In case you missed it in yesterday’s comments, the big hockey news is that Nike is getting out of the sport. This isn’t quite as good as, say, curing world hunger or solving the global warming problem, but it’s a good start.
Unfortunately, we’re still stuck with Reebok, which is apparently determined to blaze a new trail in hockey uniform design, so this seems like a good time to look back at the hockey attire of long ago. The photos that follow come courtesy of reader CJ Fleck, who found them in The Great Book of Hockey (out of print but easy to acquire if you’re so inclined). Lots of good stuff here:
• Two other old Habs sweaters — both light-years from their current design — here.
• Art Ross — you know him as the name of a trophy, but back in the day he coached the Bruins while looking pretty damn suave. And I probably don’t need to say this, but I really want that sweater.
• Time was when front uniform numbers were pretty common. My favorites are here and here, because I love the way the Bruins put the “B” on their sleeves, turning the current number/crest relationship on its head.
• Back when I was a kid, it wasn’t so uncommon for players to wear their uni numbers on their skates. But check out the guy on the left — is he wearing someone else’s skates, or was he traded and issued a new uni number?
Membership Update: The good news: About 30 new membership kits went out yesterday, covering everyone who signed up through last Wednesday.
The bad news: A week or so ago I mentioned that a server glitch had resulted in about about 90 names being wiped off of the membership roster page but that we were retrieving the data and would be restoring the missing entries soon. Unfortunately, the data retrieval has turned out to be trickier than we thought. I still have all the original membership orders, so I could cross-reference the roster table against those, but that would be reeeeeaaaallllly tedious, so instead I’m asking for your help: If you’re an active member but don’t see your name on the roster, please e-mail me with your name, membership uni number, membership level, and why you chose your number. If your name linked to a photo, please re-send me the photo or the URL. And although this last part isn’t necessary, you can speed up the process a bit more by picking out your card design from the design gallery and sending me the URL for that too. I’ll restore things as the info comes in.
Sorry for the hassle, and many thanks in advance for your help.
Uni Watch News Ticker: I just can’t watch when the Yankees trot out Ronan Tynan to sing “God Bless America” (plus he takes so long that I actually had time to run to corner store for more beer during the middle of the 7th inning on Sunday night), but several people tell me that TBS’s camera shot of the American flag during Monday night’s rendition showed an Adidas flag in the background — nice. Unfortunately, MLB.TV’s video archive doesn’t include this segment, so I can’t get a screen grab. If anyone TiVo’d the game, kindly shoot a photo my way. … The Chargers will wear their new powder blue alternate jersey this Sunday. … Speaking of the Chargers, on Monday I mentioned that LaDainian Tomlinson’s American flag decal was still missing in last Sunday’s game, but I didn’t have visual proof. Now, thanks to Doug Mooney, I do. … And speaking of helmet decals, yesterday I wrote that the Bills’ throwback helmets appeared to have the little warning decal. But as Rob Montoya and Joe Skiba quickly informed me, that’s actually the NOCSAE logo, which is a molded into the helmet, not a decal. … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: Good article here about the Seals wearing gold skates back in the early ’70s. … Essential reading: This article about the NFL Players Association feuding with the league over uniform fines (you’ll have to register for the site, but it’s easy and free). Among other things, it turns out the league is now threatening to fine equipment managers and trainers as well as players, which could be bad news for faithful Uni Watch reader Joe Skiba. No more low whites, Joe! … Something very odd is going on in this photo. Aside from the defender’s underwear being partially exposed, is that his jersey tag coming loose and falling against his left thigh? … Slowly but surely, we’re building a nice little gallery of nose bumper messages. As noted yesterday, Illinois wears “Team” and Eastern Michigan wears “Pride.” Today’s addition: Toledo wears “Attack” (with thanks to Noel Blaha). … Has anyone else seen this Monday Night Football ad? Lots of things here just don’t add up: Black shoes (Nike Speed TDs, at that, which didn’t exist back in Rice’s SanFran days), no whites, no sock stripes. Clearly a Photoshop job, but why? (Good spot by Ryan Armbrust.) … A friend just sent me a copy of a South African real estate magazine (don’t even ask), which featured this splendid hosiery display in the back-cover ad. … Someone on the Chris Creamer board found this Red Sox typographic guide. … Speaking of Red Sox typography, check out the title on the new John Fogerty CD (good catch by Brad Dugan). … Also from the Creamer site: Uniform designer Joe Bosack will be speaking in Boise this Friday. … Here are UCLA’s new basketball uniforms, with the gold “C” signifying the school’s 100 championships in various sports (with thanks to Erkki Corpuz). … As Scott Turner notes, “This photo is great for so many reasons.” … Strictly speaking, the following video isn’t truly uni-related. But it’s worth watching nonetheless:
Yesterday’s ESPN column about the different versions of the Tigers’ old English D logo (which, incidentally, should have included a shout-out to Jeffrey Sak, who first brought this issue to my attention about a year and a half ago) prompted a really fascinating response from Steve Diamond, a product designer at Nike (yes, Nike). Check it out:
I’ve been designing MLB product for a long time now, and your article about the Detroit “D” was funny, but also sad. Funny because I know how MLB works and the mess they have created, but sad because there are even more variations to the “D,” as well as the fact that there are 29 other teams that have similar or even worse problems.
