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Posts filed under 'Rugby'
If you were to go back and check every rugby item ever to appear in the Ticker, you’d probably find that about 70% of them were contributed by reader Caleb Borchers, who regularly peppers me with rugby-related items in the faint hope that someone will, y’know, give a shit. He realizes most of the other readers here aren’t rugby fans, but he nonetheless continues to contribute material, and I salute him for his steadfast commitment. Today is his day in the sun, as he’s gone off on an impassioned rant that I’ve decided merits lead-entry status:
As a rugby fan, there are some things that I suffer through that I realize few others care about. Primary amongst them is the horror that is mismatched head gear. To explain: Many rugby players wear head gear (or a scrum cap) to protect against cauliflower ear. One such player is Nathan Sharpe, who wears blue/purple headgear that matches his club (Western Force) jersey. Looks fine. But when he gets the call up to the Australian national team, he doesn’t see the need to buy a new cap. I figure this is attributable to either (a) supreme laziness, (b) supreme cheapness, or (c) supreme superstitiousness. All of which leads to (d) supreme stupidity. I mean, really, you’re selected to represent your country at the third largest sporting event in the world (and getting paid well to do it), and you can’t take the time and spend the $100 bucks to buy a green cap?
Fortunately, not every player feels this way. For example, there’s the bright uni beacon of hope represented by the Waldrom brothers of New Zealand. They make sure the cap matches the team at all times, no excuses. It would be easy for Scott to take the yellow/black he wears in the regular season and keep it with the All Blacks, but he doesn’t — he gets a black/white cap, because the All Blacks don’t wear yellow. How hard is this? (Another grudging pat on the back goes to Matt Giteau, who also cares about color matching but ruins it with those girly ribbons on the cap.)
In other news: Rugby fans and commentators tend to be no-nonsense people. As a result, Adidas’s decision to force NZ teams to wear home and away jerseys has sort of hit the fan. The stupidest part of it all is that two of the teams have a gray away jersey. That doesn’t sound bad to outsiders, but any NZ fan immediately gets nightmare flashbacks to the All Blacks World Cup loss to France in 2007, for which Kiwis still blame two factors: the referee and the All Blacks wearing something other than all black.
And there you have it. Big thanks to Caleb for filling us in on the nuances of a sport none of us actually care about follow, and for do so in an entertaining manner to boot.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Today’s the last day to bid on my Flushing in Flushing T-shirt. … Lastings Milledge’s switch to wearing No. 85 was first reported way back in February, but it still looks really weird. … Kevin McMahon saw this crazy MLB bobblehead shirt selling for $13 and couldn’t resist. “It was too cool to pass up,” he says. “Now I need to decide if I want to keep it, or give it as a birthday gift to my baseball-loving brother. Would it be a serious or a gag gift though? Not quite sure.” Lots of additional photos here. … Here’s the 1915 Avalon (Pa.) High School baseball team. Love that placket lettering (with thanks to Jason Bernard). … Who’d be dumb enough to wear a purple Yahoo! Sports jersey? Mark! Teixeira, as it turns out. He played! stickball in Tampa! for some sort! of Yahoo! promotional thingie! … Interesting shot of JFK conducting the coin toss at the 1961 Army/Navy game. Note that the Navy captain has “Beat Army” on his shoulders (with thanks to David Ryan and CJ Fleck). … Also from CJ: Excellent pair of stirrups available here. … The Raptors apparently printed their tickets before the Thunder’s logo was finalized (with thanks to Andy Rawlings). … Phil already mentioned that the Rochester Amerks painted their ice pink, but here’s a tremendous batch of photos showing the ice-coloration process (with thanks to Greg Netherwood). … Excellent 49ers helmet cart photo here with thanks to Jamison Nash). … The second question on this Q&A page brings up a very interesting Avs-related uni question (nice find by Harvey Lee). … Umbro has release the new England home kit at the Reed Space Annex in lower Manhattan. “The pop-up shop will be up thru Wednesday and it looks great,” says Stephen Wong. “They are raffling off new limited- edition Reed Space kits every day.” … Tremendous article here on the history and origins of Barrel Man, who may date back as far as 1901! Great photos, too (big thanks to Jeff Ash). … Reprinted from the weekend comments: Dan Aykroyd did the ceremonial puck drop at Friday’s Devils/Blackhawks game, and they gave him a jersey with a misspelled NOB (screen grab courtesy of James Huening). … If you liked my subway signage style guide, you’ll probably also like the Manual On Uniform Traffic Control Devices, which is filled with pages like this. Download it here (big thanks to Paul Deaver). … No comment. … Ross French sent along pics of a Western Michigan baseball jersey that appears to have been a salesman’s sample. “It’s similar to what the 1955 club wore, but of course baseball unis can go for years without significant changes,” he writes. “If anyone has any insights, I would love to hear them.” … Interesting F1 note from Al Stone, who writes: “The cars from Brawn GP finished first and second on Sunday. Brawn GP sprang up in recent weeks to buy Honda’s old F1 program when the manufacturer stepped down. What makes this sorta uni-interesting is that Brawn has been looking for a sponsor, since Honda’s sponsors had dropped off. So the Brawn GP cars were relatively sponsor-free (just a Virgin logo and a few small Bridgestone logos that were barely visible). This team will no doubt have a different livery for the next race and the rest of the season, so this is probably the only time that this car will race looking as it did, and it won the top two spots.” … Stunning news from Brian Poulos, who writes: “MLB Tonight on the MLB Network uses a graphic during game highlights where the MLB Network logo (derived for the MLB logo) becomes animated and swings the bat. I am here to say that the MLB logo silhouette is a LEFTY BATTER.” … Paul Wiederecht found more good stuff in the Life archives: The Twins had two batboys who were actual twin brothers, and there was some sort of crazy variety show that featured lots of MLBers wearing dress shoes and Chucks. … Two interesting items in this photo, taken at the Indiana state high school basketball tournament on Saturday: The home team, Jac-Cen-Del, has an usual color combo of red and sky blue, and the other player has great socks. “Unfortunately, I think this was the only player on the Triton team to wear those socks,” says Adam Morris. … The Mets gave their new stadium a test drive yesterday, and several readers report that the replica jerseys in the gift shops all featured this patch, not the Domino’s patch. Again, these are just replicas, not authentics, and my understanding is that the team will still be wearing the other patch on the field. … John Weghorst sent along pics from his old 1982 Topps sticker book. Check them out here. … Super-cool old baseball uni available here. … And here’s something you don’t often see: vintage zebra-wear — and another! … Guess who really likes this old basketball jersey. … I’m on the road for the next coupla days, so Phil will be minding the store today and handling tomorrow’s content. See you on Wednesday.
