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Posts filed under 'Patches'
Two Fridays ago I spent a few hours up at the NBA offices, where they showed me all the new gear for this season. Some of the new designs have already been unveiled, like the new Sixers uniforms, Portland’s “Rip City” alternates, etc. — I won’t go into those here. I’m also going to save some of the changes for my NBA season-preview column on ESPN, which will be running in about two weeks. But here’s a smattering of news to get you in the mood:
• The Cavs are once again doing one of those “CavFanatic” alternate uni designs. This time it’s the late-’80s design in 1970s colors. Dig the special tagging.
• By now you’ve seen Charlotte’s new pinstriped uni set. What you probably haven’t seen is that they’ll once again be doing a NASCAR version. Again, special tagging.
• Two uni-borne memorials for the Pistons: a jersey patch for Chuck Daly and that rear-collar “Mr. D” for Bill Davidson. As I mentioned in the Ticker last week, the Davidson memorial will be permanent.
• Speaking of memorials, the Pacers have added a patch for Mel Simon, although they haven’t yet worn it in their preseason games.
• Here’s a good look at the anniversary patches being worn by the Cavs and Kings.
• The Heat have made three changes to their shorts. First, the old format of having the NBA logo on the left leg and the team logo on the right leg has been reversed (that’s so the shorts match up with the jersey, where the NBA logo appears on the right-chest area). Second, the team logo on the red alternate shorts has been changed from the flaming ball to the flaming “MH.” And third, team logos have been added to the waistband on all three shorts designs.
• Last year the Nuggets wore green jerseys as an environmental-awareness thing. That initiative has been retired for this season, although a broader uni-based environmental program may be put in place for 2010-11.
• These are the new compression shorts and calf sleeves that many players will be wearing. So if you see any players looking like extras from Tron, now you know why.
• The rim design has been updated. In addition to the superficial changes, the new version has breakaway functionality on the sides as well as the front.
That should be enough to keep you busy for now. More NBA news coming soon-ish.
Never thought they’d actually play a game: I was out having dinner with friends last night so I missed Matt Holiday’s rock the UFL’s auspicious debut. Fortunately, Marcus Hall took a bunch of screen shots and Mike Sullivan actually created a new blog just to catalog all his UFL complaints, so you can get a sense of just how tragic the whole affair was. Man, Jim Fassel must have burned a lot of NFL bridges in order to have been reduced to this.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Hey, check it out, it’s Elvis playing football. The “E.P. Entp.” on the jersey stands for “Elvis Presley Enterprises,” natch (great find by Bruce Menard). … Last year, Mike Walker of the Jags wore No. 81 and a “Walker” NOB. This year, however, he switched to No. 11 and “Sims-Walker” (the hyphenated NOB reflecting a nod to his late father) — at least for the first three games of the season. But last week he was back to just “Walker” (good work by Jonathon Binet). … Not uni-related but still very cool: a directory of world license plate styles (great find by Jordan Guthmann). … Two good items from Michael Jaworski: (1) The local history museum in Stuart, Florida, is currently featuring a very good baseball exhibit, with a nice photo gallery. And (2) Florida is adding a women’s lacrosse team in February, but they’re already playing exhibition games. “I assume these are their actual game uniforms, but don’t know for sure,” says Michael. “They have SNOB, although I wish it was on the front, above the uniform number, like in basketball.” … I’ve seen lots of girls’ teams wearing candy-cane sock stripes, but never a boys’ team — until now. That’s a Pop Warner squad from Watertown, New York (with thanks to Dave Northrop). … The Florida Panthers came up with rock tour-style T-shirts for their preseason schedule (as noted by Scott Marcusky). … Update to an item from yesterday: Here’s a color version of what the Padres would have looked like if they’d become the Washington Stars. As you can see, the color scheme would have been red, white, and blue — not purple and gold, as reader Richard Craig had stated yesterday (big, big thanks to fellow SABR member Maxwell Kates). … “I got married a few weeks ago,” says Doug McConnell. “When my fiancé, now wife, couldn’t find any suitable cake toppers, I decided to use these little guys instead.” … “Here is the logo for the 2018 and 2022 Japan World Cup bids,” says Jeremy Brahm. “I don’t know why they needed Astroboy, but he is the ‘Special Ambassador.’” … Incidentally, I recently interviewed Jeremy for a Uni Watch Profiles segment, which will be running soon. … The end zones in Denver this weekend will feature alternating filled-in diamonds — nice.
October 9th, 2009
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.
September 21st, 2009
and the uniform will be perfect…
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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Two words: “Foot Fault”
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 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.
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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.
September 13th, 2009
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.
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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!
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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.
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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?
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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!
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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.
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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.
September 12th, 2009
By Phil Hecken
Welcome back, everyone!
It all started a few scant weeks ago when I and a couple of other posters decided that the Chicago White Sox uniform needed “fixing.” While reaction to that post was mixed, it was also met with a call for other teams who could use either a uniform tweak, overhaul or to just plain start from scratch. There were many obvious candidates.
Based upon that sentiment, I asked readers for suggestions as to which team might be next in line for fixin,’ and it was decided that the Milwaukee Brewers were a good next candidate. I received many submissions from readers with their suggestions, some of which we’ll examine below. What follows, then, are the first batch of suggestions for a New Crew. Due to the large number of submissions I received, this is merely part one of a two-part series. We begin with the man who suggested the Brewers tweak, and a long-time reader and poster who’s been passionate in his call for a revamp of the Brewers uniforms for years.
~~~
No Milwaukee Brewer uniform overhaul would be complete without the man who has, for the past eight years, been clamoring for the Brewers to change things up, Chance Michaels. Chance is a UW stalwart, a Cream City affectionado, a Milwaukee-phile, and more. He’s written on the Brewers and Packers on several of his websites, and I’m sure you’re familiar with his “online museum of the American Association Milwaukee Brewers”, borchertfield.com. The last of the designs featured today were first seen on that blog several months ago. What follows now, though, are Chance’s earlier design concepts, the ones that began his passionate desire to fix the Brewers.
I asked Chance to describe his creations. “My experience with re-designing the Brewers goes all the way back to the late 1970s, when I first realized that their pinstriped uniforms, then just a few years old but comprising the entirety of my baseball awareness, weren’t the only uniforms the club had worn. I came across an old pennant featuring the Beer Barrel Man, and I was hooked. Later research on the BBM led me to its origins in the 1940s, to the minor league Brewers of the American Association, where the current ballclub got its name, and ever since then I’ve been hooked.”
He continues, “In 1996, I submitted my first concept to the team – a recolored BBM sleeve patch to replace the ‘Motre Bame’ crossed-bats logo – in the form of a fan letter. Never heard back from them, but I’ve been trying ever since.” Fast forward to five years later: “In 2001, I started working on new designs for my True Blue Brew Crew. I brought back to the Ball-and-Glove, but dropped the pinstripes in favor of classic piping. I also created a modern version of the old American Association Brewers, and I’ve been playing with refining that design ever since. I still haven’t given up hope of getting the Beer Barrel Man on the Brewers’ sleeves.”