Basically, years ago logos were not passed from vendor to vendor in formats such as embroidery tapes (what an embroidery machine uses to create the artwork for a cap logo or chain-stitch a jersey logo) and die patterns (like a cookie cutter that cuts out tackle twill to be appliqu�d to a jersey). A new vendor typically had to copy an existing jersey to get it right. So, essentially the jersey/caps of today are copies of copies of copies.
MLB and the clubs never kept accurate records, so [in the 1990s] MLB attempted to compile a “style guide” to digitally keep records of each team’s logos, in an effort to alleviate this problem. (This was also a legal move to accurately register each team’s trademarks.) However, they created marks that looked good for printing and web usage but never attempted to duplicate the actual marks used on the caps and jerseys. This added to the mix of logos being used by different manufacturers, furthering the mess.
Going back to Detroit, currently there are at least four Detroit “D” logos that I have seen — two used on the field and two that MLB created for their style guide.
You also touched on the Cardinals and Yankees. As you can see, the Cardinals have similar problems with the use of the “StL,” and the Yanks top all teams with five different versions of the “NY” in circulation.
As Majestic moves more and more of its Authentic jersey production overseas, the uniforms and logos will become more standardized, but we will lose the uniqueness and beauty of crafted chain-stitching and zig-zag stitching that is hard to duplicate in Asia.
On the other hand, New Era still makes all of its Authentic 5950 caps in the U.S., but their problem is the opposite: They have such a mix of old and varied machines that all their caps fit so different. Go check out a store with a Yankees Authentic 5950 and compare a handful in your size. Then look at the logos on all of them. You�ll see a variety of embroideries — the same basic NY, but some skinny, some fat, etc. This is due to older embroidery machines stitching “loose” and brand-new machines stitching “tight.” Again, overseas you would find rooms filled with all the same year, same model machines churning out consistency.
Hope that helps. Unfortunately for me, I can’t enjoy a baseball game, as I constantly think about junk like this. I’m just glad you didn�t talk about color — don’t get me started on that.
Wow — please join me in thanking Steve for all that great info.
The lesson, of course, is that logos aren’t quite so immutable as we like to think they are, especially when rendered in fabric. And as the preceding account suggests, the sports world has been a particularly poor steward of its own graphic heritage, especially when compared to other industries. Small example: Back when I worked in book publishing, about 15 years ago, I edited a book that included a short interview with the great Paul Rand, who designed a slew of iconic corporate logos. Asked if there was anything he wished he could go back and change, he said he’d drawn the little bow in the UPS logo by hand and regretted not using a compass — but when he’d asked UPS if he could go back and tweak the design, they’d said no. And that’s precisely how you avoid having multiple old English Ds floating around.
Then again, this all points to a big reason why I started Uni Watch in the first place: to help document the sports world’s design history. So we should be glad that the teams and leagues have left us with such an entertaining mess to untangle.