March 30th, 2009
Big uni-related story in the NFL yesterday was the range of Sean Taylor memorials. Here’s a quick rundown:
• The Redskins wore a “21″ jersey patch. The Redskins’ coaching staff and owner wore it, too.
• In addition, Clinton Portis wore a Taylor tribute T-shirt under his jersey (here’s another view).
• John Eubanks wore a Taylor do-rag. At first I thought this was one of the towels that fans were given, but now I think it was actually the sleeve from a Taylor jersey.
• All teams wore a “21″ helmet decal. This led to some pretty crowded rear-helmet groupings, especially for the Broncos (who already had their dual memorial for Darrent Williams and Damien Nash) and Browns (who added that “BW” decal this week in memory of Hall of Famer Bill Willis — not to be confused with the “BW” decal for Bill Walsh that the 49ers have been wearing all year).
• I was hoping we’d see some facemask stripes, like Taylor sometimes wore. Didn’t happen, but Antonio Pierce of the Giants did something similar: He taped Taylor’s uniform number onto his mask. This was the only personalized tribute to Taylor that I spotted. (Special thanks to Ryan Perkins for the screen grab.)
Meanwhile, in non-Taylor developments:
• Tommie Harris had “Psalms 91″ (which also happens to be his uniform number) written on his Breathe Right strip.
• The Jets took the unusual step of wearing their Titans throwbacks on the road in Miami.
• Joseph Addai was showing some serious skin in the 2nd quarter.
• No photo yet, but I saw for myself that Dallas Clark’s American flag decal was still missing — a particularly egregious omission when you consider that the equipment staff had to add the Sean Taylor decal to his helmet, so you’d think they would’ve noticed the missing flag. Bryan, whose wife went to high school with Clark, is still working on getting the full story on this one.
• Also no photo, but several readers reported that Braylon Edwards was wearing white shoes and going bare-calved, NCAA-style, early in the Browns/Cards game. Then he added brown socks but still had white shoes. He eventually switched to black shoes like the rest of the Browns.
Uni Watch Calendar Update: Several meet/greet opportunities coming up over the next week. Here’s the deal:
• December 6th: Marc Spears of the Boston Globe and I will be fielding questions from students in a media seminar class this Thursday at Boston University. I’ll be convening a Uni Watch party at 8:30 that evening at Boston Beer Works, which is right across from Fenway Park. Meanwhile, if anyone wants to attend the seminar class, which begins at 6:30, the professor has graciously agreed to accommodate a few extra people. If you’re interested, get in touch and I’ll let you know where to go.
• December 10th: The completely wonderful City Reliquary, of which I am a proud card-carrying member, will be holding its annual benefit gala at the Automotive High School Auditorium, and I’m one of the two featured speakers this year. I’ll be doing a Power Point presentation about Brooklyn Dodgers uniform history, but the real attraction is the other speaker: Lawrence Weschler, author of Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder and Boggs. The evening will also feature a short documentary film, a live samba band, and — if you shell out a lot of extra $$$ — dinner at Bamonte’s, one of Brooklyn’s oldest and most storied red-sauce Italian restaurants. Full details here.
• Sometime in January: I’m going to be one of four presenters at the inaugural edition of a new speaking series called “Adult Education,” which is being curated by my longtime pal Carrie McLaren (editrix of the excellent consumer-culture magazine Stay Free), who describes the series as “sort of grownup show-and-tell,” complete with visual aids. The theme of this first installment will be “Micro-Genres”: Carrie, who’s mildly obsessed with chimps, will be talking about people who’ve tried to raise chimps as part of the family; longtime Uni Watch pal Liz Clayton will talk about painfully obvious fast-food restaurant conversions (she has an entire site devoted to this phenomenon); Jim Hanas will talk about “meta tourism” (i.e., photos of tourists taking photos); and I’ll be talking about the strange world of trade magazines (Elevator World, Hay and Forage Grower, American Funeral Director, Demolition, and so on, each of which is as obsessively subject-specific as Uni Watch is). The exact date is still TBA, but it’s definitely going to be on a Tuesday in January, and the venue will be Union Hall, which is conveniently located around the corner from Uni Watch HQ. Further details on this one as they become available.
Membership News: I’m happy to announce that we’ve now gone over 500 enrollees. But I can’t announce who the 500th member is because that was a gift membership and the gift-giver has asked that I keep the order secret until Christmas.