Lets take a look at what’s he created.
Chance’s first uni-concept, entitled “True Blue,” had a distinctly retro feel to it, and returned the “Milwaukee” wordmark to the road jersey. Chance explains the philosophy behind the concept: “Building off the very successful ‘Retro Fridays’ uniform, this concept draws largely from the Brewers’ great past, the days of Bambi’s Bombers and Harvey’s Wallbangers, Rollie and Paul and Gumby and Rockin’ Robin, giving the classic a modern twist.” Of the original Brewers colors and wordmark he notes, “The design touches fans in a very deep way, telling us of the glory days ahead by reminding us of the best years of the franchise.”
Of the logos, he adds, “The ‘Ball and Glove‘ logo of the American League glory days signifies a tradition, a bond between the Brewers and the fans. This is what most Milwaukeeans think of when they think of the Brewers. Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Jim Gantner, Cecil Cooper, Rollie Fingers, Gorman Thomas and Don Sutton all played with this logo on their caps. The Beer Barrel Man logo is synonymous with Milwaukee baseball from the American Association days to Hank Aaron’s final playing days. Not only does it link to that tradition, but it also provides the team with the opportunity for a mascot logo, which has been very successful for the Reds, Orioles and Mets since they re-introduced their mascots.”
But Chance wasn’t merely satisfied with his first efforts, introducing a second concept he calls “A New Classic” (here is the road version). According to Chance, “This concept draws largely from the American Association Milwaukee Brewers, a powerhouse for fifty years and Milwaukee’s first great baseball team. From 1902 through 1952 they were dominant in their league, and it was that success that paved the way for the Braves to move from Boston in 1953.”
Mr. Michaels views the “New Classic” as having four distinct advantages:
1. A timeless design, guaranteed not to go out of style. Many teams have become very successful by rediscovering their 1940s and 1950s designs (such as the White Sox, Giants, Reds, Pirates and Indians) or creating a new design with a classic flavor (such as the Mariners and Angels). The Brewers are fortunate that they can do both at the same time, by honoring their namesake.
Baseball is the most traditional of sports, with a long and cherished tradition, and a team’s look should reflect that.
2. The excitement of an expanded color scheme. Red was a traditional American Association Brewer color from its inception. The Brewers, by adopting it, can honor that tradition. Coupling it with the contemporary Blue and Gold, the Brewers would have a color scheme not only unique in Major League Baseball, but offering many great opportunities for merchandising. These are colors that will never go out of style.
3. The Beer Barrel Man logo. The Beer Barrel Man logo is synonymous with Milwaukee baseball from the American Association team to Hank Aaron’s final playing days. Not only does the Beer Barrel Man link to that tradition, but it also provides the team with the opportunity for a mascot logo, which has been very successful for the Reds and the Mets since they re-introduced their mascots.
4. A clean, solid design that is both contemporary and classic. The simple wordmark appeals to the timeless nature of baseball, while the dark, classic colors are very popular with fans and the general public. The piping allows the team color to shine through. The lack of names on the back signifies a return to tradition (names are a relatively new addition to the Brewers uniform, not being present on Hank Aaron’s back or Robin Yount’s when he smacked his 3,000th hit).
Chance has proposed to top the Brewers in this classic cap, first worn by the American Association Brewers, but made more famous by the Milwaukee Braves. He’s also provided a slightly modified alternate cap which could be incorporated into the uniform set as well.
Well done, Chance, well done. But wait, we’re not quite done with Chance Michaels and his Brew Crew reworks just yet. He has a third set of concept unis, which we’ll explore in detail a little later on.
~~~
Piggybacking on Chance’s tremendous efforts, we have a great UW DIYer, David Frost (aka “Frosty”), who’s created some actual Brewers concept jerseys (and ALSO taken the amazing step of taking one of Chance’s concepts and made that into a real-life jersey as well!)
Frosty has been featured on UW before, so I’m sure you are all familiar with his awesomeness. If you guys have any questions about his work, or are maybe looking to have him do up a custom jersey just for you, drop him a line.
So, let’s see what David has created. First up is this amazing pinstripe jersey (here’s the back), which is basically a perfect replication of Chance’s proposed “True Blue” road jersey, only with pinstripes. Says Frosty, “I made this jersey last year… (it) is more like a retro ‘I wish’ for the old Milwaukee script. I always wanted the Brewers roadie to be pinstriped when I was a kid as well (I mean…the home jerseys were…shouldn’t there be SOME uniformity there rather than a completely different look?), so I found the gray with royal pins and went with it. The patch is the old Harvey Kuehn patch from the year he died. Take that off…and ya got a winner.” Outstanding.
Frosty wasn’t done, though. He also made this incredible jersey (here’s the back), borrowing from Chance’s mockup. David explains, “here’s my current project – Thanks to the fantastic talent of Chance Michaels. This ‘beer script’ is exactly that – and exactly beer. When Chance first did the art, he had a standard outline around it. I decided to tweak it with a drop-shadow to add a more classic beer label look. The colors? The original American Association Brewers were navy and red. Not that the big leagues need more of this combination, but I thought it would work best.”
As you might be able to tell from the pictures, at the time, that was still a work in progress. “What else is needed?” David asks. “1) A classic barrel man patch on the left sleeve (and I mean the OLD one); and 2) For this jersey to be done on ecru. What is ecru? It’s the color that most people call ‘cream’, but in the trade, the color is called ECRU. A cream-colored jersey for the Cream City…NO BRAINER.”
After David sent me these, I figured, “wow — just wow” that’s amazing. Little did I know he would not only finish off that second jersey, adding the barrelman logo to the sleeve — but he still wasn’t done DIYing.
Frosty struck out on his own this time, creating a THIRD Brewer concept jersey (of course, complete with barrelman on the sleeve). David says this jersey “was made possible thanks to some of the current Phillies braid I came across. The finish down the shoulders has always been a classy look to me, so I went with that, a classic front font in red/white, and our barrelman again on left sleeve.”
When you combine those three with the photo of Frosty at Miller Park in another of his creations … well, I’m not real good with math but that’s a LOT of amazing DIYs.
Thanks Frosty!
~~~
Returning to Chance’s Brewer redesign proposals, I will draw your attention to a new set which appeared back in May on his blog. Some of you have probably seen it before, but it too is an outstanding effort.
Chance has “made no secret that I am no fan of the current Brewers uniforms. They’re sterile and plain, designed by committee, but worst of all they have no connection with Milwaukee’s rich baseball history.” But his new uni proposal seeks to change all that. “Here’s my proposal to give the current bearers of the name the unique and modern look they deserve, while at the same time honoring the whole of that history, including (and especially) the American Association Brewers.”
His vision for the new home uniform as well as it’s road counterpart build upon his earlier efforts, and he has arrived upon a primary logo (along with the uni concpts) he has sent to Brewers’ management for their consideration. Chance contiunes:
The details, in no particular order:
Sleeve patch: For me, it all starts with bringing back the one, the original, the Beer Barrel Man. Symbol of Milwaukee baseball since at least 1901. Time he finally made the sleeves.