Research Request: I was out of the house last night and didn’t catch the Giants/Cowboys game, but lots of people wrote in to say that Terry Glenn had an Ohio State buckeye merit decal on the back of his helmet. Unfortunately, I can’t find a photo of this. If anyone DVR’d the game and can get us a screen grab, that’d be swell. Apparently the best views came during pregame warm-ups and after the Giants intercepted Drew Bledsoe with 1:33 left in the first half.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Speaking of the Tigers’ various logos, this guy’s pretty on top of the “D-lemma,” as he calls it. … There’s a poll here on the best NFL logos. … The Phillies signed 700-year-old pitcher Jamie Moyer to a two-year extension yesterday, which as many readers have already noted means two more years of exposure for Philly’s seldom seen Liberty Bell stirrups. … Bit of speculation here about why the Vikings weren’t wearing their purple pants on Sunday. … In case you missed it in yesterday’s Comments section: Baseball players aren’t the only ones to wear windbreakers under their jerseys. Check out Steve Grogan! … Also from yesterday’s Comments section: a close-up of the little eyelet-equipped jersey patch that the Cowboys use to tie down their jerseys to their pads. … Contrary to what I wrote in yesterday’s ESPN column, the Astros do not chain-stitch their jersey insignia onto a patch and then sew that onto the jersey. They embroider directly onto the jersey (just like the Cardinals do), as seen in this shot, provided by longtime Uni Watch contributor Kevin Gee. (Here’s another view.) … Mizzou will be wearing solid-gold uniforms this weekend. … The Bears will be wearing their orange alt jerseys this Sunday. … Bonus points to the first Comments section contributor who can explain why I referenced Emerson in today’s entry title. … Even more bonus points for anyone who can explain why the hell there’s a Warhol-ized Emerson portrait floating around on the web (which you must admit looks very nice at the top of the page).
As most of you know, I’ve been mildly obsessed this season with the growing phenomenon of MLB players who write things under their cap visors. (For those who missed it, here’s the ESPN column I devoted to this topic a few months back.) Then, in a separate underbill development, a few weeks ago I passed along news from a National League source who said there would be changes to all MLB caps next year — including a switch from gray underbills to black.
I originally assumed there was no connection between these two stories, and that the switch to black was due to the increasingly popular school of thought that black underbills are better for reducing glare. But last week on Chris Creamer’s message boards, buried in the midst of a long discussion of the Diamondbacks’ new logos (which I’ll have more to say about soon, promise), there was this:
A friend inside MLB said that the inscriptions by players (number, initials, etc.) are getting out of hand, and changing the underbill [to black] was one way to eliminate the problem without getting into potential backlash from players and media.
Faaaaaascinating. If this is true, it raises some interesting points:
• Black brims wouldn’t eliminate underbill inscriptions, since players could still use silver Sharpies (although I agree that fewer players would do that, because there’s just something counterintuitive about writing on a black surface).
• Why is the MLB office so worked up about underbill scribblings anyway? Assuming you can see them at all, they’re usually illegible, so what’s the problem? They’re a charming quirk, and are among the very few ways that a player can personalize his uniform without being all “Look at me!” about it. Eliminating them — or trying to — is a short-sighted move.
• Whether it’s the White House or the MLB office, anytime someone is paranoid about “media backlash,” it’s a pretty safe bet they’re doing something stupid.
Meanwhile, we can add two more players to the ranks of the underbill scribblers. The first is Nationals reliever Jon Rauch, who’s got something fairly elaborate — although it’s not clear what — written on his home and road caps. The second is Cleveland’s Shin-Soo Choo (already notable for his double-flapped batting helmet), whose underbill notation appears to be written in Korean. If the closing days of this season really do constitute the twilight of the gray underbill, Rauch and Choo may go down as the last players to take full advantage of it.
(The Choo pics, incidentally, are courtesy of Toronto photographer Aaron Reynolds, who’s generously offered to make his vast photo archive available for Uni Watch research purposes — thanks, man!)
