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Posts filed under 'Patches'
By Bryan Redemske
The Phillies — those forward-thinking, tree-hugging Phillies — on Wednesday announced a “going green” initiative, starting with the purchase of 20 million kilowatt hours of Green-e Energy Certified Renewable Certificates (RECs). The EPA says it’s the equivalent of planting 100,000 trees … but without actually planting the trees.
The club is going to be recycling now, and also getting rid of condiment packages and going with dispensers and such instead. And to that, I say, “hurrah.” Good for them. But how to celebrate this new era in Phillies history? Hmmm … how about a green hat? Perfect!
Of course, the New Era factory had to be fired up to make them, and they had to be shipped and everything. Eh, we’ll save the environment tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow (which is now today, since I wrote this last night), it’s May Day. In celebration of that, all Major League Baseball teams will install a Maypole in a prominent location. Obviously, the Yankees will put it in Monument Park, but teams are free to place it wherever they like. Also, look for hat patches, too.
Here’s a look at the rest of baseball’s celebrations for May:
May 2: It’s Negro Leagues Day — the league’s first game was played on this day in 1920. All teams will wear Kansas City Monarchs uniforms, except the Royals, who will be wearing their powder blue alts.
May 3: Bitch about Walter O’Malley day. The former Dodgers owner agreed to move the team to Los Angeles on this day in 1957. The Dodgers will wear “LA” caps to celebrate the successful move.
May 4: Ken Oberkfell was born on this day in 1956. The Braves will honor him by refusing to acknowledge Atlanta’s pre-1991 history.
May 5: The Astros will honor the 47th anniversary of Al Shepard’s first trip into space by wearing replica Mercury suits. They will also retire the number 47.
May 6: It’s Willie Mays’ 77th birthday! All players — on the Mets — will wear their caps and sunglasses like this.
May 7: All teams will have a moment of silence before the game — and wear a special sleeve patch — to mourn the victims of the Great Natchez Tornado, which killed 317 people … in 1840.
May 8: The Pirates will celebrate Bill Cowher’s 51st birthday by wearing black and yellow.
May 9: Sticking with the birthday bent, it’s Twinkie day in San Diego: Tony Gwynn turns 48! The Padres will wear their camouflage jerseys to mark the occasion.
May 10: Teams will wear pink for Mother’s Day, only to find out they got the date wrong. They’ll change the promotion to celebrate the first day of the Giro d’Italia, a three week cycling stage race. The teams’ jerseys are now based on the leader’s pink jersey.
May 11: Teams will continue to wear pink, since it’s actually Mother’s Day now. The Yankees will decline to participate on both days, because they’re a-holes.
May 12: To honor Yogi Berra’s 88th birthday, broadcasters all over baseball will say things that make no sense. Again, the Yankees will decline to participate.
May 13: Today is Barry Zito’s 30th birthday, so it’s stirrups and a high ERA for everybody!
May 14: All starting pitchers will go 9 innings — but lose — to observe Roy Halladay’s 31st birthday.
May 15: The Yankees will retire Nos. 56, 1, and 1941 to honor the start of Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. The only numbers available for future players are 73, 94, and 97.
May 16: The No. 1 will be re-retired on what would have been Billy Martin’s 80th birthday. The Yankees will wear black ankle bands, since their sleeves are full of other patches.
May 17: The Padres will wear their camouflage jerseys in honor of the 1943 Dambuster Raids on German dams.
May 18: The Yankees, Orioles, Athletics, and Angels will all wear patches shaped like tinted prescription glasses for Reggie Jackson’s birthday.
May 19: The Blue Jays will celebrate Victoria Day by taking the day off, but having another ceremony later, like the Nationals on Jackie Robinson day.
May 20: It’s Hal Newhouser rubber jacket day in Detroit. To celebrate environmental consciousness, each jacket will be made from recycled tires taken off all current GM models.
May 21: Protective cup day in all parks, in an attempt to prevent future occurrences of … uh … this.
May 22: Mark Prior will undergo Tommy John surgery in honor of the 66th birthday of the surgery’s namesake. It was going to happen sooner or later — call it preventative maintenance.
May 23: The Padres will wear their camouflage jerseys in honor of Italy joining the Allies in World War I in 1915.
May 24: No activities planned. The Yankees decline to participate anyway.
May 25: It’s Star Wars Day across the majors in honor of the 31st anniversary of the film’s release.
May 26: Memorial Day — the Padres surprisingly don’t wear their camouflage jerseys, but the White Sox remember they have them and break them out for the first time.
May 27: It’s the 69th anniversary of the debut of Batman, prompting the Yankees to wear capes and little bat antennae.
May 28: Chleveland Honors Jhonny Peralta’s 26th birthday.
May 29: Today’s Red Sox game will be delivered in winks and nods in remembrance of Moe Berg, a former Sox catcher and U.S. spy.
May 30: The Cubs wear green hats in honor of grass, ivy, and the one-month anniversary of the Phillies’ green initiative.
May 31: Kenny Lofton, age 41 today, has his number retired by the Astros, Indians, Braves, White Sox, Giants, Pirates, Cubs, Yankees, Phillies, Dodgers, and Rangers.
Here’s Vince with the ticker …
Uni Watch News Ticker: As Paul has noted before, even fans get in on the whole misspelled jersey thing (thanks to Dan Cichalski). … Many people have emailed to say that Bob Uecker claimed during the Brewers/Cubs broadcast that Chicago’s Reed Johnson is the last among the Cubs to wear “old style” stirrups. Many also claimed that this claim doesn’t appear to be true. These photos seem to indicate Uecker is right, though. … There’s apparently some groundswell to have the NCAA allow USC and UCLA to both wear their home uniforms for their annual game (thanks to Eric Borer). … The Durham Bulls wore pink jerseys to support breast cancer awareness (thanks Josh Edney). …A New York Rangers sweater given to Bruce Springsteen is part of a larger auction you can find here (thanks to Michael Jaworski). … Reader Andrew has created a site devoted to the uniform history of the Diamondbacks. … If you haven’t checked it out ready, this blog devoted to ugly baseball cards is certainly a great time waster (thanks John Muir). … Patrick Ryan says that Houston had to wear their grey road uni’s for the first time this season because Arizona chose to wear their red alts. … Think Luis Sanchez really wants everyone to know whose jacket that is? (Thanks John Muir).