Wordmarks: The script font on the home jersey is Saloonkeeper, based on the script used by Leinenkugel’s. It’s surprisingly similar to the script used by the Brewers in the 1940s. The road wordmark is based on a 1930s Pabst Blue Ribbon label – I’m terribly fond of that one.
Colors: The color scheme utilizes the blue and gold influenced by the current colors (the only thing I really flat-out love about the current scheme). I’ve moved the home uniform to a light cream to reflect Milwaukee’s nickname as The Cream City, as well as the various historical baseball teams known as the “Creams” and “Cream Citys“.
Accent Striping: I included the shoulder piping not only because it has an historical precedent, but would also create a pattern currently unique in the majors. Another way to instantly identify the team. The Brewers used a similar thick piping from 1996-1999, and it looked great.
Number font: The numbers are what I call a simple square block. Again, they could be as easily identifiable as the San Francisco Giants’ numbers are, without either drawing too much attention or sacrificing legibility. FWIW, I’m basing these on a number font worn by the Packers in the 1940s.
The cap logo: I’ve always wanted to use a bottlecap in a Brewers concept. And the block “M” on the bottlecap clearly references the Milwaukee Braves and the American Association club… okay, maybe I’m officially overthinking this one.
~~~
Just amazing Chance and David. Thanks for sharing your efforts.
That will conclude the first part of “A New Crew,” but there are many more new designs I have received from the fantastic Uni Watch readership. They will appear in the next installment due to appear next weekend. I’m still truly amazed at the abilities and efforts that have gone into them (I even did a couple myself which will probably pale in comparison). Let us know what you guys think! Thumbs up? If these don’t quite strike your fancy, the next part will have something for everyone, from the classic to the serene to the sublime. And everything in between.
There’s a few weeks left in the MLB season (and next week is part II of the Brewers Redux), so rather than just pick ONE new team for your “uni reworks”, if anyone has ANY team (and I’ve already received a few submissions for teams that AREN’T the Brewers) they’d like to submit a “redesign” for, drop me a line. I’ll be glad to feature them throughout the remainder of the season (and probably post season) too. Check back tomorrow for two new teams, and make sure to check back next Saturday for the rest of the Brewers reworks. You won’t be disappointed!
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 It’s that time of year again, when the courts at the US Open are full and fans are guaranteed of seeing at least one winning team — even if they’re playing doubles and not baseball — in Flushing Meadow. My doubles partner and UW West Coast Correspondent Brinke Guthrie joins me once again for his look at this year’s Open fashion.
The US Open is good for lots of tennis-uni news, and at the Uniwatch West Coast Tennis Bureau, we like that. We don’t much care for those tacky patch deals, tho.
Murray, still with Fred. James Blake has a new custom Fila line, & it’s named for his late dad. McEnroe’s got the retro thing going.
Mr. Brooklyn Decker (that guy’s not too obvious) in Lacoste, but not in 2010 — he’ll be in Babolat.
The Fed’s look is here, with Nadal & Serena here. Serena’s sneakers have 3 little trophies, too, and The Fed’s say “5″ on the tongue, all part of the brand. Um, he even has his own pillowcases at the fancy hotel he stays at.
adidas checks in with ugly stuff. Oops, check that: got Daniela and Ana? Is Ana still in tennis? Forget that, she lost in the first round. Got Wozzi?
PS- this looks like something you’d throw up after a night on the town.
Sam Querrey of the US wearing shoes he designed at adidas’ request — note the flag on the tongue. (check this and this)
Thanks Brinke. Whaddya say? Fed takes the sixth? Ties Tilden? Stands one behind Sears?
I can’t see anyone (even A-Rod) standing between Raj and #16.
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Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: Little different twist on today’s game — I don’t KNOW the answer. But I’m sure you guys do. I usually have the answer ahead of time, and if i don’t, I figure it out, just like you. But for this one, I said, “screw it, let them tell me.” Actually, I just didn’t have enough time to figure it out so, if as and when you do (and I know you will), walk me thru it, would ya? You know what do to…date, location & final score, via Baseball Almanac or Retrosheet. Thanks. Ready? Guess The Game.
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While UW was away, the Ricko kept himself real busy. In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s going to be an announcement any day now concerning a Benchies Blog. But that day isn’t today. Instead, we have an installment of a Saturday Benchies for your reading pleasure. Ah, baseball cards … how I miss thee.
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Alright, that’s about all for this first Saturday after break. Big things afoot in the sporting world this fine Saturday and lots more good stuff on here tomorrow. Have a great day.
September 5th, 2009
Whole bunch of stuff today, including NFL news, new Benchies & two “Guess The Game” quizzes, uniform news and more below. Make sure you check out the whole post (if you feel like skipping the unitracking bit). The non-tracking stuff starts with the bold “FOOTBALL IS BACK” section.
By Phil Hecken
We’re back with round two, day two today (if you didn’t see yesterday, look here). A few late stragglers who nevertheless got their tracking in under the deadline bumped up the two-day total. That’s good (but there’s a lot in this section). So, lets get it started:
 We start today off with Billy DePriest, who tracks the Orioles:
It’s hard to draw any conclusions with the O’s uniform choices, since they are a pretty bad team overall. But here are the stats as of 8/2:
At home, they are 25-21 (.543) wearing their standard white uniforms which is by far their best uniform, record wise. They are 3-5 (.375) wearing the black alternate jersey, which is worn every Friday.
As you know, the O’s are wearing “Baltimore” on their standard away jersey this year, which has become their “worst” jersey. They are an awful 13-29 (.310) in standard grays, and an identical 3-5 (.375) wearing the black alternate jersey on the road on Fridays.
Interestingly, on July 17th (a Friday), the O’s wore gray at Chicago because the Sox were wearing their black alternates. No surprise, the O’s lost.
~ ~ ~
 Our next tracker is Patrick Campbell, who keeps tabs on the Braves:
Phil,
I’ve attached a screen shot of my spreadsheet for the Atlanta Braves. Through July 31, the Braves record is:
Overall: 52-51
Home White: 22-23
Sunday Home Red: 5-1
Road Blue: 19-18
Road Gray: 6-8
Negro League Throwbacks: 0-1
The Negro League throwbacks could be classified as road grays, however, I decided to give them a separate classification. The Braves continue to favor the blue jerseys on the road. The grays were used exclusively in Milwaukee, even when the Brewers chose to wear their white jerseys on Sunday. The grays will probably see some use in San Diego, where the Padres sometimes wear blue.
~ ~ ~
 Next up is George Lesko, another of our Pirates trackers:
I didn’t submit the first time but here is mine for the Buccos.
Trends
1. Great in the home whites. W-L records suggests that we should stray from the black (Friday) or pinstripes (Sunday). At least they aren’t red.
