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Posts filed under 'Typography'
Looks like we’re gonna have to give an honorary Uni Watch membership to former MLB player Denny Hocking. While watching Friday night’s Twins/Angels game, he noticed something that almost everyone else missed, namely that Twinkies shortstop Adam Everett had a big typo on his jersey. According to this article, Hocking sent a text message to the visiting clubhouse attendants at Angel Stadium, who in turn notified Minnesota equipment manager Rod McCormick. He had a new jersey waiting for Everett as he came off the field after the 4th inning, so Everett played the rest of the game with a correctly spelled insignia.
Too bad Hocking was such a spoilsport. Wouldn’t it have been better if he’d kept quiet about the typo, just to see if anyone on the field would have noticed? Or would that have poor uni-watching etiquette for someone in his position (i.e., a former player with the ability to notify the proper authorities, as opposed to just a random observer)? And what if Everett had, say, hit a homer his first time up and superstitiously refused to change jerseys once the typo was discovered? Would McCormick have insisted that he change jerseys anyway, just for professionalism’s sake?
It’s worth noting, incidentally, that not all typos are created equal. In this case, the severity was magnified by the fact that the Twins use vertically arched lettering on their insignia, so the mis-sequenced letters disrupted the curvature of the arch, as you can clearly see here and here. All the more surprising, then, that nobody noticed the mistake before Hocking did.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Short article here about Habs coach Guy Carbonneau’s neckties (with thanks to Dan Smith). … Check this out: soccer stirrups! (Thanks to Ryan Yanoshak.) … Reprinted from Friday’s comments: What’s with all the cover-up tape in these photos? For the answer, look here. … Cool gallery of SMU helmets here. … Did you know U.S. soliders have had “uniform envy” regarding the Marine Corps? I didn’t, until Matt Locatelli sent me this. … The Hornets have a new court to go along with their new uniforms (with thanks to Mike Etheridge). … Non-sports logo news from Jon Springer, who reports that Giant Foods has gotten a brand makeover. … Chaz Noerenberg notes that Kyle Orton has been alternating between loose cuffs and tight cuffs during the preseason, and also points out that Kevin Jones had a new take on the double-socked look the other night. … Good article here about track athletes wearing jewelry. … Another uni-related treat from the SI archives: The 4/9/56 issue featured a bunch of uni illustrations for the coming season, as seen here, here, here, and here (with thanks to Jim Cooper). … “I was at the August 14th Mets/Nats game at Nationals Park,” writes John Muir. “Almost every hallway and open space has some sort of old-time DC baseball photo/painting/advert. I managed to grab a few shots on my way out after the game — they’re in this gallery.” … Also from John: Some ex-NHLers are circumventing the smoking bans at various arenas. … My annual college football season-preview column will run later this week on ESPN, but it will only cover Division I-A, so I’ll cover a few smaller schools here, including Idaho State. Last year they dressed like this and home and like this on the road. But now they’ve got new home jerseys, road jerseys, and pants. New helmets, too: That’s the old one on the right and the new one on the left (big thanks to Frank Mercogliano for all of this). … Reprinted from Saturday’s comments: Several Eagles linemen have reinforced horizontal ribbing on their shoulders, similar to what the Bears have had for several years now. … The Mets did the Hispanic thing on Friday night. … The Blue Jays’ black-jersey insignia usually looks like this (note the blue outline, which actually has a black border, but that blends into the surrounding jersey, so you can’t see it), but Jose Bautista’s insignia had a white outline on Saturday. Michael Priest and Hovan Patey both report that third base coach Nick Leyva has had similar problems this season. … Great collection of old hockey programs here (no need to click — they’ll start flashing automatically; with thanks to Mario Morgado). … Here’s something I’d never seen before: soccer positions listed on shorts (with thanks to Kel Hinkle). … Several readers have noted that Vikings RB Adrian Peterson changed his facemask from this to this on Saturday. For additional details, check out the discussion that ensued in last night’s comments (driven primarily by Matt Powers) here. … Jeff Ash has uploaded some really nice illustrations from this book, which he says taught him how to play baseball when he was a kid. You can see a slideshow of the illos here. … Informative video clip here on Oregon’s equipment room. … Several uni-related items in the new issue of GQ, including a short item on longtime Uni Watch faves No Mas, a “Please redesign the Ravens’ helmet” feature (look here, here, and here), and a stunningly inaccurate Cowboys illustration (with thanks to Matt Powers for the scans). … What the hell was going on with Bob Lily’s armpad? … Here’s a rare color view of the Chargers’ “San Diego All America City” helmet crest from the early ’60s. … The Giants never wore white shoes with their original “ny”-logo helmet. But Spider Lockhart apparently did a bit of footwear freelancing.