May 1st, 2008
MLB’s continuing drive to mark every single game with some sort of uniform tribute ventured into new territory last night, as a few teams trotted out the first-ever Earth Day treatments. The Red Sox wore a patch with the logo shown at right (unfortunately, this is the best photo I’ve been able to find), plus I hear they renamed their left-field wall “the Green Monster” for a night. Over in Houston, the ’Stros wore green caps (additional views here and here). The message on the side is “Play Green.”
I’d heard that the Phillies were going to wear green BP jerseys during pregame warm-ups, but I haven’t seen any photos — does anyone know if they actually did this? If so, it’s by far the most appropriate Earth Day gesture, since the green BP tops were no doubt the same ones they wore back on St. Paddy’s Day, which is a much more recycling-related move than manufacturing a bunch of new patches or caps. (Update: I’ve now gotten word that the Phils didn’t wear green BP jerseys last night after all.)
Speaking of recycling, you know that familiar tri-arrowed logo that’s the basis for the Red Sox patch? It’s arguably one of the most successful and recognizable logos of the past 40 years, but it has no legal meaning, no legal owner, is not trademarked, and can be used by anyone — for some background, check out this page and this page, both taken from the book Recycled Papers: The Essential Guide by Claudia Thompson.
Perhaps most interesting of all, the symbol’s designer — a 23-year-old USC student named Gary Anderson, who submitted the design as part of a contest held in conjunction with the original Earth Day back in 1970 — was completely off the grid for years. In that last page I linked to, Claudia Thompson writes, “I have tried to locate Mr. Anderson in the hope of recognizing and reproducing his original pen-and-ink drawing, but unfortunately without success.” That was in 1992; five years later, I wrote an article about recycling imagery (for Spin magazine, of all places) and made my own attempt to track down Anderson, but I came up empty.
Ah, but nobody stays hidden in the broadband era. Two excellent articles about Anderson and his symbol (both downloadable as PDFs) are available here and here. When he came up with the Möbius Strip-based symbol back in 1970, I’m fairly certain he had no idea his creation would end up on Dustin Pedroia’s left sleeve (especially since Pedroia hadn’t yet been born), but that’s recycling for ya.
Betcha Thought I’d Put a Photo of a Can of Spam Here: OK, here’s the deal: Our old spam filter — the one that was generally fine until last Friday night — is still going through this bizarre phase in which it insists on treating every single post as spam. That’s obviously unacceptable. We don’t know why it’s behaving this way (it worked fine for so long). Last night we tried re-installing it, using a newer version of it, using an OLDER version of it — no dice.
The filter we used on Monday and Tuesday is better, but not good enough. As many of you discovered, it treats lots of legitimate posts as spam. What’s worse, it doesn’t allow me (or John, or Bryan) to go into the filter and rescue lost/eaten posts.
So for now we’ve gone back to a security system that requires you to enter a computer-generated code word. I know, I know — it’s a major pain. But this system is better than the similar system we used a while back. For example, if you enter the code incorrectly (or click “Say It!” without remembering to enter the code at all), your post won’t simply be rejected and disappear — instead, your comment will be preserved and you’ll be taken to a “try again” page.
We hope this will be just a temporary fix. Our goal is to get our original spam filter working again. Please bear with us while we try to make that happen.
And just to underscore how necessary it is to have some kind of filter: It took John about 30 seconds last night to disable the old filter and install the new security system. In those 30 seconds, two porno spams were posted on the site. It’s like The Matrix — the machines are fucking relentless, man, and they’re coming after us.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Really interesting piece here about some of the Rockets players wearing Chinese-made sneakers (with thanks to Brett Crane). … My thanks to everyone who explained that the bracelet on David Ortiz’s left forearm is a saints bracelet. … Yesterday’s note about the Apollo 11 astronauts have to-do lists sewn into their gloves prompted this from Kevin Friede: “Today’s discussion reminded me of a prank played on the Apollo 12 astronauts. In addition to the quarterback-style wrist checklists, each astronaut had a fairly thick mission checklist booklet, and some NASA people managed to sneak some Playboy centerfolds into the middle of the checklists.” … Here’s a truly amazing conribution from Jared Wheeler: “Ray Dumont was the founder of the National Baseball Congress, which is an organization of semi-pro leagues throughout the U.S. and Canada. It has been up and running since 1935. In 1951 Dumont attached a walkie-talkie device on the umpire, so the fans could hear the conversations between the umpire and the batter.” … Who needs Joba in the rotation? Just put Brian Urlacher in there (with thanks to Brian Russ). … So get this: The Patriots are still trying to trademark the term “19-0.” … While looking for something else, I found this really awesome Cubs training video — don’t miss. … The David Ortiz jersey that was buried in the Yankee Stadium concrete will be on display at the New England Sports Museum. … Another reader has commissioned Rob Ullman to create a jersey-clad pin-up illo. This time it’s Michael DeAloia, who had Rob depict his girlfriend, Rachel, “in the best college jersey of all-time — the Notre Dame green and gold.” Michael reports that Rachel “digs” the results. … Cricket report from Jordan Owen, who writes: “After last year’s success with their pink breast cancer awareness unis, Middlesex County cricket debuted their new One Day unis — spectacular navy and pink quarters — this past Sunday in a victory over trans-Thames rival Surrey.” … Tons of amazing Tiger Stadium photos here (with thanks to Paul Wiederecht). … The new Minnesota football uniforms will be unveiled at 1pm today. … Jeff Barak has found a bunch of really beautiful posters showing the progression of baseball stadiums in various cities, including New York (click on each individual ballpark for a larger image), Boston (ditto), Cleveland (for this one and all the ones that follow, you can see more detail by using the links below the poster), Cincinnati, Detroit, Philly, and St. Louis. The guy behind all this, an Ohio illustrator named Jeff Suntala, has a blog called Historic Ballparks, and has also put the stadium illustrations on a series of T-shirts, coffee mugs, and so on. His illos are gorgeous, and edumacational to boot. Check the full lineup here.