2. Horrible on the road. Period.
3. Undefeated in the 1909 throwbacks and the Negro League Homestead Grays throwbacks
4. Broke out W-L record for each uniform by starting pitcher.
5. Games in yellow are ones I’ve attended this year (4-2) … 5 home whites and 1 pinstripes
George sent along the following screen caps which can be used in conjunction with his points above: Cap I, Cap II, Cap III, and Cap IV
~ ~ ~
 Moving on, we have Timothy Killeen who is a Phillies tracker:
The Phils seem to play better in their away grays according to their record, but it can be deceiving as they’ve certainly turned it around from their dismal home white/cream winning percentage when last I checked in. While there may not be any clear cut uni-related anomalies in overall win/loss record, there do seem to be some uni-trends with starting pitchers. For one, Phils fans would probably love to make sure that Cole Hamels never wears the day-game cream uniform for the rest of the season. He’s currently 0-3 in 4 starts with that uniform. We’d prefer instead that he only pitch during home night games, as he’s 4-0 in white. On the other hand, should Bretty Myers return to the rotation from injury, we’d like to see he and Jamie Moyer only pitch in away games as they are a combined 10-2 in 15 starts while wearing the grey.
Here’s a screen shot of my work as of August 1st
~ ~ ~
 Next up is Andrew Greenwood “Greenie” who is a Brewers tracker:
Phil,
Don’t have much right now for insight into what and why (getting ready to move), but I’ve got the general idea for you. All totals through Sat. July 25th. Spent some time last night recreating the Milwaukee Bears unis they wore yesterday. I think I got it pretty close.
You sure did, Greenie. Here’s a screenshot of the pitchers’ totals, and the record by uniform.
~ ~ ~
 Next up is Justine DeCotis, who is a Red Sox tracker:
This year, the Red Sox have worn a ridiculous 12 uni combos. They play the best in the classic home uni with a .700 winning percentage. They have never lost in the alternate navy road uni with the Sox cap and red socks, but have only worn it three times. The weirdest combo so far was on May 30th, they wore the road grays with the hanging Sox cap. That hideous cap is usually only paired with the red and navy alternate jerseys. Maybe the choice of Brad Penny, who started that game.
Justine has broken her tracking down into home games and away games, and two great graphics detailing the caps and socks as well as the jersey and cap combinations, and the winning percentages associated with all.
~ ~ ~
 Moving along, our next tracker is U2Horn, who has been keeping tabs on the Rangers:
The Rangers have been wearing their white jerseys at home more recently, possibly because it’s so damned hot in Arlington in July. Even with 7:05pm starts, game time temperatures are often in triple digits. Kevin Millwood continues to prefer the home whites and road grays, while Vicente Padilla seems to prefer the Blue jersey both at home and on the road. In fact, the Rangers haven’t worn the gray jerseys for any game not started by Millwood since May 19.
So, for the uni combos they’ve worn more than a couple of times, their best combo is the traditional home whites (they’ve now won 7 in a row in them), while the worst combo is the traditional road grays.
And U2 has of course, provided the Uniform Chart and the screenshot of his spreadsheet for our reference.
~ ~ ~
 Our next tracker is Gregg Girard, who like me, is a Mets tracker:
Phil. Here you go.
Like Phil, I’m uni-tracking the Mets. (Your sympathy is welcome.)
Well, I made one bold prediction back in May: Santana will never wear black. Unfortunately for Johann and me, I was wrong. In the three Santana in black starts (all on the road), he went 0-3 with a 10.06 ERA.
As I said in May, I am searching for patterns, both in terms of victories and behind actual uniform selection. A losing record tends to negate the former, but I was able to dig out a few notables: the Mets home winning percentage is .528 overall, but it rises to .636 and .625 when they wear snow white/blue and black, respectively. Wearing their classic pinstripe/blue combination, they are a dreadful 1-4. As Phil noted in May, that combo seemed to be the regular Sunday uniform, but after wearing them for three straight Sunday losses, they haven’t worn them on Sunday since June 21. In fact, they didn’t wear pinstripes until July 31, when they put them on for a Friday night loss to the D-backs.
~ ~ ~
 Continuing on, we have Dwayne White, one of our Marlins trackers:
Phil:
Here is my Marlins run-down up to August 1st.
There really is no rhyme or reason for the way that the Marlins use the black, alternate jersey. That is unless it is “Pitcher’s Choice”, which I did not track. It probably shouldn’t be called an alternate because they wear the black one on the road more than the grey jersey. They wore the black jersey 29 times as opposed to 22 times for the grey one on the road.
The only two times that the Marlins wore the black jerseys at home, they lost both night games. The first time the black jersey was worn this year, The Fish lost the game after 11 straight, season opening, victories.
Dwayne sends along six wonderful tracking sheets: Marlins Combos; a breakdown of the uniform winning percentages; and individual tracking for April, May, June, and July.
~ ~ ~
 Next up is Shawn Tunick, who is yet another Braves tracker:
Hey i saw your pic for uni tracking thing was the braves, so i guess you already have one, but this is my superfluous edition, all i can add to last edition is that they have worn their gray on the road more than the blue (thank god) as the weather warms up.
There is nothing superfluous about multiple people tracking the same team. OK there is, but I still love it.
~~~
 Next is Brandon Davis, an A’s tracker:
The A’s are 25-24 in the home whites and 19-19 when the starter gets a decision. The team is 1-4 in home blacks but 0-4 when the starter gets a decision. In other words, there’s no reason for a starter to ever pick the blacks again this season (although the sole win was the biggest comeback in team history). The team is awful on the road at 22-33 (11-22 when the starter ges a decision) but they’ve won both throwback games. The A’s are 2-6 when wearing a special ribbon, jersey, or cap (not including throwbacks) and the starter has always gotten the decision.
BLACK JERSEYS: The A’s are 1-4 in the black home alternate set and only four starters have donned them (the A’s will start their twelfth starter on Saturday, August 8 if you’re wondering). The team didn’t even notch a win in the blacks until July 20, AFTER the All-Star break. Has any other team waited that long to win in a set that is part of the regular uniform rotation?
HELMET DECALS: The A’s are 10-8 since switching helmet decals on their green and gold helmet on July 21 (having gone 37-48 before). Jason Giambi wore the logo before his was changed on June 30. He went on the disabled list on July 20 and the next day the A’s all had the new decal. He’s been released so ironically Giambi wore the new decal but never matched his teammates.
JERSEY NUMBERS: Four members of the A’s have changed their uni number in-season due to a number of switches: Nomar Garciaparra (5,1), Eric Patterson (4,5,12), Scott Hairston (21,12), and coach Mike Gallego (12,4). Not to mention returners who had different numbers last season: Kurt Suzuki (24,8), Rajai Davis (38/11), Cliff Pennington (56,26), Sean Gallagher (39,36), and bullpent catcher Casey Chavez (69,99).
Brandon includes two excellent tracking sheets: Oakland Pitchers’ Jerseys and a Regular Uniform Tracking sheet.