Speaking of which, remember, this Wednesday is the deadline for ordering a discounted gift membership for the holidays.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Lots of pics here from the upcoming hoops movie Semi-Pro (with thanks to Mike Nachreiner). … Bizarre uniform sighting here (courtesy of Eric Trager). … Looking for new and creative ways to lace up your cleats or sneakers? Look here (with thanks to Mike Blinn). … Roman numeral alert: Charlie Coley III of Charlotte (with thanks to intern emeritus Vince Grzegorek). … “Once upon a time, Marquette had a football team,” writes proud Badger State booster Nicole Haase. “Here’s a pretty cool collection of 1940s program covers.” … “Check out the difference in the helmet stripe thickness for the two players in green, who play for Mentor Lake Catholic High in Ohio,” writes Tim Snyder. “I figure it’s some kind of merit award, but they also use more conventional merit decals.” Anyone know more about this? … Paul Bridge reports that Utah Valley University, which will have D-1A status by 2009, has some new logos. Details here. … Very odd NOB typography being for Jonathan Zebina of Juventus (and, presumably for the rest of their players): The “Z” and the “E” look like a “2″ and a backwards “3.” It’s apparently so fraught with confusion that the “E” ended up being applied backwards for Saturday’s game against AC Milan (all this courtesy of Jeremy Brahm). … Mizzou’s Stryker Sulak had some sleeve patch problems on Saturday (with thanks to James Wortham for the screen grab). … Nice little recap of Lakers uniform history here (as forwarded by Matthew Wolfram). … Ryan Perkins notes that R.W. McQuarters of the Giants had some helmet decal issues yesterday. … Several readers noted that Wabash wore some ill-advised pants in Saturday’s D-III quarterfinal game. … Georgia will wear black in the Sugar Bowl. … Speaking of black, Texas A&M’s hoops team wore their black alts yesterday. … “The Barbarians, an invitation-only rugby club that plays a handful of matches per year, took on the newly-crowned world champions South Africa,” writes Eric Bangeman. In addition to wearing classic black-and-white uniforms, the Barbarians ask each player to wear the socks from his home club, which makes for some interesting hosiery contrasts.”
December 3rd, 2007
Well, that was fun while it lasted.
Last Tuesday I agonized over whether I should FedEx an American flag decal to Ladainian Tomlinson (for those who’ve been under a rock, his helmet has been flag-free all season). I never did send it, and now Tomlinson has made the matter moot, because he finally wore Old Glory in yesterday’s game against the Vikings, thereby ending the NFL season’s most entertaining uni-related storyline and bringing our weekly “Will he or won’t he?” game to a conclusion.
But a new game may be afoot. Several posts in yesterday’s comments section reported that Chargers wideout Chris Chambers was flag-free yesterday. No pics yet, but I’m looking. Not sure if Chambers wore a flag last week (which was his first game of the season), but it sounds like someone on the Chargers’ equipment staff is either asleep at the switch or else has a good sense of humor.
In other NFL notes from yesterday:
• Remember this? Something vaguely similar happened yesterday to Kansas City defensive lineman Tamba Hali, who delivered a big hit that sent part of his chinstrap sailing through the air. Not quite as cool as the flying number decal, but still something I’ve never seen before.
• Randy Moss’s numeral 8 was upside-down again.
• What do you get when you combine artificial turf, one team wearing solid black, and another team wearing solid black below the waist? Pretty much the ugliest game ever.
• The Eagles wore white at home last night to force the Cowboys into their “bad luck” blue jerseys. Didn’t quite work out the way they drew it up.
(Special thanks to Randy Williams and James Wortham for their Tomlinson screen grabs and to Blaine Williams for the Hali pics.)
Big Papi? No, Little Poppies!: With November 11th approaching, Canadian-born coaches and coaches of Canadian teams are starting to wear poppy pins on their lapels (for futher info on this phenomenon, look here). As it happens, I was in Toronto over the weekend for a wedding and saw lots of poppy-clad people all over the city. At one point I was talking about the poppies with one of my Canadian friends, and she mentioned something very Uni Watch-ish: The current poppy pins have a black center, but until a couple of years ago they had a green center.
That raised lots of questions: When exactly did the color change, and why? And who makes that decision? Like, is there an executive poppy committee somewhere in the governmental bureaucracy, or did the pin manufacturers just run out of green felt? Also, since real poppies have black centers, why was green ever used in the first place? What about the other British Commonwealth nations, which also wear poppies — do they go with the black or the green? My Canadian pals couldn’t answer any of these queries. Anyone..?
Other things I learned about the poppy pins: They tend not to stay on very long, because they have no backing clip; the lack of a clip also makes it fairly common for the wearer to get pricked; and apparently it’s customary to pick on the dorkiest kid in the class by covering him with as many poppies as possible.
I had hoped to buy a poppy pin myself (I was told to look for “the oldest, stooped-over-est old man you can find — he’ll probably be selling them”), but I didn’t come across a vendor during the course of my weekend. Dang.
Sock Summit: Longtime readers know I’m a huge fan of the pseudonymous sock savant known as Witesock (whose admirably obsessive web site is here, plus there’s a lengthy interview with him available here). So it was a big thrill for me, after years of false starts and missed connections, to finally meet the man himself over the weekend. I’m happy to report that he’s a peach of a guy. Over plates of chicken teriyaki and bibimbap (which he generously paid for), we spent the better part of two hours talking about socks, collecting, travel, socks, work, socks, and more socks. We probably could have kept going for a few hours more, but he had to get back to work.