April 23rd, 2008
Whatever you think of the House the Ruth Built, its impending demise has had at least one salutary side effect: New York’s tabloid papers have been publishing plenty of historically minded retrospective articles filled with, as Scott M.X. Turner puts it, “lots of photo yumminess.” Scott noted some interesting pics in this past Sunday’s Daily News, and reader Eric Hoey found something truly astonishing in Sunday’s Post. Let’s take a look:
• Scott describes the memorial armband in this Joe D. photo as “the world’s thickest mourning strip” (also, note the belt buckle disappearing into the belt tunnel). Interestingly, I had a similar comment last August about this Joe D. jersey, which was displayed in the Museum of the City of New York’s “Glory Days” exhibit. The two jerseys aren’t the same, obviously, since one is home and one is road, but the Yankee Clipper apparently liked his armbands extra-wide.
• Remember my recent blog entry about the “ruptured duck” honorable discharge patch, which several Cubs players wore in 1945? At the time, I mentioned that Red Ruffing of the Yankees also wore the patch, but I didn’t have a photo. Now, however, thanks to Scott and the Daily News, I do.
• “Forgit the beauties here,” says Scott. “Check out the different number fonts. Yankees fans forget — or more likely don’t know — that the Yanks and Red Sox shared that ‘Red Sox font’ for much of the Ruth/Gehrig/DiMaggio eras.”
• Here’s the real prize, spotted by Eric in Sunday’s Post: The Yanks won the 1932 World Series, so they raised their championship banner on Opening Day in 1933 (exactly 75 years ago today, coincidentally). And what were the players wearing there in the foreground? Check it out: Yankees capes! How cool is that?! Or maybe they were blankets, because I found this shot of Babe Ruth from an exhibition game a few days earlier — same white trim as the capes had, although the capes looked shinier. Anyway, we’ve all seen sideline capes in football, but I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this on a baseball field. Anyone know of any other examples? (Oh, and that other team across the way? That would be the Boston Red Sox, who had no idea how many decades of frustration lay ahead of them.)
Uni Watch News Ticker: Cool socks worn by Kiara Franciso of Winter Haven High School in Florida (with thanks to Bob Rios). … Dave Concepcion not only wore No. 13, he also wrapped a Friday the 13th calendar page around the barrel of his bat! … “I grabbed this off the trailer for the Love Guru movie,” writes Carl Carlson-Drexler. “It looks like they’ve got Justin Timberlake wearing an old fiberglass mask, which would be slightly anachronistic — and bizarre, since they seem to have a lot of other things pegged (down to the Stanley Cup playoff patches).” … Check out the unusual downhill insignia worn by the 1924 Waterloo Hawks (the latest contribution from photo-historian David Eskenazi). … Good catch by Jere Smith, who was watching a replay of Mike Witt’s perfect game (September 30th, 1984) and noticed that all of the Angels had vertically arched NOB lettering — except for Reggie Jackson, whose lettering was radially arched. I couldn’t find any other 1984 rear-view pics of Reggie, so I’m not sure if this was a one-game aberration or something more extensive. Anyone know more? … Sharp-eyed Brett Crane notes that home plate ump Joe West was wearing two sets of memorial initials during last night’s Angels/Rangers game. The “EG” is for Eric Gregg, I’m sure, and I’m assuming that the “SC” is for former National League ump Shag Crawford, who died last summer. … Reader Paul Wiederecht was in town over the weekend and joined me for a beer. I paid for the suds, which was the least I could do after he presented me with a pair of genuine Mets stirrups, circa 1980. … While channel-flipping last night, I was surprised to stumble across the NCAA women’s bowling championships. Even more surprising: Arkansas State wore these skimpy shorts, while Maryland Eastern Shore wore short skirts. Can’t they just wear slacks, like the guys? Also note the NCAA patch, just like in the hoops tourney, and check out the uni numbers on the sleeves. And although I didn’t manage to get a photo, I just about slit my wrists when I saw one of the Maryland girls wearing one of those thin Nike swoosh bands on her upper calf (just like the ones being worn by most of the guys in this shot). … Max Rosenthal says this page features “a good roundup of/commentary on the shirts to be worn at Euro 2008 (the European soccer championship),” and I’ll take his word for it cuz I’m too busy right now to actually read the page. … I’m not the only one who has issues with corporate sponsorship (with thanks to Tom Konecny). … Jeremy Brahm reports that the Japanese softball team for this summer’s Olympics will look like this.
April 15th, 2008
[Editor’s Note: Longtime reader Mike Cooperman attended last Saturday’s Dodgers/Bosox exhibition game at the fabled L.A. Coliseum and generously offered to provide the following account of his day — enjoy. — PL]
By Mike Cooperman
Along with 114,298 of our closest friends, my wife and I took in Saturday night’s Dodgers/Red Sox game at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The game featured some interesting Uni Watch fodder — some classic, and some we could have done without.
Why, you might ask, would the Dodgers be playing a baseball game in a football stadium, especially since the stadium configuration resulted in left field being only 201 feet away from the plate, with a 60-foot-high net?
Well, it just so happens that 2008 is the 50th anniversary of the Dodgers moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. And when the Dodgers arrived in Los Angeles, they played their first four years in the Coliseum.
Yet, neither of the above-linked logos ended up on the Dodgers’ jerseys for Saturday’s game. Instead, they wore a barely visible patch honoring the team’s official charity, ThinkCure (to which all proceeds from the game were donated). While their hearts were certainly in the right place, methinks their logo designers were not.