Uni Watch News Ticker: We weren’t the only ones talking about logo leaks yesterday — look here. … Bryan Redemske has gotten an advance copy of this book (due out in about three weeks) and says the photos feature some fantastic uni details, including a shot of Honus Wagner with a little “P P” collar embroidery — never seen that before. Full report to follow when I can get my hands on a copy. … Monday’s nomination for the worst prep uniform ever brought several competing picks, the most notable of which was Riverside High in South Carolina (props to Ronnie Poore). … Speaking of high school teams, great article here about high school teams that use college or pro helmet logo designs (with thanks to P.J. Mallardi). … Notes you may have missed from yesterday’s Comments section: Rice players will wear a “39″ helmet decal for the rest of the season, in memory of teammate Dale Lloyd, who died on Sunday (with thanks to Richard Grossman). … And Adam Denob noticed that Panthers kicker John Kasey was wearing a watch in Sunday’s game against Tampa.
In case you missed it in yesterday’s Comments section, there was a lot of chatter about the new Reds and Diamondbacks logos. The discussion was primarily due to a Deadspin item that appeared yesterday, which in turn was prompted by a long thread last week on Chris Creamer’s message boards, which had itself been fueled by the logos being leaked on the Fanhome boards (which I’d never even heard of before — there’s only so much of this stuff a guy can keep up with).
I have plenty to say about both logo sets, but that’s not what I want to talk about today. Instead I want to talk about the issue of leaked info, confidentiality, and how sports designs are disseminated. All this seems particularly timely because control of sensitive information is a huge topic in the world right now: Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in the early 1970s, is back in the news with a much-discussed article in which he encourages leaking as a form of dissent; Hewlett-Packard’s chairwoman resigned last week after it was revealed that the company had engaged in some highly questionable practices to discover and neutralize the sources of unauthorized media leaks; the White House continues to criticize the New York Times for having disclosed the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program last winter (and we now know that Times editors were actually summoned to the Oval Office by President Bush, who personally urged them — unsuccessfully — to withhold the story); access to classified information is also a major sticking point in the ongoing saga of how terrorism suspects should be tried; and on the sports scene, two San Francisco Chronicle reporters are facing possible jail time for refusing to name the confidential sources who leaked them the BALCO grand jury testimony. (By coincidence, several of these news items, and several other leak-related tidbits, were discussed yesterday in this article, which I didn’t even notice until I’d already written most of this post.)
Obviously, the question of whether we all get to see the Diamondbacks’ new sleeve logo a month or two ahead of time isn’t quite as earthshaking as any of those other issues. But the principles are the same, and it’s something I think about a lot, because leaked and/or confidential uni-related info comes my way pretty frequently — sometimes because I seek it out, and sometimes because it seeks me out. In fact, as you may recall, I’m the one who broke the story that the Diamondbacks would be getting a design overhaul in the first place, after a source at the team’s pro shop got in touch with me last month. (I didn’t have visuals, just a verbal description. If you want to see how I reported it, scroll down to the “Battlefield Report” section of this ESPN column.) I don’t say that to toot my own horn; indeed, it wouldn’t surprise me if some of you knew about the Dbacks facelift long before I did. I’m just explaining that these are questions I deal with on a semi-regular basis.
First, a bit of background. Each major sports league produces a “style guide,” which shows the official logos, colors, and uniform treatments for every team. These are used primarily by merchandising licensees and media outlets. In the past, the style guides were produced as printed volumes and looked sort of like catalogs; more recently the leagues have stopped printing the guides and have instead put all the information on password-protected web sites.
In Uni Watch’s early days, the leagues were usually happy to provide me with style guides if I asked nicely, I think in part because the column was such a small enterprise in those days and I was writing for a fairly obscure media outlet, at least in terms of the sports world (the Village Voice’s now-defunct sports section, which was buried in the back of the paper, amidst the phone sex ads). In short, I think the leagues didn’t really take me seriously, so they could basically pat me on the head and say, “Here you go, here’s your style guide, now run off and place nice.”
Nowadays, of course, Uni Watch runs on ESPN.com. You’d think the leagues would be more eager to work with me now that I’m part of the world’s biggest sports media company, right? Wrong. Most of them are much more restrictive now. In fact, I don’t currently have official access to any league’s style guide (although I have unofficial access for one league, and another league is generally happy to show me anything I ask to see). Part of this, I think, is that I’m often critical of the leagues, plus I bug them for lots of picky information — they file me under P, for pest. And part of it, I’m sure, is that the internet has made it much easier to spread uniform and logo information, and has given rise to communities that are very hungry for that information (like all of you reading this), so things can often spin out of control. That’s how the Reds and Dbacks logos were revealed: Someone downloaded the logo pages from Major League Baseball’s style guide web site, uploaded them to an image-hosting server, and then announced them on the Fanhome message board.