Naturally, we compared socks: I was wearing my usual basic striped tube socks while Witesock had a twofer: black rugby hose over a pair of Miami Dolphins socks (to go with the jersey he’d worn for the occasion). “But doesn’t wearing two pairs of socks make your shoes a bit too snug?” I asked. To which he replied, “Oh, I usually buy my shoes half a size too big, to allow for that.” Now that’s dedication.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Interesting primitive facemask on display in this 1930 photo (with thanks to Kevin S. Whisman). … Speaking of primitive facemasks, look what Jared Wheeler found up for auction. … Interesting bit of uni lobbying on display here (as forwarded by Jacob Reed). … Ewww. … Now here’s a uniform category you don’t often see: Iranian women’s rugby. Details here (with thanks to Peter Chambers). … “Converse has resurrected its 1933 All-Star, which was the team shoe of the legendary Harlem Renaissance basketball team,” writes Steve Eschenbach. “They had to resort to eBay to get an original to work off of.” Details here. … Andy Enright, who says he works in the sporting goods biz, contributed a mother lode of insider info the other day: “Both the Schutt Ion and XP will not be offered in XL for 2008. Schutt does have the capability to make XL for NFL and college players when needed. Both helmets are fitting a little smaller than their counterparts, the DNA and Air Advantage. All Schutt large helmets are sized to fit 7 to 7-1/2, but I tried both helmets on today, size large, and both were a little tight, even though I wear a 7-3/8. The molds for these helmets cost about $200K each, so Schutt is waiting for public demand before moving forward on the XL size, probably late 2008 or 2009. Also, Eli Manning will wear the new helmet probably next year or later this year. They are having issues installing the radio earpiece. Schutt will also have a signature shoulder pad featuring Reggie Bush as well as Eli Manning, for use at the youth level. The individual pads will be in Saints and Giants team colors. Also, I’ve attached some pictures of LT’s new cleats to hit stores in April ’08, both the molded as well as the detachable. Didn’t take Nike long to replace Vick.” … Interesting logo creep placement here (as spotted by Jeremy Brahm). … Take a look at this (which was sent my way by David Soline). Did the Bulls really wear pink warmup jackets? … The Pacers debuted their yellow alts on Friday. … These high school football socks would be awesome if not for, y’know, obvious reasons (big thanks to Michael Orr, who also sent along a rare high school example of FNOB). … I’m sure his parents are proud. … The Islanders brought Al Arbour back to coach one last game on Saturday night — the 1500th of his career — which occasioned lots of uni-related news items: (1) The team wore white at home. (2) They wore a special jersey patch. (3) As Mike from Queens points out, the patch caused a logjam with the “A” and “C” designations. (4) Arbour’s “retired number” banner, which had been No. 739 (his number of coaching wins) was replaced with a new banner. (5). Since the Isles won, the new banner will reportedly be replaced with yet another banner — No. 740. … Good info on the UMich hockey uniforms here (courtesy of Craig Barker). … Florida went with solid blue on Saturday. … And Oregon realy outdid themselves. But here’s a confession: As a big yellow/green fan, I kinda liked what the Ducks were doing on Saturday. All the diamondplate nonsense still rankles, natch, but I thought this was one of their better mix-and-match combos. … Great article here about a guy who works in Riddell’s helmet-testing facility (with thanks to Matt Lindner). … NHL jersey update here (with thanks to K.C. Kless). … In happier hockey news, good update on the NHL Winter Classic here (as forwarded by Sean Leahy). … And the Rangers continue to look much better with their straight-hemmed jerseys. Kudos to whoever made the modification decision. … I used to think the Quad Cities Swing were the only team with unevenly sized numerals (well, unless you count this), but that was before Blair Hough pointed me toward this photo of two ringette players. … Doug Linder spotted UCLA’s Luc Richard Mbah a Moute wearing some very unusual leg sleeves during a preseason game Friday night. Also, some of the UCLA cheerleaders suffered from Adidas logo creep, while others did not. … Reprinted from last night’s comments: Nice ad in yesterday’s Boston Globe. … I’m going to be busy until at least mid-afternoon. Vince will be minding the store until then.
November 5th, 2007
We’ve been so busy with team sports over the past month or so (stretch-run baseball, the start of the NFL and college football seasons, the relentless flood of new NHL designs) that I completely ignored the U.S. Open tennis tourney. And that’s a shame, because we happen to have a bona fide Open operative right here in our midst: Gabe Ganot, who’s been working as a ballboy — okay, ballperson — at the Open since 1999, giving him an ideal vantage point for uni-watching. That’s him in the photo shown above.
Gabe sent me a good rundown of observations a few weeks ago, which I’m finally getting around to sharing with the rest of you. Check it out:
Almost all players wear one outfit per tournament. But Federer this year had two — a “day” and “night” selection. The night attire featured the “Man in Black” look with a black headband, black shirt, shorts, socks and sneakers. This as opposed to the day outfit, with a blue shirt, white shorts, white sneakers, and a blue headband. People were wondering what he was going to do for the final, because it was scheduled to start in the late afternoon and it was still light out. I think he was quoted as saying since the lights would eventually be on, he would go with the Johnny Cash look. Note that his sneakers have the three Swiss flags commemorating his three U.S. Open wins the last three years (I think it also says something on the tongue). Roger also has the tendency to constantly brush imaginary hair from his forehead and adjust his headband.
Nadal, I’m pretty sure, has the worst OCD of anyone on the tour, and not just uni related. Before he serves, just about every point, he has the David Wright-esque habit of picking his wedgie. The other ballpersons and I wonder why he continues to wear the capris if he has to adjust his pants every point. He also adjusts his hair/headband with the same frequency. Other examples of his OCD include placing his drink on the same exact spot during every changeover, and sprinting out to the baseline for warm-ups.
You’d think that the folks at Lacoste would make Andy Roddick a nice-fitting shirt. Instead he has to constantly adjust it, nearly every point, to make the shoulders drape correctly (similar to the way most volleyball players do). This has been happening for several years now. He also has taken a liking to wearing his hat a little sideways, à la Pokey Reese or Mike Cameron. It’s not an accident — I’ve seen him take it off and be very particular about the way he puts it back on.
Its also interesting see how doubles teams dress. Sometimes, teams go all out and match every single part of their outfits, down to the sneakers, like the Bryan brothers. Other teams wear what they would normally wear if they were playing singles, while others come up with a completely different outfit, like Justin Gimelstob in his mixed doubles team with Ashely Harkleroad. Speaking of Gimelstob, he apparently sweats like there’s no tomorrow, so he tends to change shirts around five or six times a match. And speaking of sweating, some players are obsessed with the towel. Nadal, for instance, asks for it pretty frequently on a hot day, and Roddick can be the worst. This ballboy would like to see some sort of integrated towel technology, like certain wide receivers have.