Between innings, the Dodgers honored influential figures from the team’s history, including several players from the late ’50s and early ’60s, who were honored alongside Lakers great Kareem Abdul-Jabar (since he, like the Dodgers, is originally from Brooklyn). So, how come Kareem got an authentic fitted cap, but Duke Snider got stuck with something from the gift stand?
Speaking of caps, the same marketing geniuses who had the cool idea of bringing the Dodgers back to the Coliseum also came up with this — a hybrid of the Dodgers cap in USC Trojan colors, readily available at the memorabilia shops conveniently located every 10 feet. As a Trojan alum, I absolutely do not approve, plus it feels like a rip off of this. While I had to stare at the back of that cap the entire game, at least I could look to my left and admire the classic kicks of the guy sitting next to me.
While we witnessed history — not only the largest crowd in baseball history but certainly the largest wave as well — the Dodgers missed a chance to set up a Battle of the stylized Bs. Also, I learned definitively that there is a third certainty in life: death, taxes, and no matter what logos, caps, or venues are involved, Dodgers fans still come in the 2nd inning and leave in the 7th.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Latest team planning to use a translated team name to appeal to the Latino market: the Mariners, who’ll dress up as the Marineros on May 31st. … NC State broke out some awesome striped stirrups on Tuesday (additional pics here and here, courtesy of Drew Johnson). … Yesterday I linked to this story about an April Fool’s Day prank. That led to the following response from Matt Rizzolo: “I’m actually friends with the guy pictured on the card. His name is Sensen Lin, and he’s a 25-year-old law student at NYU who I worked with this past summer at Ropes & Gray, a law firm in NYC. The kicker is that he isn’t a baseball player or even a fan, and he’s not even Japanese — he’s Chinese! He told me that they paid him about $600 for two hours of posing. Not bad work, huh?” … Got a sweet tooth? Now you can have your favorite MLB team’s logo printed on M&M’s. Too bad they felt the need to include the little “™” marks, which kinda ruins all the fun, at least for me. If the M&M’s “m” logo doesn’t have a trademark annotation, why should the MLB logos? Jeez. … The Wild will be wearing a “Team of 18,000″ patch tonight (I guess that’s sort of the opposite of “Army of One,” right?), and all fans in attendance will receive the patch as well. Details here (with thanks to Matt Myer). … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: The Mets’ little Velcro patch, whose stitched outline is usually visible between “New” and “York” on the team’s road jersey, appears to be missing so far this year. My hunch: Because the Mets went straight from spring training to a season-opening road trip, equipment manager Charlie Samuels hasn’t had time to add the little Velcro patches. I suspect they’ll be sewn on once the team gets back to New York. … Steven Siegel got a good shot of Jose Molina wearing a knit cap under his hockey-style mask last night. … Lots of info here about the Giants’ Super Bowl ring design. As a longtime Jints fan who hates gold and loves anything silver-toned, I’m psyched to see that the ring will be white gold. … The South Carolina Gamecocks have gotten some newfangled equipment (with thanks to Franklin Beau). … Ready for the new NFL logo? Roger Goodell sure is (courtesy of Brinke Guthrie). … As you probably know by now (and as Larry Bowa has certainly been made aware), third base coaches are required to stay within the coaching box this year. But Mike Hersh notes that the 3B box in San Diego appears to have been extended. Anyone know if this is an MLB-wide thing, or are the Padres just looking to give their coach a bit of extra leeway? … It’s hard to see, but the Indians’ NOB drop shadow is now gone (although the outlining is still there).
April 3rd, 2008
It’s pretty simple, or at least it should be: You don’t wear an alternate uniform for the first game of the season. And that goes double when you’re playing the very first game at a brand-new ballpark.
But the Braves were more interested in selling a few shirts and caps than in having any respect for the game or for their hosts, so they chose Opening Night to unveil their new blue alternate road jerseys and solid blue caps. Nice going, John Schuerholz. Maybe at your home opener you can announce that you’ve sold the stadium’s naming rights to Coca-Cola.
Such unseemly breaches of protocol notwithstanding, how did the new togs look? Well, they’re waaaaay better than the red alt jersey (which, sadly, will still be worn for Sunday home games). The big problem is that the blue script and, especially, the blue uni numbers look sooooo Little League, like they didn’t have enough $$$ to shell out for an additional color or something. I never thought I’d ever be using a BP jersey to make a favorable comparison, but compare the BP shirt’s red lettering and numbering to the new gamers and it’s no contest. As someone on Chris Creamer’s site pointed out, the blue-on-blue uni numbers are very reminiscent of this and this, neither of which is the kind of thing you’d wanna be associated with. The jersey needs some red.
As for the navy-brimmed cap, I don’t mind that so much, esp. since it harkens back to an earlier era. But a spot of red would’ve been nice, even if only on the top cap button. And hey, how come they didn’t have solid navy batting helmets?
Other notes from the game:
• That little left-sleeve patch says, “Beach,” a memorial tribute to coach Jim Beauchamp.
• I didn’t realize that the Nats’ stadium sleeve patch was gonna be reprised as a cap patch. Let’s hope this is just just for the first game or first series of the season.1
• Odalis Perez had major undershirt-tag problems early in the game.
• Fans of double-flap helmets will be happy to hear that Willie Harris is still wearing one, just as he’s done earlier in his career. In addition, Brayan Pena wore one, something he has not previously done.
• I understand that stuff like this is unavoidable these days. But seriously, I am so sick of these mound logos. The mound is a place for serious work, not a billboard for you to tell people something they already know anyway.
• Speaking of Ws on the mound, we’ll never have to see this again, and that’s more than dandy with me. Go back to sleep, George.
Simple Rule: If someone posts a photo of an attractive female athlete — or just an attractive female, period — and if you respond by posting a dick-for-brains comment like, “Uniform? I don’t see any uniform!” or something of a similar ilk, my new policy as of right now is that you will be blocked from making any further comments on the site. This is not because such comments are offensive, but because they’re so totally lazy, stupid, and depressingly predictable. If you need to convince everyone that you’re heterosexual, at least come up with a more creative way of doing it, like by running for governor of New York or something. Thanks.