August 25th, 2008
Hello there.
One week, one wedding, two days of record-breaking Portland heat (one of them spent in a jacket and tie — ugh), one Uni Watch party, one astonishingly large cinnamon roll, one visit to a vacuum cleaner museum and another to a kite museum, too many hours spent shopping at various thrift and vintage shops (resulting in one very odd 1960s clock-radio-lamp purchase), many beers, one afternoon spent at a National Volcanic Monument, way too many failed attempts to pronounce “McMenamins” without stuttering, one one visit to a reader’s home, and one giant frying pan later, I’m back.
But more on all that tomorrow. Today we’ve got serious uniform news to discuss, because the Hornets unveiled their new design yesterday. Here’s the scoop:
• The team’s basic colors — blue, purple, and gold, have all been tweaked slightly. Largely irrelevant.
• The primary logo has been tweaked as well, going from this to this. I miss the white gloves, but otherwise this looks like a clear upgrade for both the illo and the typography.
• A new secondary logo has been introduced. Man, does that say, “AAA baseball” or what? What a waste. (You can see various treatments of this logo, the new primary logo, and the “fleur de bee” logo here).
• In a nod to the franchise’s original Charlotte-era design, design, the uniforms are now pinstriped — you know, because basketball players are short and need to accentuate the vertical. I’m generally fond of the new typography (compare to this) and not fond at all of the neckline and ass-crack logo positioning (it’s practically a rule now that every new design has to have these). Still if the overall effect ends up looking more or less like this NBA 2K9 leak, I’d say the world will keep on spinning. A masterpiece? No. But reasonably palatable? Yeah. (Additional details on all this can be found here.)
While we’re at it: As most of you know by now, the Timberwolves have a new design as well. Now, if you were redoing this team’s design, what’s the first thing you’d address? The illegible number font, right? The good news is that they’ve got a new typeface; the bad news is that it’s only marginally better than the last one. On the plus side, shortening the home wordmark to “Wolves” seems like a good move; on the other hand, there’s more rear-logo silliness, and the tree motif on the side panel and shorts seems forced. And c’mon, the collar just looks embarrassing.
But here’s a new wrinkle: The league invited me to participate in a conference call regarding the Minnesota uniforms on Monday. I was busy traveling but asked if they could provide me with a transcript of the call, which they did. It features some predictably rote recitations of corporate marketingspeak but also includes a fair amount of interesting inside info — much meatier than I’d expected. So I’ve posted it here. It’s lengthy, but I think you’ll find it worthwhile.
Uni Watch News Ticker: I’m late getting to this, but Mark Mihalik’s excellent PlayerExclusive.com footwear site has some cool team recaps, plus he’s been building an excellent footwear gallery. The site is so smartly designed that even a non-footwear-obsessive like myself can dig it. Highly recommended. … Latest awesome old baseball photo from Dave Eskenazi shows the 1935 Dayton Ducks. … “I’ve been up in Wisconsin at the Chiefs’ training camp at UW-River Falls,” writes Jason Gomez. “Jon McGraw and Dustin Colquitt gave away their shoes along with autographs, which led to the players signing autographs in their socks — which turned out to be NBA socks. Also, the Chiefs have Trek bikes to get around in — pretty cool.” … Not uni-related, but fascinating all the same (thanks, Kirsten). … Wondering why some countries’ Olympic uniforms have the country names printed in English and others in foreign languages? Look here. … With college football about to start and college hoops not far behind, this is a good time to mention the excellent Pollspeak site, which covers everything related to college poll rankings. … Major NOB possibilities for the Mets, who may soon have three Reyeses on the 25-man roster. … Nyjer Morgan is back in the bigs for Pittsburgh, which means one more pair of stirrups on the diamond. Thanks to Chris Hilf for the tip, and to Bryan for the blurry screen grab. … Here’s a follow-up from Tuesday’s Air Force PT note in the Ticker, from an anonymous contributor: “I read the Ticker posting about the Air Force PT uniform, and I can say wholeheartedly that it’s true. I normally wear a large, but have it up to an XXL in order to have something that reaches mid-thigh and doesn’t feel like spandex. Either way, it reminded me of a story that might interest you. I work on the E-4, an airborne command post that the Secretary of Defense uses for overseas trips. Well, former Secretary Rumsfeld was known for wearing an Army PT coat as his ‘casual’ wear in-flight. But on a flight right after the Air Force’s new PT gear came out, a member of our crew walked up to Mr. Rumsfeld with an Air Force PT coat and asked him to wear it, because ‘we are the ones that take you where you need to go.’ From then on, he wore that coat.” Many thanks for the contribution.