The women have different issues than the men. For starters, many of them wear makeup and jewelry while on the court. I think Jelena Jenkovic even puts her watch on before playing.
It’s also been interesting to note the ball-holding technology for women over the last decade (insert sex joke here). When I first started being a ballboy, most women just asked for one ball to serve instead of two like the men (men have pockets, so they usually ask for two and put one in their pocket in case they fault on their first serve). Some women would ask for two and just shove one of them into the bottom of their underwear, and after a game I’d have to go pick up a slightly damp ball. Others went with the plastic ball holder (famous example: Arantxa Sanchez Vicario), which was essentially a belt that had a little plastic thingie that sat right on top of the butt. These days, the women have slightly longer undergarments, kind of like the compression shorts basketball players wear. These have pockets, so that makes my job a little easier.
When I first started, almost all women wore the simple tennis skirt and some sort of top. Then Serena hit the scene, and now we get horror stories, like look at Bethanie Mattek’s outfit from this year’s Open. She does something like this at every tournament. It also seems like the ladies have a contest to see who can wear the shortest skirt and the like.
It’s also kind of weird to see some players who aren’t sponsored and end up having different parts of their outfits from several manufacturers. I forget who, but someone this year had something like an Adidas shirt, Nike shorts, and Champion socks.
With regards to equipment, there’s nothing too crazy, but some funny stuff. For instance, instead of the traditional shock absorber that most players have on their racket, some players use an ordinary rubber band. Not sure why. No player I saw wore regular glasses, only a handful had sunglasses on (Arnaud Clement and Alexa Glatch come to mind), and a few went with the bright sunscreen on the nose. Also, while most players bring at least five or six rackets with them to the court, I noticed that Mark Knowles liked to just tape on a new grip instead of going with a new racket. Not sure the reasoning for that.
As for our Polo-brand ballperson uniforms, they’re a welcome change from the Fila garbage we had several years ago, which were in outlandish colors and make us look ridiculous (plus you try running around in 90-degree heat in a thick cotton polo that’s too large, shorts that are too tight, and sneakers that can literally blow up if you plant too hard). The new ones are a nice moisture-wicking material with a good form-fitting shape (we don’t have to tuck in anymore!). But we are essentially walking advertisements — in addition to the 6-inch Polo logo on the chest area, we have a full 12-inch logo on the back, making us look like real product whores. Additionally, with around five days to go in the tournament we were mandated to begin wearing Polo wristbands, which was odd, because they never told us to where on the arm to wear them, unlike everything else which is by the book. The only change the Polo unis have had over the years is that they change the color of the vertical striping on the shirt and and shorts (this year it was yellow; in the past it’s been red and white).
Big thanks to Gabe for all that info. Still want more? Vince (who provided several of the photos links above) notes that this tennis blog has lots of fashion coverage.
Research Reqeust Request: I’m working on a column devoted to uni-related typos. I’ve got all the classics covered (Angees, Torotno, Nayv, Nigger Ilsand, etc.), along with the assorted nameplate misspellings that have periodically been called out here on the blog. If you know of any others, old or now, that we haven’t discussed, please let me know. Thanks.
Fall Back (into bed): The annual moving of the clocks is still a month away, but Uni Watch likes to be ahead of the curve, so…. As those of you in the Eastern Time Zone are well aware, I usually get the day’s entry up by 9 a.m., which is an arbitrary deadline that I set back in the site’s early days. Well, not completely arbitrary — I was trying to (a) motivate myself and (b) get you folks used to the idea that you could depend on fresh content being ready for you at the start of each day.
After a year and a half of this, during which it’s now become routine for me to be eating my breakfast in front of the computer while frantically making last-minute changes to the Ticker, I’d like to reclaim a bit of breathing room for my mornings (and, by extension, for my late-night hours). So beginning next week, my new arbitrary self-imposed daily deadline will be 10:15 a.m. Among other things, this should make it much easier for me to catch up on the previous night’s comments, deal with Ticker contributions that come in overnight, and so on.
I know some of you eastern folks have grown accustomed to starting your day (read: goofing off at work) with Uni Watch, but I have faith in your abilities to find other productive uses for the 75-minute window that fate has just handed you. Just pretend I moved to Chicago or something, OK? OK.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Lots of good stuff currently available on eBay, including this patch, this ad, this uniform, and this jersey. … Latest schools to go with the System of Dress: Maryland and Miami (with thanks to Jose Frontanes and Mike Alper, respectively). … Another new NHL mask: Marc Andre Fleury. … Good overview of the NFL captains’ patches — including a shout-out to Uni Watch — here. … Interesting article here about the Rochester Amerks new uniforms. Key quote, from team prexy Steve Donner: “RBK is integrating vertical striping into the jersey, and they wanted to do away with all horizontal striping. It wasn’t our suggestion to remove the stripes.” … Bizarre purple/green/yellow color scheme exhibited by Waukegan High in Illinois (with thanks to AJ Brandt). … Ouch. … Tons of old high school team photos, from a wide range of sports, here (with thanks to Brendon Yarian). … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: The LPGA has changed its logo from this to this, which strikes me as a major improvement. Details here. … Also from yesterday: The NHL and Reebok held a conference call on Tuesday to address the growing chorus of player complaints about the new uniforms (the latest of which can be found in the middle of this article). Details here. … Good article here about the Sharks’ goalie masks. … Still more All Blacks soap operatics (with thanks to Caleb Borchers). … Reprinted from last night’s comments: The people at New Era are really, uh, outdoing themselves. … Dan Schulman, who’s doing ESPN Radio’s play-by-play for the Bosox/Angels series, mistakenly stated during last night’s game that Jason Varitek is the only current MLB captain to wear a “C.” Schulman forgot about Mike Sweeney.