Uni Watch News Ticker: I hadn’t spent any time poking around Steve Dewing’s completely addictive photo site for a while, so I checked in the other day and, as usual, got completely sucked into the gorgeous imagery. Among the new finds: Keith Hernandez in white shoes (clearly from the 1987 All-Star Game) and this shot, which appears to show a Dodgers catcher wearing either a front-facing helmet or a brimless helmet. The thing is, this photo is almost certainly from 1969 (as evidenced by the MLB 100th-anniversary patch on Tony Perez’s sleeve), and I wasn’t aware of catchers going front-brimmed or brimless that early. … Chris Burris notes that Orlando Mendez-Valdez has been wearing the Western Kentucky logo on his socks. … Nice historical rundown of Coastal Carolina logos here (with thanks to Greg Sharp). … While looking for something else, I came across this 1988 photo. Check out that amazing American League umpire’s cap! … The Brooklyn Cyclones are planning to wear Hebrew uniforms for Jewish Heritage Night in a few months. Details here (with thanks to Mike Stutzman). … Good Converse article here. … David Stern floated a trial balloon the other day about possible uniform advertising for NBA preseason games overseas (a particularly disappointing prospect when you consider how interesting some of the country-based preseason designs have been over the past two years). If you’d like to help shoot that balloon down, you can contact the NBA here. … Reprinted from Friday’s comments: Outstanding article about Rawlings gloves — highly recommended. … Remember Rob Ullman and his uni-themed cheesecake illustrations? Kent Foster certainly does: “Took your advice and had Rob create a hockey pin-up girl for me,” he writes. “The team is the University of Richmond Spiders and the girl is my wife, Monica. I actually got it for her for her birthday, although it was probably more of a present for me.” … “I think this is my favorite picture so far from the SI vault,” writes Jesse Spector. “I think you’ll really enjoy it too, for the little details like the red shoes, the sock stripes, and the Baltimore Clippers championship banner.” Indeed. … Padres news from Brian Hilemon, who writes: “CEO Sandy Alderson stated during his weekly radio chat that next season the Pads will have uniform designs to honor not only the Marines but other branches of the military as well.” Jesus Christ, why don’t they just put mosquito netting over the stadium, make fans salute when they go through the turnstiles, and install David Petraeus in the manager’s office already. … Headband or wannabe-monk? (As forwarded by Greg Riffenburgh.) … “I went to the games in Tokyo last week and got some cool shots of the unis in the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame and at the game,” writes Mark Bittick. “The Hall is mostly about uniforms (there’s something um, unsettling about the Hiroshima Carp’s sleeve patch), and the beer girls at the stadium are straight out of anime. They even wear stirrups!” … Good close-ups here of David Beckham’s 100th-match golden cleats, jersey, and cap (big thanks to Dana Prey). … Cool video segment about our friends at Distant Replays here. … Thoughts on the Civil Rights Game: Overall, the uniforms were really lame (duh), but the orange trim on the Mets’ attire looked really good (although it would’ve looked a lot better if they’d worn blue sleeves and caps, to match the chest insignia, instead of going with black). Interesting that the Mets had special pants made for the occasion, while the Sox just wore their regular road pants. Also interesting that both teams wore their regular caps (well, except for that little “Civil Rights Game” embroidery on the side), while the Cards and Indians wore specially designed caps (and helmets!) last year. … Strange boxing phenomenon the other night: Arthur Abraham was wearing Adidas gloves, or so it appeared during his bout with Elvin Ayala (in fact, Ayala had Adidas gloves too). But when the tape came off the gloves after the fight, it turned out Abraham’s gloves were also Everlast-branded — what gives? I have a friend at Everlast and hope to have an answer soon (big thanks to Richard Giron for spotting this one). … According to the little “Did You Know?” squib in the right-hand column of this page, the Sean Taylor memorial movement is alive and well (good catch by Daniel Weimann). … Really nice old baseball uniform available here. I’d bid on this one myself, but the seller says the jersey is 22 inches from pit to pit (i.e., a size 44), which means it’s too big for me. Dang. … Really, really good article here about rugby sponsorships, logo creep, and related issues (with thanks to Caleb Borchers). … Great article and audio slide show about some interesting behind-the-scenes details at Yankee Stadium. … Good catch by Brian Russ, who writes: “When CBS showed the brackets after the Memphis/Texas game, they misspelled Xavier on the screen.” … Jeremy Brahm notes that the Romanian women’s handball team has off-center uni numbers. … Jon Chin reports that New Era is now selling fitted MLB caps for women. The sales copy says they’re “fit for a woman!” (not sure if this refers to the cap’s tailoring or if they mean it in the “fit for a king” sense) and adds that the caps have a “re-designed fit with a re-sculpted crown and trimmed visor.” Not sure how this makes them more “woman”-ly. Anyone..? … At first I got all excited when Scott Marcusky sent me these awesome photos of a Pirates farmhand from Saturday’s Bucs/Twins spring training game. “Ah,” I thought, “Nyjer Mogan’s hosiery influence is spreading!” But then I checked the Pittsburgh roster and found that No. 79 is Luis Munoz, who (a) is a pitcher, (b) isn’t listed in Saturday’s box score, and (c) looks like this (tough to say for sure, but that doesn’t look like this fella). Now I’m inclined to think that the player in question might actually be Morgan himself wearing someone else’s jersey, as occasionally happens in spring training. If anyone can help confirm or refute my theory, I’m all ears. … As many readers have noted, the new NFL logo is now being featured on NFL.com. … Contrary to what I wrote a few days ago, the Dodgers never intended to wear throwback flannels for Saturday’s game at the L.A. Colisseum. Instead, a bunch of 1958 old-timers will wear the flannels during today’s Opening Day ceremonies at Dodger Stadium. Sorry to have gotten the two events mixed up. … Reprinted from last night’s comments: Vince Young has a nameplate tattoo. … The Hershey Bears wore 1938-39 throwbacks on Saturday night. Additional pics here (courtesy of Mark Coale). … Check this out: baseball stadiums made out of Lego, plus an interview with the guy who designs them.