Who did this? I have no idea, although I can tell you it wasn’t me. It could have been me, though, because I saw the logos a few days before they began appearing on various message boards. I also saw the full Cincinnati and Arizona uniforms, which to my knowledge haven’t hit the internet yet.
So why didn’t I write about the logos when I first saw them? Because they were provided to me under the condition that I not go public with them. I gave my word, and my word is good. (As a journalist, I’m frequently given information on an “embargoed” basis, which means I’m not allowed to talk about it until a specific date — that’s similar to what happened here.) When the logos began circulating last week, I stayed mum, because the designs were still confined to a very small subculture, and I thought it wasn’t my place to give them wider exposure. Obviously, that’s a judgment call. Similarly, when the Deadspin link appeared yesterday, I said to myself, “Okay, lots of people read Deadspin, so now the logos are really public — I can talk about them now.” That’s a judgment call, too. The full uniforms, meanwhile, haven’t been yet been leaked in any public forum I’m aware of, so I’m keeping mum about them.
But what if someone had forwarded the logos and/or uniforms to me with no strings attached? Would I have leaked them then? Maybe, maybe not — it would depend on the specific circumstances. Why? A better question might be, Why not? Here are the usual answers to that question:
• “Leaking a design before its scheduled unveiling shows no respect for the designer.” This argument, which has been promulgated primarily by the design world, doesn’t really work for me. Some of my best friends are designers, but the designer is ultimately just a contractor working for a client. The client is the one who owns the design and calls the shots, and in this case that’s the team or the league. Which brings us to…
• “Leaking a design can screw up a team’s marketing plan.” I have even less sympathy for this position. Sports marketing these days is insipid on so many different levels — if anything undercuts a team’s plan, or just raises the marketing staff’s blood pressure, I’m inclined to think that’s probably a good thing. Fans are tired of everything in sports seeming calculated and scripted, and that includes uniform programs. The level of secrecy about team designs has become offensive, since the designs ultimately belong to the fans — not legally, of course, but emotionally, because the fans are the ones who’ll be rooting for the colors, the logos, the uniforms. Teams need to remember that they’re not just business entities — they’re also civic entities (that’s why we all get so worked up about this stuff to begin with), and fans have a legitimate civic interest in seeing their teams’ designs. So in this case, I lean toward Daniel Ellsberg’s position that leaking can sometimes be a legitimate form of dissent, and a way for fans to claim some sense of empowerment in an increasingly alienating sports world — or at least a way of fucking with people who probably deserve to be fucked with. (That sound you just heard is my file being moved to E, for enemy.)
Besides, I’ve yet to hear of a single case in which leaking caused any harm other than annoying a bunch of suits. When the Sabres’ new logo was leaked back in June, it prompted fan outcry, a petition drive, political cartoons, and lots of hairpiece jokes. But did the Sabres make any changes? No. By the time they finally unveiled the new uni two weekends ago, managing partner Larry Quinn was telling reporters, “In retrospect, we couldn’t have done it any better. [The leaks have] been a great guerilla marketing campaign.”
And here’s something else to consider: As many of you know, new uniform designs can often be seen in video games well before the design’s official unveiling. And why is that? Because teams and leagues want to milk every last licensing penny out of their designs. So please don’t tell me a design is too “sensitive” to be shown ahead of time when you’re already making money off of it in the video game market. You can’t have it both ways.
• “What’s the rush? We’ll all get to see the design eventually.” As simplistic as it may sound, I think this is actually the best reason not to leak a design. Does it really matter whether we see the Diamondbacks’ new logos now or in November, when they’re slated to be officially unveiled? Nah. If a league representative showed me a new uniform design and said, “Listen, you can do what you want with this, but I’d appreciate it if you could just wait and let us handle it our own way,” I’d probably oblige. It’s a certainly a more honest approach than trying to convince me that the fate of western civilization — or the Western Conference — hangs in the balance.
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