~ ~ ~
 We continue with Chris Mehler, self-described “Die Hard (literally) Cubs fan:”
Hey Phil,
Sorry I am just getting back to you…been a busy week! Well here it is:
As is well known, the starting pitchers of the Cubs pick that days jersey and The Cubs only wear white, gray and blue jersies with a solid blue cap. So, Carlos Zambrano ALWAYS wears the blue alt. (I wonder how his psyche was a couple years ago when the Cubs for just that year got rid of their blue alternates?) Rich Harden mostly wears the blue alt. Luckily, there is some uni-sense as Ryan Dempster and Ted Lilly both only wear white at home and gray on the road. You can see some trends happening: both blue sets (home and road) are doing quite well. The best? white pinstripes and the worst? gray! So, they need to ban the gray jersey for the rest of the year.
Bringing us right up to date, Chris sends four screenshots of his tracking: Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.
~ ~ ~
 Next up is Jeff Barak, Twins tracker:
The Twins records in each jersey through the end of July are:
Home Whites 13-7
Blue Alternates 19-8 overall, 11-6 at home, 8-12 on the road
White Vest 4-2 (worn only twice since April 28)
Saturday Throwbacks (worn with red caps) 4-5
Road Gray 13-18
The Twins wore the 4 ALS patch on July 4th on their Saturday Throwbacks.
Sunday July 5th was “Armed Forces Day” and each player wore a cap with the name of a branch of the armed services. The caps varied in color, with some of them even being white.
They also wore the blue ribbon patch on Father’s Day with their blue alternates at home.
A note of interest was the Twins wore their blue alternates for six consecutive days on the road in July going W,L,L,W,L,L, so it’s not as if they were keeping a winning streak alive at the time. Five different pitchers started during the run of blue jerseys, with Scott Baker pitching the first and last games of the six.
My tracking method remains the same as before, the mighty pen and notepad.
~ ~ ~
 And squeaking in at the last moment is Alex “Insert Name Here” Poterack, who tracks the Brewers:
Sorry I’m getting this in so late; I hadn’t be able to do much uni-tracking lately ’cause I was moving, but I updated everything today, and here’s the latest:
I believe it was Nietzsche who said, “From chaos comes order”. The Brewers’ uniform usage, however, can only be described as “From order came chaos”. Where the Crew’s starting rotation all began the season with clearly defined uniform preferences, they have since departed from these, and each pitcher has worn each of the three main jerseys (home white, road gray, blue alternate) at least once. They do seem to be adopting some patterns, however: Yovani Gallardo seems to be wearing the whites at home and blue alts on the road; Suppan seems to be doing the opposite, wearing the alts at home and grays on the road; and Manny Parra has exclusively worn the blue alternates since coming up from the minors. Some news to report: the Brewers have since worn two new jerseys since my last uni report. Against the Giants on June 27th, they wore their “Cerveceros” jerseys. While these were whites in the past, and they also wore white ones for spring training, this year they wore blue Cerveceros jerseys. On July 25th, they wore Negro Leagues jerseys, which were cream colored with royal blue raglan sleeves. They are undefeated in these one-off jerseys, and their record in the other jerseys is as follows:
Home Whites: 17-14
Home White (Red Caps): 1-0
Blue Alternates: 17-23
Blue Alternates (Red Caps): 0-1
Road Grays: 13-11
Road Grays (Red Caps): 1-1
Retro Friday: 1-2
Blue Cerveceros: 1-0
Negro League Throwbacks: 1-0
And here is Alex’s updated tracking sheet.
~ ~ ~
OK. That concludes our uniform tracking, round 2, part II. I want to thank each and everyone who is not only tracking their teams uniform combinations, but also for sending them in to me and for providing (for the most part) such great graphics and spreadsheets. The last round will come after the season has concluded, and perhaps some or all of our trackers’ efforts can be entered into the UW logs for posterity. I’ll see if this is something Paul would be amenable to, so everyone who’s tracking, great work and keep it up for the home stretch!
~~~~~~~~~~
  FOOTBALL IS BACK tonight, with the Hall of Fame Game! (A decent writeup of the game can be found at the always trustworthy Wikipedia.) Kickoff is at 8:00 pm (eastern time) on NBC. This will mark our first on field glimpses of the AFL throwback uniforms which will be seen sporadically throughout the season. Apparently, the Oilers have been designated as the home team, so the Titans Oilers will wear these beauties saving these bad boys for the road. The Bills, who have worn their dark (home) throwbacks as an alternate for the past few seasons will be wearing this again this season for their home games and this for tonight’s game. I believe there was some concern expressed on the boards recently that the Bills’ stripes aren’t correct. I believe the Bills will be wearing the uniforms they wore in 1965, (the season they won their second consecutive AFL championship), although photographic evidence shows these pants stripes were worn in 1965. (Here’s another look at the pants, although that is a 1965 card, the photo may have been from 1964.) Although this photo is from 1967, the Bills pants remained unchanged from 1965. For a great look at the ‘65 Bills, check this out.
Meanwhile the Oilers will be throwing all the way back to 1960. The Oilers won the first AFL championship following the 1960 season. Although black and white, here’s a pretty good photograph of the 1960 team. A really in-depth writeup of the Houston Oilers can be found here. Finally, here’s a brief writeup of the Oilers “Legacy” uniforms.
Nice way to kick off the season. I’m sure there’ll be a few comments on the uniforms tonight, so make sure you check back in during the game.
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Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: This one might not the be the easiest ever, but I’m sure you’ll all be able to solve it without too much trouble. Certainly, the location shouldn’t pose a problem, and there are more than enough clues right in the picture to solve the rest. Obviously, location, date and final score please, and a quick description of how you went about ascertaining same. Ready? Guess The Game.
Now, because this is my last weekend post until next month, I’m gonna give you guys a bonus GTG, which may be a little harder. The clues are there, (and I apologize if they’re hard to read), so give it a shot. (Hint: hold down “CTRL” and use the scroll button on your mouse to magnify the image) Ready? Guess The Game. Location shouldn’t be any trouble, but date and final score might be.
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Since you got five Benchies yesterday (a “Monday” thru “Friday” offering), today we’ll give you:
Saturday Benchies
Sunday Benchies
Ay, carumba. Thanks, Ricko.
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 The “What If” (City Flag) American and National League posts from the past couple of weekends generated a few positive E-mails. One or two readers suggested that I try to incorporate more of the city flag into the uniform mockups, so I gave it a shot for the Colorado Rockies and the Cincinnati Reds (in fact, I believe on of our readers had also done a similar mockup for the Reds a couple of weeks ago — I forget who it was, but if you’re reading, please post your creation again!).
I also received an E-Mail from reader Sean Wilson, who had previously created a Colorado Rockies City Flag Color Logo and Uni Mockup of his own. Great stuff, Sean.
If any of you have creations or suggestions along these lines, please give me a shout. I love this stuff.
~~~~~~~~~~
 The planned “Fixing The Brewers” piece, which had been scheduled to run next weekend, will be pushed back to September, as UW will be in hiatus until then. I have already received many fantastic submissions for this post, and I’ll be sending out an E-mail to all the graphic artists who have contacted me so far and have expressed interest in participating. This would be along the lines of The White Sox uniform piece which ran at the end of last month.