March 31st, 2008
Whatever you think of the advertising patches that were worn in the A’s/Bosox series in Japan, one question remains: Why is uniform advertising used exclusively in these season-opening series in Japan?
Our resident expert on all things Far Eastern, Jeremy Brahm, tried to address this question in Tuesday’s comments:
Since the beginning of the MLB tours of Japan, two Japanese newspapers — the Yomiuri Shimbun (owner of the Yomiuri Giants) and the Mainichi Shinbun (which owned the Mainichi Orions, which are now the Chiba Lotte Marines — the paper currently has no ownership stake) — would split who sponsored the tour every two or three years. This has continued until recently.
Now, with the season-opening games, Yomiuri gets sponsorship precedence, because they own a portion of the Tokyo Dome and because of their historical support for MLB Tours.
The tours in the past have always had some sort of sponsorship. Now there are presenting sponsors, such as Ricoh — similar to the situation with a college bowl game.
Even after some private follow-up e-mailing with Jeremy, I don’t fully understand this, but the basic gist seems to be, “Professional baseball in Japan, including all-star tours by MLB players, has always included sponsorship, so that’s just the way it’s gonna be when you’re playing in Japan.”
Anyway: You probably know that American ballplayers have been visiting Japan for decades. The Yankees toured the Asian country in 1934 (details here), and there have been many, many all-star exhibition tours over the years. Most of these tours have had their own logos, and Jeremy has compiled some of the more recent ones: 1986, 1990, 1996, another one from 1996, 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.
Some additional notes:
• I never really paid any attention to MLB tours of Japan until the autumn of 2004, when a larger version of this photo caught my eye. Although you can’t tell in that thumbnail-size shot, Carl Crawford was wearing the road jersey that Tampa would eventually wear in 2005, with different lettering than the 2004 version — and, yes, he was also wearing an advertising sleeve patch. As it turns out, all the MLB players on that all-star tour were wearing Æon sleeve patches and helmet decals (additional views here and here), along with cap patches. Plus Roger Clemens was sporting some truly awful-looking hosiery logo creep. This all looks pretty clownish to me, but hey, these were just exhibition games — they’re allowed to look clownish. Maybe it’s even better if they look clownish, just to reinforce the point that the games don’t really matter and that it’s all in fun. But I still can’t get my head around the idea of wearing uniform advertising for games that count.
• The A’s and Mariners were supposed to open the 2003 season in Japan, but the series was cancelled due to security concerns arising from the Iraq War, which had just started. Programs, however, had already been printed.
• Jeremy has also found a page showing ticket stubs from assorted MLB tours of Japan. Several of them are flat-out gorgeous — check out the full page here.
• Also from Jeremy: This 1979 All-Star Game gym bag, apparently produced for Japanese fans.
• And just to bring us back to the present, Nicholas Schiavo notes that an Oakland player — not sure who — was wearing a sweatshirt in the dugout during Tuesday’s game. And what did that sweatshirt say? “2006 MLB Playoffs.” Wonder if he got fined for not wearing the official ad-sponsored Japan Series version.
Pinstriped Mystery Solved (More or Less): Big thanks to all who responded to Monday’s entry (which focused on an old photo showing Dodgers wearing pinstripes, as seen at left) by suggesting that I get in touch with Dodgers team historian Mark Langill, a man whose acquaintance I clearly should have made long ago. I called his office on Monday afternoon and left a voicemail. When he called me back a few hours later, he said he was standing in the third base coach’s box at the Los Angeles Coliseum, where the Dodgers will be playing a throwback exhibition game against the Red Sox this Saturday. (By coincidence, the Dodgers’ 1958-style uniforms for that game are being furnished by Ebbets Field Flannels, and I was actually in the Ebbets office in Seattle a few weeks ago when the Dodgers called to order the uniforms. The good news: They’re going with classic wool flannels. The bad news: They’re using NOBs, which is soooooo bogus for a 1958 throwback. Sigh.)
Anyway: I e-mailed the photo in question to Langill, who immediately identified it as a 1964 spring training shot of minor league coaches. Apparently the Dodgers had several low-level minor league teams in their system that wore pinstripes along with the classic Dodgers script (Mark isn’t sure which ones are represented in the photo, but he’s working on that), and they were wearing “L.A.” caps because that’s what everyone wore for spring training purposes.