October 4th, 2007
Sometimes the world just feels a little bit … off. You can’t put your finger on what it is, but you know something is wrong. It’s not something big — more like a tiny itch that keeps eluding you no matter where you scratch, like when you balance your checkbook and can’t figure out why the totals are off by three cents. You know things weren’t always this way, but you only have a faint memory of how they used to be, and now it’s gone and you can’t quite figure out what’s changed. And however minor this discrepancy may be, you know the universe will never quite come back into proper alignment until this small detail is addressed.
And that’s why, brothers and sisters, I’m so happy to announce that Ben Wallace will be allowed to wear his headband this season.
In case you’ve forgotten (and it was such a surreally idiotic episode that I wouldn’t blame you if you’d blotted it out of your mind), Wallace was benched early last season for violating Bulls coach Scott Skiles’s “no headbands” edict. So Big Ben spent the season looking like this and this, instead of sporting the more familiar forehead-accessorized look he’d cultivated in Detroit. It looked wrong, like it was some other guy instead of Wallace. Now, thankfully, this small rip in the cosmic fabric will be mended.
For those keeping score at home, the moron here is clearly Skiles (who, thankfully, never coached Wilt Chamberlain). I’ve yet to hear him present a rational, sensible explanation for banning a league-sanctioned and -branded accessory. And headbands aren’t just fashion statements — yo, Scott, they keep sweat out of your eyes.
Skiles made things worse yesterday by giving an all-time clunker of a quote: “We still have a no-headband rule. I just left it up to the guys who have been here if they wanted to make an exception for Ben.”
This is like the Mets insisting that they’re a really good team despite their last-season collapse, or Charlie Brown standing on the mound in the rain and shouting, “It’s just a little shower!” while everyone else scampers home and Snoopy goes by on a raft (plus it puts makes Skiles the rhetorical heir of Elaine Crispen; if you don’t remember who she was, look here). Dude, wake up: You ain’t got no no-headband rule no more, which is a good thing, since it was a bogus rule to begin with. Now sit down, shut up, and let Big Ben do his thing.
Raffle Results: The winner of the futuristic Royals jersey is Ryan Etgen. Big congrats to him, and thanks to all who entered.
Membership News: As a big fan of horizontal stripes and the color green, I’ve rarely been as excited about a membership design request as I was when Michael Doucette requested Celtic FC the other day. Scott’s execution, as you can see, was dead-on. This and other new designs now on display in the membership card design gallery.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Lots of other NBA changes in the offing besides the return of Ben Wallace’s headband, including a new bronze trim for the Wizards (here’s a rear view), new throwbacks for the Warriors (which apparently mean no “The City” throwbacks this season — dang), the return of the “New Orleans” insignia for the Hornets (along with the new fleur-de-bee patch), and an anniversary patch for the Lakers. Plus, as already noted in yesterday’s Ticker, anniversary patches are also being worn by the Pistons and Heat. … We’ve talked before about how Red Sox uniforms sometimes have an upside-down 8. Turns out the Sox aren’t the only Boston-area team with this problem. The Patriots’ numeral 8 is supposed to have a smaller loop on top, but Randy Moss’s 8 was upside-down two nights ago. On the back, too. Great side-by-side comparison here of Moss’s and Donte Stallworth’s respective 8s. … Two days ago I ran this photo. Now Dave Bloomquist has come up with this (which dates back to 1956). Separated at birth? … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: Bill Belechick’s sweatshirt says, “QUIPMENT” — the E is missing. … Breakdown of great soccer uniforms here. … The Blackhawks will be wearing a memorial patch for Bill Wirtz. Insert internet/web site joke here. … Not uni-related, but am I the only one mildly surprised that Rick Ankiel didn’t win the National League’s Comeback Player of the Year Award? Yeah, he only played about 25% of the season, but Stretch McCovey won Rookie of the Year in ’59 based on virtually the same number of ABs. ’Course, nobody ever accused Stretch of doing HGH, but still, have you ever seen a more impressive comeback than Ankiel’s? Dude completely reinvented himself, made it all the way back, and was a legitimate power threat during the latter part of the season. … Good spot by Matt Englander, who writes: “After the Red Sox acquired Curt Schilling in 2004, they made adjustments to the banner the top of their home page. Because they didn’t have an action pic of Schilling in a Sox uniform, they cropped his head (presumably from a shot from his D-Backs days) and put the head on another Boston pitcher’s body. If you look closely you can see that the edges of Curt’s neck are a dead giveaway that this was a crop job. That was 4 seasons ago…and you’re telling me they couldn’t pull out that placeholder and put an actual Sox action shot in there? Ridiculous.” … While researching something else, I stumbled across this. I don’t even wanna know. … Reprinted from last night’s comments: Great little item here about how the Seahawks have a staffer whose job is to keep track of Seneca Wallace’s green-dotted and dot-free helmets, depending on whether he’s playing QB or WR. … Also from last night: French law prohibits alcohol-related jersey sponsorship, so Glasgow Rangers FC, whose jersey usually looks like this, blacked out the Carling logo during yesterday’s match in France. … Roberto Luongo has a new mask. Lots of additional pics here, further info here, and a short video is here. … New mask for Chris Mason, too. Photos here, details here. … Rugby World Cup note from Eric Bangeman, who notes that the countries that have won the World Cup in the past (New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and England) are wearing a sleeve patch that depicts the William Webb Ellis trophy, which is awarded to the winning nation.” … UConn’s new hoops unis will look like this (with thanks to Matt Edwards). … Life-altering photo here of the 1920 Dartmouth hockey team (with many, many thanks to Cullan Foote). … Very, very sad news out of Milwaukee, where Art’s Concertina Bar — site of a Uni Watch party last year, and my favorite tavern in America — has been sold. The new owner plans to only minor changes, but the biggest loss will be Art himself (shown at the Uni Watch party with Stephanie West), a national treasure who’s simply irreplaceable. Enjoy your retirement, Art — I’ll miss ya.