If you would like to take part in this (basically, it’s going to be an opportunity for anyone who is interested in ‘creating, tweaking or overhauling’ the uniforms for the Milwaukee Brewers to do so — and the efforts will be showcased in September), please contact me and put in the subject line “Brewers Uniform Concepts.” Also, if you don’t care about, or don’t want to participate in the Brewers redux, and there is another team you think needs a uniform overhaul, let me know. We will announce the next team to be “fixed” when the weekend UW returns next month.
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Reprinted From Last Evening’s Comments: (Thanks to Tony Miller for the tip) “Notre Dame has new practice football uniforms. See the last paragraph-plus (featuring a mention of Uni Watch by name) here.” Good GOD are those things horrid. Can’t wait to hear Paul’s take on them.
~~~~~~~~~~
 So, we’re going on vacation for a little while, but not until the end of next week (details here, in case you missed it). But this is my last weekend post until next month. Paul will still bringing you top notch stuff all next week though, so make sure you keep checking in.
I’ll be glad for the weekends off, but I’ll still be keeping tabs on things, so if you have any questions, or would like to submit anything, from a City Flag jersey to the Milwaukee Brewer uniform fix, to a “Guess The Game” submission or a new Indian Caveman uni combination we haven’t yet seen, please gimme a holler. Also, when we return, football season will be in full swing, so if you’re interested in working with me on some football pieces (especially historical stuff or uniform changes/upgrades, etc.) let me know in the next couple weeks and we can work on stuff while the board is on hiatus. OK? OK!
Thanks everyone, for everything! Have a great Sunday and I’ll see you the first weekend in September! And make sure to check out the HOF game tonight — love to get everyone’s first impressions of the Legacy unis.
August 9th, 2009
Had a great time in Cleveland, but I’ll get to that tomorrow or the day after. For now, let’s talk football, because NFL training camp season has begun. And thanks to the league’s fancy new policy of allowing teams to wear ads on their practice jerseys, training camp is much more uni-notable than in years past. You’ve probably seen some of the ad patches by now, but here’s a fairly complete roundup of what’s been out there so far (with more to follow as additional teams unveil their practice attire):
• The Jets are wearing an Atlantic Health ad patch, but it doesn’t look so bad, in part because they normally wear a patch in that spot anyway, and in part because you can’t even make out what it is. I had to go searching to find what the logo is actually supposed to look like, and it turns out it’s more Jets-based than ad-based. Kinda makes you wonder why they bothered.
• Hmmm, you think the Bears’ University HealthSystem ad patch is big enough?
• Guess it makes sense that the Pats would be sponsored by Gillette, but holy shit does it look awful.
• The Titans are wearing their Baptist Sports Medicine, same as always.
• I suppose there’s something in the world sadder than the Bengals being sponsored by Spongetech. I just can’t imagine what it would be.
• At least four teams that were reportedly looking for jersey sponsors haven’t found them: the Broncos (who are instead wearing a 50th-anniversary patch, presumably as a “Your Ad Here” device), Chargers (ditto), Texans (semi-ditto, only with their helmet logo), and Packers (who are going patch-free, at least for now).
Still haven’t seen the ad patches being worn by the Colts and Giants, but those should be coming today or tomorrow. Of course, all of this pales in comparison to the big NFL news from over the weekend. In case you missed it, I’m of course referring to the return of the creamsicles in Tampa. Love ’em or hate ’em, one thing’s clear: Those socks are the bomb.
Membership Update: We’re closing in on our 800th member, thanks to new enrollees like Jerry Adams, whose card is based on this old Baltimore Bullets uni. As always, you can check out all the designs in the membership card gallery and make the membership scene yourself by signing up here.
Chat Alert: I’ll be doing a live web chat this Friday on ESPN.com, probably at either noon or 1pm eastern. Full details to follow shortly.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Major helmet logo problems yesterday for Micah Hoffpauir (screen shots courtesy of Paul Mazzarella). … Mark Penxa, whose gorgeous baseball watercolors were first featured on this site last year, is selling a bunch of his stuff way cheap. Highly recommended. … What could be better than hitching a ride on the bullpen buggy? (With thanks to Kevin Walsh.) … You’ve seen them by now, but here’s another look at the Bills’ throwbacks (with thanks to Mark Szlachetka). … Joe Skiba is back with a new training camp edition of Equipped. … What if World War II had been fought as a hockey tournament, with the Americans, Russians, Nazis, and all the other countries fighting it out on the ice? It’s an odd project, but an entertaining one, and Johnny Griswold has run with it. … Speaking of unusual concepts, Marc Swanson has imagined what the Bucs, Jags, and Seahawks might have looked like if they’d been in the AFL back in the early ’60s. … Anyone know why Roman Gabriel would have been playing with white stuff on his face, not to mention no sleeve stripes? (Screen shot courtesy of Claude Jacques.) … New football uniforms for Cal Poly. … The Muskegon Lumberjacks have unveiled a 50th-anniversary logo — and it was designed by Marc Okkonen! … Scott Turner was attired like so for Saturday’s Mets/D-backs game and says, “Mets ushers, food-order takers, food-bringers, fans, and the guys at the Lemon Ice King of Corona all either a) commented positively on my tee, or b) asked where they could get it. To the former, I said ‘You know, you’re now about to get fired by the Wilpons.’ The latter, steered them to No Mas.” … We’ve all seen pics of the Hollywood Stars’ shorts, but Paul Wiederecht found a version I hadn’t seen before: solid jersey with non-pinstriped shorts. … Also from Paul: The 1951 Padres (who were part of the Pacific Coast League at the time) wore solid-color jerseys with collars! … Roger Faso spotted lots of problems in this photo: “When the A’s wore that style of jersey, Rickey’s number was 35. He didn’t wear 24, in Oakland, until 1989, when they were in their current style. And here’s the kicker: The stripe pattern from that era was green-yellow-green, not yellow-green-yellow. Not to mention that the font is all wrong. I’m done with baseball this season.” … Anyone know why one member of the White Sox grounds crew wears a yellow jersey? (As spotted by Dylan Buell.) … Scott Rolen is still wearing his No. 33 batting gloves (good spot by Michael Kinney). … New third kit for Newcastle United (with thanks to Ross Hazlett). … Hmmm, is Tennessee switching to a black facemask? (As spotted by Josh Williams.) … Adidas has extended its UEFA agreement through the 2011-12 season and released new soccer ball designs for the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Super Cup, and the UEFA Europe League (with thanks to Jeremy Brahm). … The Bengals’ 1980s uniforms look even weirder in electric football (as noted by Brinke Guthrie). … Absolutely AWESOME catalog page devoted to those little plastic bread-tag thingies here (great find, Kirsten). … Those Phiten-branded socks look even worse as part of a throwback uni. … A guy in Detroit has built a Green Monster replica in his yard (with thanks to Tom Konecny). … We all know that players like Dick Allen and John Olerud wore batting helmets while playing the field. But here’s another member of that club who I hadn’t been aware of: Dave Roberts of the Padres, circa 1973 (nice find by Doug Keklak).
