with the lettering as well. Or, maybe not.

Well — there you have it. A look at the Chicago White Sox with some suggestions for a new look for the team. You’ll notice we didn’t opt for anything completely new, since the Sox have so many wonderful (and not so wonderful) styles and colors from years past to choose from. They could take any number of them and update their current style basing that update off the unis from the past.

Remember Paul’s article? The one you all read before reading this piece? In case you’ve forgotten, Paul concluded the article by stating, “Finally, it’s worth noting that Uni Watch has always loved this logo. Too bad the only uniform element it ever appeared on was a BP jersey.” Well, just for Paul, here is a mockup of that uniform.

What do you folks think? Time to don some new Sox, or are we just writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear? Special thanks, of course, have to go to James Huening for his photographic research, and Michael Emody and Robert Marshall for their mockups. Great stuff guys.

Big Uni Watch Gathering Tonight in Cleveland!: Remember, Uni Watch readers will be enjoying an evening together, tonight at 7pm, at the Prosperity Social Club. Paul believes 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.” Should be a great time, wish I were there with you guys.

Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: Despite all the fun being in Cleveland this evening, the game being depicted on today’s scoreboard is obviously not being played in Cleveland. It’s also been featured on UW before, albeit in the comments a loooonnnng time ago. So, there’s one way of securing the answer. The other ways are up to you. It might take you less time to find the answer the “old fashioned way” than to search for the thread in which this appeared. So, with that said, Guess The Game. As per usual, we need date, location and final score, but don’t post that in the comments — just link to the game — and for good measure, let us know how you went about solving they mystery.

It’s just kind of Chicago type of day, Cleveland festivities notwithstanding. So, even today’s Benchies carries that theme. It’s an oldie (Ricko informs me Lou Holtz was still coaching the Irish when he crafted this one), but it’s even more apropos today. So, enjoy a special Thursday Benchies.

Raffle Results: Paul here. I hate it when broadcasters say things like, “If you’re Sabathia, you don’t want to walk him here” or “If you’re Bobby Cox, I think you have to bunt here.” If, if, if — dude, what if I’m not Bobby Cox? Such an annoying communication style.

However: If you’re Jason Whitt, you just won yourself a free T-shirt from SportsCrack — congrats.

Uni Watch News Ticker: (Mostly compiled by Paul) … Ya know, I try to fight the good fight and all, but then there’s crap like this. Sigh. … Nice overview of Colt .45s/Astros uni history here. … Yesterday’s Ticker item about Alain Nana-Sinkam’s family reunion logos prompted Rich Frank to send in the logos he prepared for his own family reunion a few years back. … New road kit for Man U (with thanks to Christopher Burks). … Good NOB note in the second graf of this page (with thanks to Kenn Tomasch). … New football uniforms for Southern Miss (with thanks to Raymond Reeves). … New logo for the A-10 championship. … A Maple Leafs fan has started a petition to get the team to go back to its old-school logo. Further details here (with thanks to Dave Abbatoy). … Former intern Vince Grzegorek recently got a tour of the Pro Football Hall of Fame storage basement, resulting in an excellent article and photo gallery. … Sad news out of Ohio, where a company that makes chenille letters for varsity jackets is closing (as forwarded by Kevin Mueller). … Hmmm, does Adidas manufacture Korean police uniforms, or does it just look that way? (Good spot by Hadyn Green.) … Larry Wiederecht sent along some interesting scans from a magazine that was published in 1970 to mark the opening of Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. First, here’s Richie Hebner without his vest jersey. Interesting to see how far the black area extended on his undershirt. And second, here’s an ad from Matthews International, the same company I reported on in last week’s ESPN column on HoF plaques. … Robert Marshall doesn’t just order those stirrups for the Uni Watch Stirrup Club — he also gets his softball team, the Unemployed Youppi, to wear them. Those pics are from a recent 5-3 win over the Newport 100s. Okay, it was actually a 36-6 loss, but at least the Youppi looked sharp. … Several readers noted that Joba Chamberlain didn’t have the Yankee Stadium cap patch again last night. … Also from last night’s Yanks game: Robbie Cano wears Phiten socks, although he usually keeps his pants hiked up so we can’t the the logo creep (with thanks to Brian Erni). … Bills safety Donte Whitner will wear a pink mouthguard this season in honor of his late mother (with thanks to Casey B.). … The Eagles have added a Jimmy Johnson memorial design to their practice field (as noted by Adam Brodsky). … Another sleeve-roller: Carmelo Martinez. “I remember that it drove me nuts every time he got into a game when I was a kid,” says James Huening. … The A’s will be wearing 1929 throwbacks on August 16th (with thanks to Brandon Davis) … Jim Wooley checks in with a mention of Rick Reilly’s most recent column on espn.com, “if you haven’t seen it yet. I totally agree with his comments regarding the putting on the t-shirts and hats after you’ve won the championship. I’ve never liked this.” … Everyone’s favorite sneakerhead, Matt Powers asks, “If you remember this, than (sic) check this out too.” Matt also has this juicy nugget concerning the GI Joe movie and Nike: “Check this out — much like what Nike did with the Transformer films, they are releasing kicks that coincide with the movie,” complete with similar toy packaging. … Northwest UW correspondent Jeremy Brahm noticed Tadahito Iguchi’s batting glove, it is designed to look like a noh theater mask. First on the left. Jeremy tried to find some up close photos, but now it is part of a giveaway in Chiba. … Finally, Pittsburgh’s own Doug Keklak, has forwarded this classic (which I believe was posted in the comments at one time, but is always worth another look-see): the Chicago Bulls logo-robot conspiracy.