October 3rd, 2007
New ESPN column today — here’s the link.
Meanwhile: The people were encouraged to vote, they let their voices be heard, and then a bunch of higher-ups decided to hijack the results and impose their own solution.
But enough about the 2000 presidential election — instead let’s talk about Iowa State’s new football uniforms. As you may recall, the Cyclones made a big fuss about letting fans vote on the school’s new helmet. But when the new uniforms were unveiled yesterday, none of the white helmets made the cut. Instead, the team will be wearing a red-on-red helmet, which seems like a major mistake, especially since it just accentuates the home uniform’s similarity to USC’s design. The road uni is better, especially when executed with red pants (yes, I know they’re actually “cardinal” — whatever). All in all, not a bad makeover, but it could’ve been a lot better without the red-on-red helmet.
Meanwhile, why encourage people to vote on three white helmets if you’re not going to use any of those designs? That question somehow goes unaddressed in the FAQ that the school put out. But I was told a few days ago that the three choices that were put up for voting all turned out to be wildly unpopular. So maybe going in a different direction really does reflect the will of the people. But in a sports world where so many things seem predetermined and calculated, it’s too bad that Iowa State appeared to be setting up a mechanism to give people a voice and now appears to have moved the goalposts. At the very least, it seems like there were some serious miscalculations made along the way here.
Membership News: Lots of new designs now on display in the membership card gallery, with more to come in the next day or so. Comments encouraged, as always.
Uni Watch News Ticker: According to a small item on this page, Jose Reyes now has his own Nike-designed logo, “represented by his uniform number 7 interwoven with his initials and sports a crown on top.” Given Reyes’s recent level of play, maybe this would have been more appropriate. … Good interview here with the guy who runs EyeBlack.com. … Some examples of logo creep are worse than others (as spotted by Rob Montoya). … Lots of MLB division champion T-shirts available, regardless of who wins. … Bryan Redemske and I both want to know what’s printed on next to the CCM logo on the jersey shown in this photo from Bobby Hull’s number-retirement ceremony. … The Indians were technically the home team in the first game of yesterday’s Tribe/M’s doubleheader (they batted last, even though the twinbill was played in Seattle), but they wore road uniforms anyway. … As previously reported, the All Blacks didn’t wear black last weekend. Compounding the problem, they wore a uniform fairly similar to their opponents’ design, which was apparently rather confusing to the players, as noted in the last several paragraphs of this article (with thanks to Caleb Borchers). … Funny item on the Chris Creamer boards about Mississippi Attorney General candidate Al Hopkins, whose star icon appears to have been taken straight off a Cowboys helmet, plus his “Hopkins” wordmark is borrowed to boot.
September 27th, 2007
A small trend has been brewing on the typography front. It began a few weeks ago, when I ran a Ticker item (contributed by William Yurasko) about Florida International’s use of the numeral 2 — it looks like this when appearing on the front or back of their jerseys, but like this when appearing on the sleeves.
I figured that was pretty much an isolated thing. But the comments that day included a post from Eriq Jaffe, who pointed out that the Packers have had differing chest and sleeve treatments for the numeral 5 (additional views here, here, here, and here) — a distinction that apparently dates back several decades.
Now Drew VanNess has pointed out another numerological anomaly. The team this time is Georgia Tech, and the numeral is 2. But instead of a chest/sleeve distinction, this time it’s home vs. road. Check it out: On the Yellow Jackets’ gold jerseys, the 2 looks like this and this; but on their white jerseys, it looks like this and this. This wasn’t the case last year, when the 2 was the same on the home and road jerseys (on the sleeves, too), and the school hasn’t changed uniform outfitters (it’s still Russell), so why the new 2? Odd.
I’m interested in compiling more of these typographic inconsistencies. So if you know of any additional cases, let’s have ’em.
And as long as we’re talking type, Chris Marcinko has noticed that the lettering used for Ben Roethlisberger’s nameplate is more compressed than the font worn by his teammates. Compare the letter R here to the one here and the difference becomes pretty apparent. There have been plenty of other examples over the years of compressed typography being used to accommodate longer surnames, but I hadn’t noticed this one before.