Still not sure about the spring training pics showing jerseys with “S” and “X” instead of uni numbers, but I’m trying to get Mark to explain that too.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Cool old newspaper basketball uniform available here. … A little birdie tells me that the Braves’ long-rumored blue alternate jersey may make its debut in the team’s very first game of the season, this Sunday against the Nats. “GM Frank Wren wants it to be a big surprise,” reports my source. “The Braves have delayed putting out their merchandise catalog this year solely because the road alternate jersey is featured in it. The feeling is that by unveiling them in this fashion (nationally televised game on ESPN), sales will be through the roof as soon as the catalog is sent.” Nice to see uniforms reduced to nothing more than a sales gimmick. … Best view yet of the “Japan 2008″ logo. … Looks like Manny was back to his old, skanky “B” logo yesterday. … Speaking of Manny, according to a small item in the middle of this story, MLB wouldn’t let him use his “red-barreled, Diablo brand bat” in Japan, so “he just grabbed some ‘Japanese wood,’ in the form of a couple of SSX models” (with thanks to Tom Horgan). … The “Baseball as America” traveling exhibit is currently residing at the National Constitution Center in Philly. A bonus uniform-centric program will take place there at on Saturday, April 19th, from noon to 3pm, featuring Mitchell & Ness prexy Peter Capolino, M&N researcher (and frequent Uni Watch contributor) Jared Wheeler, and several Phillies old-timers. I’m gonna try to make it to Philly for this event. Assuming my schedule cooperates, we’ll have a Uni Watch party later that same day. Details to come soon-ishly. … Speaking of Peter and Jared, they just sent me this 1943 Sporting News item that explains the origin of the Cardinals’ birds-on-the-bat logo. … New Netherlands soccer kit here, here, and here. … Guess which sporting event I won’t be attending? (As horrifyingly reported by Mike Alper.) … According to this story, the Astros will wear green caps in honor of Earth Day on April 22nd (good find by Jason Chapman). … We all know the old pre-Photoshop phenomenon of Topps airbrushing photos of players who'’d been traded. This blog recently ran a contest to pick the most egregious example from this field of choices. Results here (great discovery by Jason McCarty). … As you may have heard over the past few days, the NFL is considering a ban on long hair (that sound you just heard was Minna H. screaming in horror). … You’ve heard of throwback uniforms? Check this out: throwback police squad cars (courtesy of Billy Duss). … Well, that was fun while it lasted. … Attention Tim Witesock: Here’s the eBay auction of your dreams (with thanks to Jason Libes). … Good number-retirement cartoon from last week’s New Yorker. … More new soccer kits: Switzerland, Austria, Croatia (courtesy of Chris Palatinus). … And more discussion of the new USA black jersey here (with thanks to Mark Coale). … New policy at Northern Illinois: Football players who “skip class, show up late for team meetings or otherwise fail to live up to [head coach Jerry] Kill’s standards” have to wear a yellow shirt with pink “I Let My Team Down” lettering. Idiotic details here (as forwarded by Dan Streed). … Minnesota’s two pro soccer teams have new logos (with thanks to Joel Dunn). … Todd Taylor says this is the story behind the Rays using the same boring insignia for their home and road jerseys: “They did that intentionally, to build name recognition for the new team name. They will go to ‘Tampa Bay’ on the roads next season.” … The whole sports/gang connection refuses to die (with thanks to Chris Flinn). … The long-rumored Miami Hurricanes black alternate jersey will apparently look like this. … Wanna design a new secondary logo for the Colts? Look here. … I was going through some old files and came across a bit of info sent my way five or six years ago by SABR researcher Maxwell Kates. At the time, there was no such thing as this blog or even the Uni Watch News Ticker, so I had no place to publish little tidbits. But now, dear reader, you get to read the following: “Is it true that Wayland Moore was high on acid when he designed those uniforms worn by the Braves between 1972 and 1979? I’ve heard that story once before, but I can’t vouch for its accuracy. When Moore first designed those uniforms, the Braves were actually supposed to have worn red on the road. Hank Aaron took one look at the uniform and said, ‘I’m not wearing that. Take whatever is red, and make it blue.’ Moore complied and later altered the Braves’ road uniforms according to Aaron’s wishes. Aaron and Eddie Mathews were the only ones shown the red uniforms. Also, just out of curiosity, why did the 1985 Texas Rangers wear their 1986 uniforms for the last month of the season? I know that had the 1979 Montreal Expos made the playoffs, they would have worn the ‘racing stripe’ uniforms that were introduced by the team in 1980. That’s in Brodie Snyder’s The Year the Expos Almost Won the Pennant.” All of this is news to me — anyone know more about any of these?
March 27th, 2008
It remains one of the sports world’s enduring mysteries: Every year the NFL selects the best players at each position, gathers them together for an all-star game in Honolulu, and then humiliates them by dressing them in the most god-awful uniforms imaginable. I’m not gonna bother going over every unsightly detail of this year’s design, because it’s pointless — every new Pro Bowl uniform is the worst ever, until the next one is unveiled. It’s almost like the league is saying, “Yeah, okay, so you get your free trip to Hawaii, you get to party with hula girls, you get to drink piña coladas out of a coconut shell, but don’t think you’re gonna get out of this without paying a certain price.”
As you know, medical research has concluded that only 17 people on the planet have the gene required to watch the entire Pro Bowl without falling asleep (and five of them, perversely, are African tribesmen who don’t own television sets), so there’s a good chance you missed at least a few of Sunday’s more noteworthy details. Here’s a quick guide:
• By far the most significant development — and I haven’t seen anyone else mention this, boys and girls, either in the comments section or in e-mails to me — is that all the players were wearing a new pants design, with added seams and panels on the rear thigh (here’s the AFC version), kind of like a football version of MLB’s Cool Base jersey gussets. I’m not sure if this was for added flexibility, ventilation, or both, but man did it look like shit. Let’s hope this wasn’t a test drive for league-wide implementation next season.
• As many of you are already aware, Derek Anderson had quite a little adventure with his jersey patches. A few days prior to the game, he was photographed with his left shoulder patch upside-down. On game day it was fixed (or, more likely, he’d just switched to a different jersey) but now the patch on his right shoulder was askew. Not only that, but compare that last photo, which shows the facemask pointing down roughly to five o’clock, to this shot, which appears to show the facemask oriented more toward four o’clock. Just how many defective jerseys did Anderson wear in one week? (Big thanks to Dominic Atencio and John Boris for the screen grabs.)
• The Chargers’ official lightning bolt logo use to be white outlined in gold, but this season it was changed gold outlined in light blue and navy. So why were all the San Diego players in the game wearing the now-defunct white logo on their shoulders? Interestingly, the jerseys for sale at NFL.com got it right.
• Terrell Owens wore at least two different pairs of cleats: white trimmed with blue and silver (plus, as Nick Hanson notes, he also wore a cross necklace).
• Speaking of cleats, look what Tony Romo was wearing.
• That’s quite a pustule Peyton Manning had on his knee.
• No photo, but Osi Umenyiora still had the Super Bowl XLII decal on the back of his helmet. Anyone notice if the Patriots players had it too?
• The new NFL logo finally made its on-field debut, on the MVP trophy (although it looks like they used the old logo here). And it’s good to see that Adrian Peterson’s uni number gets gunked up in the Pro Bowl, just like in a regular game.
• And that’s finally that.