August 3rd, 2009
by Phil Hecken and Jim Vilk
I’m joined this fine Friday by DIYer and memorabilia collector Jim Vilk, who’s about to regale us with a fascinating story of his days working at the Richfield Coliseum, the Coliseum’s subsequent demise, and the trove of treasure Jim and his brother were able to secure in the hours prior the wrecking ball felling that once-proud structure. Fittingly, with Paul visiting The Mistake By The Lake The Forest City this weekend, Jim will take us inside (literally) the Coliseum and, after a quick history lesson, show us some of the things left behind, for the taking.
* * … Train wheels runnin’ through the back of my memory … * *
So, then, with that brief intro, here’s Jim:
With Paul coming to Cleveland this week, I did some math and realized he is here during a milestone year in Northeast Ohio sports history. The upcoming 2009-10 NBA season will be the 40th for the Cleveland Cavaliers. The year 2009 also marks 15 years of Cavs basketball at Quicken Loans Arena, or “The Q” (formerly Gund Arena) and 15 years of Indians baseball at Progressive Field (formerly Jacobs Field, or “The Jake,” as some of us still call it). Not only that, but 2009 marks 10 years of the new and not-so-improved Browns playing football at Cleveland Browns Stadium. The Browns’ last title was 45 years ago, but it wasn’t the city’s last. The Cleveland Crunch won the National Professional Soccer League title 15 years ago at Cleveland State’s Convocation Center. Take what you can get C-town, it counts.
That’s nice, I suppose. I’m a Pittsburgh fan, though, so most of it means bubkes to me. I do like the Cavs, but not nearly as much as I did when they spent 20 years playing ball amidst the serene, pastoral landscape of Richfield, far from the bright lights of the big city. Nestled in northern Summit County, the Richfield Coliseum was located almost halfway between Cleveland and the Akron-Canton area. I say “was,” because it’s been 10 years since they tore it down — but not before my brother Tom and I got a lot of great memorabilia.
The milestones continue. It’s been 35 years since the building opened with a Frank Sinatra concert, 30 years since Sports Illustrated said, “No arena was more beautiful than The Coliseum, a magnificent structure in Richfield, Ohio,” 20 years since “The Shot” by Michael Jordan and 15 years since the place closed with a Roger Daltrey concert. In between were many more concerts, truck pulls and rodeos, circuses and ice shows, boxing and wrestling matches, hockey and arena football games, some great indoor soccer (as we talked about recently) and of course, the good, bad and ugly years of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Tom and I worked as vendors there, and even shared a souvenir stand for a few years. He started a year after the building opened, so he was there for “The Miracle of Richfield.” I officially started in 1983. Unofficially, I got to work the 1981 NBA All-Star Game, which was cool. Tom stayed at the Coliseum all the way to the end, and even works at “The Q” to this day. I quit in 1992 to get on with my life’s work, but asked to come back in 1994 to work the Cavs’ playoff run. I lost my seniority but gladly sold soda in the seats for the final games.
When the building closed it sat for five years while they figured out what to do with it. There was talk of it becoming an outlet mall, a prison, a workout facility, you name it. Finally, the Gund brothers sold it and the surrounding land to what is now the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. They didn’t implode the building. Rather, they gutted the interior, then took a wrecking ball to the exterior.
A day before the wreckers came, my brother got a call. We knew one of the guys doing the interior work, and he said we could come in and take anything we could fit into our vehicles. Everything that was left would be buried on site. Tom hopped in his pickup and I got in my station wagon (if that’s what you want to call a Saturn SW1). When we got there, it took a few minutes to get over seeing the gutted remains. Memories came back and flooded our minds. Once we started finding things, though, our reaction quickly turned to joy; we were like kids on Christmas morning.
The first items we found (by the way, the items you’ve seen so far are things Tom and I bought or received as giveaways) were in the employee locker rooms. We took two types of patches from the ushers’ and security guards’ uniforms. I liked the ushers’ patches, which were issued when the Coliseum was ten years old. The blue and gray depiction of the building was a definite alternative to the simple blue-and-green patch. Both were good in their own way, though.
Next, we snagged some warm and toasty dark blue coats the parking lot attendants wore. I wore mine as my winter coat for a few years before I had to retire it. The simple design made it go with almost anything. The big white Coliseum logo on the back sure started a lot of conversations in public. I lost count how many times strangers started reminiscing with me when they saw it. Then we found a brown coat worn by the ticket takers. The brown welcome patch harkened back to the original logo.
Speaking of uniforms, the vendors had a few nice ones. Unfortunately, I don’t have those anymore. The only one I still have is the ugliest of the set — a red-and-green-striped bowling shirt with a horizontal strip of black thrown in for bad measure. We had a cool yellow polo shirt before that and a nice blue-white-and-orange rugby shirt afterward, but those are gone for some reason. Tom still has his rugby shirt, though.
* * … Ancient footprints are everywhere … * *
Anyway, on to the good stuff. We went out to the arena floor and grabbed a few sections of floor seats. My set actually gets some use in our basement. Tom has the rest tucked away in the bowels of his home. Then, we headed to a storage area, where we found a giant NBA logo and some floor stickers for the playoffs. We almost left the room, until we saw some rolled up fabric. Good thing we were curious, because we ended up finding the banner for the scorers table, as well as the banner for the Cavaliers’ 75-76 division title.
After that, we went up to the main concourse and stopped at our old location between sections 208 and 209. Tom grabbed the sign for it, while I took the “Drive Safely” sign above the exit. I like to keep it in my garage as a reminder to, you know, drive safely.
Finally, we headed up to the infamous loge area. The Coliseum was one of the first arenas to have a set of luxury boxes. Problem is, they put them way at the top of the building. That turned out to be the reason for the building’s early demise — the corporate types ended up with the worst view of the game. Whatever. We didn’t find much up there, until we got to a meeting room which contained a scale model of “The Q.” Well, if it was a full scale model, someone got to it before us and dismantled it. We found almost half of the seating area, which makes it kind of worthless. That didn’t matter to my brother, who never met a piece of memorabilia he didn’t like. Actually, with a little creativity some DIYer could turn it into a retro-looking baseball stadium. (Ah, if I had the time…)
By this time, our vehicles were filled beyond capacity. We left the building for the absolute last time, and I saluted as I drove out of the parking lot. It wasn’t the last time I’ve been on the site, however. The national park was just going to let trees grow naturally, but someone noticed birds were starting to use the land as a migratory pit stop. Now they keep the area trimmed for birds and bird watchers alike. You can walk around there, but the ground settled where the arena was, so that’s fenced off for safety. The small threat of poison ivy was enough to keep me from venturing around … until this past winter. We had lots of snow, so I put on my big rubber boots and hiked from the road to the fence (quite a feat in shin-deep snow over tall grass). I got to the approximate area outside of sections 208-209, noticed the calm around me, then closed my eyes and listened for the distant echoes of cheering fans. I think I heard a few — if nothing else I felt them.