Raffle Reminder: I’m currently raffling off an L.A. Kings jersey, a Washington Capitals T-shirt, and a bunch of MLB sleeve patches (for further details, scroll down to yesterday’s post). To enter, send an e-mail to uniraffle at earthlink dot net (please note that this is not the regular Uni Watch address) by this Thursday, September 20th, 10 p.m. eastern. I’ll announce the winners on Friday. One e-mail per person, but all enrollees in the Uni Watch membership program will automatically get three bonus entries.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Caught a web-video feed of last night’s Islanders/Thrashers game and was surprised to see the refs wearing orange armbands. Weren’t they supposed to switch to silver this year, as they did in the last All-Star Game? I reported on this myself back in January. Not sure if the orange is just a preseason thing of if the league has changed its mind about this, but I’ll make some calls today. … Check out these two Florida high school teams — one with FSU’s helmet logo and one with Miami’s old hurricane flag logo. “Several players from the Southeast Seminoles have gone on to play for Florida State, so obviously FSU doesn’t mind them ripping off the logo,” writes Aaron Bassett. … Quit the mishmash of colors going on in this photo gallery (with thanks to Joe DeLong). … I have seen the new Devil Rays uniforms. Can’t show them to you, but I can confirm what’s been reported (the team is now just the Rays) and what’s been rumored (the new colors are navy, yellow, and light blue). As for the design, it’s a total snooze — not wonderful, not awful, just booooooring. I already miss the current design, which I think has been badly underrated (esp. the home set). … Yesterday’s college all-star shot of Paul Hornung prompted Jared Wheeler to scan and send an article about the College-Pro Gridiron Classic, the game in which that uniform was worn. You can access the pages from the article here (click on the thumbnails to access each two-page spread, and then click on “All Sizes” to get a larger, more legible version of each page). … Nice element-by-element comparison here between Colorado State’s recent throwbacks and the originals on which they were based (with thanks to Rob Montoya, who also notes that LSU wideout Brandon LaFell is wearing Nike Total 90 Laser soccer cleats). … I have two video links to share with you. Neither one is truly uni-related, but both are at least somewhat equipment-oriented, and both are completely amazing. Plus they’re only 29 and 49 seconds long, respectively. Click here and here — you’ll thank me later, I promise (with thanks to David Brown and Jeremy Brahm). … Middle Tennessee State QB Joe Craddock had a bit of a nameplate malfunction on Saturday (with thanks to Andrew Jones). … The Sharks’ new jerseys, officially revealed yesterday, look really, really good. But they’ve done that thing again where the jersey has been posed and photographed in a way that hides the rounded shirttail hem. When worn, I think the straight striping and non-straight hemline will be a bad match, as they’ve been for other teams. … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: Riddell has a $1000 football helmet in the works. … Mexico’s national soccer team is changing its colors, because players have been having a hard time picking out the green jerseys on the green field. Details here (with thanks to Robin Fishbein). … The All Blacks always wear black, right? Wrong (as forwarded by Chris Flinn). … When the Red Wings unveiled their new jerseys, they said they were moving their “C” and “A” designations to the other side of the jersey because they couldn’t place it across a seam on the usual side. But if that’s the case, how come the Flyers can do this? … “I was at the Seahawks/Bucs game two weeks ago and I noticed that Shaun Alexander came out during pregame warmups in bright green elbow pads,” writes Dave Sizer. “The color was pretty bad, but they even had the NFL logo on them. Thankfully, when he came out for the game, he was back to the regular blue ones.” … Morten Anderson is back with the Falcons — and he’ll presumably bring his old Dungard facemask with him.
September 18th, 2007
The science fiction-ization of NFL headwear continues. Yesterday it was LaDainian Tomlinson’s facemask; today it’s the gonzo helmet design worn by Brandon Jacobs, Amani Toomer, and several other Giants players during their game against the Jets on Saturday night.
I confess that I totally missed the boat on this one until yesterday afternoon, when ESPN.com photo czar Sean Hintz (the man who deserves the lion’s share of the credit for my Bill Buckner scoop last year) asked me about it. Apparently ESPN.com designer Matthew Walker had mentioned the helmets to Sean, and Sean in turn went and found the two photos I linked to above, which pretty much blew my mind. I mean, I’ve been saying for years that uniform design is showing more and more of a comic book superhero influence, and this is probably the best (or, if you prefer, worst) example yet of that trend.
Fortunately, Giants equipment manager Joe Skiba is a longtime friend of Uni Watch, so I e-mailed him and quickly got a reply. “That’s the Schutt Ion,” he wrote. “It’s a brand-new helmet that’s the next evolution of the DNA.” When I asked if any other Jints players were wearing it besides Jacobs and Toomer, he provided the following list: Shaun O’Hara, Grey Ruegamer, Guy Whimper, Jay Alford, Marcus Bell, and David Diehl.
You can see Diehl wearing the Ion here, in a photo from the Giants’ previous game against the Ravens. The weird thing is that Jacobs is also in that photo, and he’s not wearing the Ion there. Once I started looking at more photos, I found that Jacobs didn’t even wear the Ion for the entire Jets game — you can see him wearing a conventional helmet here and here. More intriguingly, I found no mention of the Ion on the Schutt web site.
So is the Ion (which, incidentally, appears to have a rather innovative facemask mounting system) just a developmental prototype? Are the players just trying it out for a few plays here and there? “Brandon was giving it a test drive,” said Skiba. “It’s in the testing phase, but it’s NOCSAE-approved for field use. We will wear it in the regular season.” So get set to see plenty more of the weirdest-looking helmet to appear on an NFL gridiron since the days of Willie Lanier.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Does anyone have a photo of the new Rutgers jerseys? I linked to a wire service photo a few weeks ago but now it’s gone blank. … Yesterday I asked about this photo, which brought the following response from Ray McCormick: “As I recall, the only instance of NHL teams having corporate sponsorship on their practice jerseys in the 1980s was that Molson Breweries had their name or logo on practice jerseys of all the Canadian-based teams. The only exception was the Quebec Nordiques, who were owned by then-rival brewery Carling-O’Keefe. I remember seeing these jerseys on nightly sportscasts, where footage of various Canadian teams practicing was shown on a regular basis. The pic of the Lemielin card is precisely what I recall seeing back in those days.” … “The USA Eagles, the US national rugby team, unveiled their World Cup uniforms [that's them on the left] on Sunday,” reports Eric Bangeman. “Made by Kooga, they’re actually a lot nicer than any of the other RWC uniforms seen so far. Here’s last year’s version for comparison.” … Think I harp too much on the encroachment of advertising? Look here. … Mike Brodsky, winner of last week’s Helmet Hut raffle, reports that he chose this as his prize. Congrats again. … Oh dear. … Detroit Free Press readers (now there’s a dwindling species) have chosen the Red Wings uni as their favorite local uniform. … Major thrill last night, as I got an e-mail out of the blue from one of the most storied of all NFL equipment managers, Frank Pupello (inventor of the Pupello pouch, don’tcha know). In-depth interview to follow soon-ishly.
August 28th, 2007
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