Next year, let’s have some throwbacks, shall we?
Uni Watch News Ticker: Check out who’s wearing striped socks — the astronauts who are currently up in space (with thanks to Rob B). … A nice selection of Karl Ehrhardt’s sign work is shown in this video clip (a forwarded by Matt Edwards). … Got an on-site query yesterday morning from Ryan Perkins, as follows: “I’m in a restaurant in Jackson, Mississipi, sitting by a huge picture of Kent Hull (who was from Greenwood, Mississippi). I can clearly read ‘Wet Rat’ printed on the tongue of each side of his Reebok Pumps. Did some Googling and found nothing. Any idea if this was on all the pumps or if this was custom-done for Hull? And either way, what did it mean?” Anyone..? … Wake Forest was wearing new kicks on Saturday. Lots of interesting details on these sneakers, including a very subtle Skip Prosser memorial — for the full scoop, check out this page, written by Uni Watch charter member Zach Smith. … Northern Kentucky’s women’s hoops team will be wearing 1970s throwbacks this Saturday. Full details here (with thanks to Steve Hensley). … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: Lots of coverage here about Rick Pitino changing suits in the middle of a game the other day. … The Aussie rugby team sure looks sharp — yes, even with that little purple ribbon on the guy’s leg. Anyone know what that’s for? … Good interview here with the principals of Plan B Branding, the San Diego-based design firm that’s responsible for a lot of current minor league uni designs (with thanks to Greg Victor). … The Staten Island Yankees have unveiled a new logo for every day of the week. Okay, not quite, but almost. “Looks like a cartoon version of the classic Yankee stuff,” says Tyler Kepner. “I’d actually like the block SINY thing, if it were for a sleeve patch and not a cap logo. Also: A short-season class A team with FIVE cap styles? That’s a little much, no?” Indeed. … Reprinted from last night’s comments: Fascinating college hoops game recently, featuring Grand Valley wearing throwbacks against Northern Michigan, whose jerseys have no lettering — just huge uni numbers fore and aft (and those aren’t throwbacks — those are their regular unis!). … Seth Horowitz spotted this at a Yankees game last year. … Doug Keklak reports that Penguins fantasy camper get to wear the team’s original scarf-clad penguin (although the color scheme is an odd choice).
February 12th, 2008
Ah, Super Bowl Media Day — otherwise known as “the price we pay for having a free press.” I’m sure there are sillier rituals out there, but thinking of them would just be too depressing. Here’s a quick rundown of thoughts from the latest edition of this annual exercise in pointlessness:
• What exactly — exactly — is the rationale for having the players arrive in their full uniforms? And are these regular game jerseys, or do they wear smaller jerseys prepared specifically for Media Day, since they won’t be wearing pads?
• Those director-style chairs always strike me as somewhat infantilizing, like the players are little boys perched on high stools. I realize the idea is to get them up high where everyone can see them, but couldn’t they just dig a trench or a moat for the media to stand in instead?
• Mandals are almost always a bad idea, but I kinda like how they underscore the idiocy of the whole affair here.
• How come this guy didn’t wear his regular uniform?
• The Super Bowl patch looks pretty good on both teams’ jerseys this year.
• I don’t even wanna know.
• I had a hunch that they might use the Super Bowl to trot out the revised NFL logo on the field. But I was wrong.
If you want less jaundiced analysis, I heartily recommend this high-larious piece, which I bet was a big hit in Junior Seau’s hotel room.
Multi-Media Day: I’ve got a really fun article in today’s New York Times that I’m pretty proud of, plus I did the voiceover narration for an accompanying video (embedded in the same page). It’s not uni-related, but don’t let that stop you — it’s probably the coolest thing I’ve worked on since the Bill Buckner column back in the fall of ’06. Enjoy.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT (for a handful of you): Due to some scheduling complications, the starting time for this Saturday’s Uni Watch party at Sheep Station has been changed. Festivities will now commence at 4:30 p.m., not at the time I had previously announced (which I won’t even mention here, since its now moot). Update your datebooks, PDAs, scribblings on the back of your hand, or wherever you keep track of important events.
Among those in attendance, by the way, will be Jon Springer, who hopes to bring along a few advance copies of his upcoming book, Mets by the Numbers (based, of course, on his awesome web site of the same name, which has recently been revamped and relaunched after an all-too-lengthy period of inactivity). We may have a few copies to raffle off as well.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Yesterday morning, about an hour after my post about those vintage curling sweaters went up, I got a note from Nolan Thiessen, who’s actually a member of the team that wore the sweaters! “I’m a huge fan of the site and check it out regularly, so I was very happy to see that you picked up on the curling from last weekend,” he wrote. “The whole outfit ended up being a huge hit throughout the curling community. The guy on eBay had four sweaters — XL, L, M, M — which are exactly the four sizes we wear, so no tailoring was needed. We wanted to wear them sooner but couldn’t find pants to complete the look until recently. We plan on wearing them again, probably at an event in Victoria and our Players Championships in April.” At my request, Nolan also sent along a photo of his sweater’s inner label, which is a gorgeous piece of art in itself. … The Portland Beavers unveiled their new uniforms yesterday. The bad news is (a) they’re using the same sand/urine tone as their parent club, the Padres, and (b) they’re going to wear it at home. The good news is that the road grays are solid. The weird news is that they’re referring to their solid-color alternate design as “vintage,” even though there’s nothing vintage about wearing a solid jersey with white pants. As for the new logo, I like it well enough, although I’d prefer it if the top of the bat overlapped the lettering instead of the other way around (with thanks to Travis Demers for the graphics). … The U.S. soccer team will unveil new uniforms today, and the jersey will apparently look like this. Not bad, except it sucks that the sleeve stripes don’t wrap all the way around. Meanwhile, David Robins sent along an excellent video clip about the team’s training gear — recommended viewing. … If for some reason you’ve been dying to own an AHL all-star warm-up jersey, here’s your big chance (courtesy of Mark Coale).
January 30th, 2008
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