Okay, what’s a Jim Vilk story without a little DIY? Most of you have seen my Lego tribute to the Miracle of Richfield and my latest indoor soccer game, but very few people have seen my first attempt at a Coliseum/Cleveland Force tribute. I made this from an old table hockey game, using cardboard cutouts for the players and clothes pins covered in hockey tape for the bases. It’s a bit primitive, but I thought I should dig it out of the closet and share it with you anyway.
Oh, and you hockey fans – that inflatable Cleveland Crusaders guy was goalie Gerry Cheevers, in case you were wondering.
* * … Yes, it sure has been a long, hard climb … * *
Thanks, Jim, for that trip down memory lane. You got some great stuff out of that old place. And thanks for the brief history lesson too — like many readers, I’m sure we weren’t aware of the great events hosted inside the Coliseum. And I, for one, wholeheartedly express support for a future DIY of turning that scale model of the Q into a retro baseball park. Maybe next spring?
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Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: OK…there’s going to be a theme with today’s post, starting with the scoreboard. So, right off the bat, in case you don’t recognize the stadium, there’s your hint. That’s the only hint you should need, since this one is probably pretty easy, especially if you know how to cheat. Try not to, OK? Ready? Guess The Game. As always, date, location and final score, and let us know how you came about your answer.
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Did I mention there’s a bit of a theme today? Well, even today’s Benchies plays along with that theme. Ricko did this one a long time ago (notice the stirrups on Ozzie), so take it for what it’s worth. And it’s pretty funny. So, on that note, enjoy a special Friday edition of Benchies.
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 Uni Watch News Ticker: Uni Watch Prexy Paul Lukas checks in first with this, heads up from the Buccaneers, who will be unveiling their 1976 throwback uniforms at 11:00 am today … Also noticing this was Wayne Edward Koehler who provides the “heads up” from The St. Pete Times … Mr. Lukas also notes these pics from Pats practice, ad patches everywhere … In a related story, Tom Adjemian checks in with this little story on the Pat’s Jersey Ads, with another pic. … Northwest UW correspondent Jeremy Brahm notes “The Japan Volleyball Federation (JVA) has just released logos for their men’s and women’s national teams. The women’s logo is on the left ‘Hinotori (Phoenix) Nippon (Japan)’ and the men’s is on the right ‘Ryuujin (Dragon King) Nippon (Japan).’ This is in collaboration with Tezuka Productions or the company that owns the rights to the Seibu Lions logo.” … More jersey sponsor news comes from Nick Houser who advises that the Cincinnati Bengals have signed a practice jersey deal with SpongeTech Delivery Systems according to the Cincinnati Enquirer (via twitter) … Ribby Paultz found this interesting article in which Russian airline “Aeroflot ditches ‘revolting’ hostess uniforms and reveals: ‘We will only hire attractive girls’.” Says Ribby, “‘Bout time.” … Following up upon a ticker item yesterday about Tadahito Iguchi’s batting gloves, Robert Steinau produced a picture of him from his days as a member of the Phillies … In addition, Jeremy has also supplied pics of him as a member of the White Sox, and also his current team, the Chiba Lotte Marines … Sneakerhead Matt Powers called me from Fenway Park yesterday to report that Rajai Davis is still wearing the logoed stirrups (here’s a better view from a different game) … Aaron Bolerjack writes: “I’ve been a Manchester United fan for a long time, and a Uni Watch supporter since the Page 2 days. Can’t believe that nobody from one camp or the other hasn’t jumped on this yet — A few weeks ago, Man U announced their new 09/10 home uniform, which they claimed was ‘reminiscent of the shirt worn by Manchester United’s 1909 FA Cup-winning team. This new design features a similar sash across the front. The club has used the same design components to honor that historic accomplishment of 100 years ago, the first of its eleven Cup titles.’” Here’s the problem, according to Aaron: The 1909 shirts looked like this (WHITE shirt, LONG sleeves, RED chevron and cuffs); The 2009/2010 shirts look like this (RED shirt, SHORT sleeves, BLACK chevron, BLACK neck ring, NO cuffs). “Ironically, the 2009/2010 goalkeeper’s jerseys (designed to CONTRAST with their teammates) are a LOT closer to the original design,” he continues. “Please help me bring attention to this travesty.” … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: reader Brian makes an astute observation — Is a commemorative bat really a the right type of memorabilia to celebrate a perfect game? … Jake Elwell found this bit about “These blogging sisters were featured in the Times style section today. I note they recently posted some fun uni-related stuff your readers might like (scroll down a bit).” … Zac Neubauer was fortunate enough to go to the Giants game on Monday night and got an up close look at the Sue Burns patch. Sadly, the ones on the ushers were either stapled or safety pinned on … Bill Scrowther notes, “I noticed during Wednesday night’s MLS All-Star game that each MLS player had their team’s crest on their left sleeve, which can be seen here.” Bill adds, “However, the second goalkeeper (Zach Thornton) for the MLS side had his crest on the front of his jersey, right chest. What made him so special? My only thought is maybe it has to do with him only being added to the roster on Monday.” … Check out this collection of old baseball photographs from the University of California Library system (with thanks to Robert Ruszczyk … Jim Zorn “lays down the law,” according to Alain Nana-Sinkam, who notes that in the last graf of the Chris Cooley blog, there are to be no cutoff sweats. “We have retained a seamstress to take care of that for you,” he states. … Hayden Jackson thinks, we “might enjoy this photo set of a book my grandfather owned about Babe Ruth called ‘Babe Ruth: The Idol of an American Boy’.” I’d say so … Chris Hodge found this incredibly cool gallery of old photos of the Bears at Wrigley Field. … Reprinted from last night’s comments: the Buffalo Bills have “officially” unveiled their throwback uniforms for next season (thanks TJ), and they’re already on sale — although there is some question as to the actual sleeve striping (if they’ll even have noticeable sleeves, that is) … OCD DIYer Robert Marshall, whose team apparently won their softball game yesterday, sent this awesome pic of his hosiery (at least I think that’s his legs) … Matthew Dubroff, Philly fan, loves his Phillies — but “then I saw this t shirt that is embarrassingly stupid. If this starts a trend if nickname jersey/shirts … god help us all.” And finally, the previously mentioned Matt Powers sent along the following: DWade has decided to join the mothership. Matt continues, “And for a sneakerhead, this news is like winning the lottery, going out with Kim Kardashian, and dunking on Gheorge Muresan after coming home from Spring Break and watching Sixth Sense for the first time.” He explains that these are often thought of as the best of all 23 Jordan signatures. And finally, a super rare retro. Thanks Matt, I don’t know what we’d do with out you.
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Hope everyone who was able to attend the UW gathering in Cleveland had a great time. Thanks to Paul for letting me steer the ship in his stead yesterday and today. Of course, you’re stuck with me for the weekend too. Be sure to check back Sunday for a couple of announcements on “uni tweaks” and “uni tracking” and a bit of potpourri. Have a great Friday everyone. — Phil
July 31st, 2009
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