August 21st, 2008
The Nationals, like every other MLB team, participated in the Jackie Robinson 42fest on April 15th. In fact, they were one of the clubs that dressed the entire team in 42 that night.
But apparently that wasn’t enough for the Nats. Yesterday’s game against the Mets was billed as “Jackie Robinson Night.” They unveiled a 42 on the outfield wall, and 42 was worn during the game by Ray King, Lastings Milledge, and Willie Harris (all shown in that photo).
This raises a bunch of questions for me:
• Why wasn’t the 42 already on the wall? Like, it was already retired, right? I realize it’s a new stadium, but so what? The number was already supposed to be retired on an MLB-wide basis.
• Why did the Nats get to dress players in 42 again? Okay, so they were on the road last week, but so what? Is every road team from April 15th gonna get to do this? I disagree with people who say that the annual April 15th celebration cheapens the number, but I do think it got cheapened a bit last night. I realize some people will say, “Anything that raises awareness of Jackie Robinson is a good thing,” and I generally agree with that, but turning his memory into a way to add another promotion to your home schedule is totally bogus. The whole point of April 15th is that it’s a one-day thing — a tribute day, a special day. If we start to make every day special, the practical result is that no days are.
• Why was Ray King wearing white cleats in the preame ceremony? He switched to black for the game.
• While we’re at it, why is Ray King so fat?
It’s also interesting to see the design scheme the Nats chose for the 42 on the outfield wall. Many (most?) teams have chosen to depict it in the old Brooklyn Dodgers design scheme, or at least in blue (additional examples here, here, and here), although not every team has done this (additional examples here, here, and here). The Nats chose to use their own font with the numbers trimmed in blue and gray, which I find to be an unsatisfying middle ground. By trying to have it both ways, they ended up with neither.
Uni Watch News Ticker: “This site has a ton of photos from the Arizona Fall League (especially from 2002),” writes Steve Delaney. “One of the most interesting finds is this — that’s Jerry Hairston of the Orioles throwing and Alfonso Soriano of the (at the time) Yankees on the right. Looks like a Little League World Series game.” … UMKC is having a logo-redesign contest. … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: Best shot I’ve ever seen of Pete Maravich’s “Pistol” NOB. … A new book about goalie masks, called Saving Face, will be published this September by Wiley. The editor sent me some sample spreads, which you can see here. These pages are v-e-r-y preliminary — the text and layout will probably change significantly in the finished product — but they at least provide a sense of what the book will be like. … Jon Helf, who runs the awesome Fleer Sticker Project blog, checks in with another Pilots-related post: “Some of the late-’60s Fleer issues had different colors and styles from what the Pilots ultimately used in their intial season. You can see what I’m talking about here.” … Good article here about George Sherrill and his flat-brimmed cap. … Man, I wish I could’ve been in Seattle for this bowling alley auction. … Minnesota’s new football uniforms, unveiled yesterday, look like this, and holy shit do I hate that pants-striping treatment. No rear-view photo yet, but you can see that the stripe does a butt-cheek wraparound, which is bad news. Idiotic piping on the jersey, too. Piece o’. … And here’s the latest on Hawaii’s new uniforms. Not great, but I’m always in favor of more green, and their look has always been somewhat cartoon-ish, so it’s hard to get worked up one way or the other (with thanks to Jeff Osbun). … While searching for something else on YouTube, I came across the classic old Warner Bros. cartoon Dog Gone South, which I hadn’t seen in probably 20 years. I’d forgotten that at one point Belvedere finds himself wearing a Yankees jersey (yes, it’s in inaccurate, but hey, artistic license and all that). … “Great stirrups being worn by St. Helens High in Oregon,” writes Travis McGuire. “But what’s up with that mound?” … Attention, Jeremy Brahm: Steven Wyder spotted this on eBay. Can you offer any insights regarding its provenance? … Helmet logo problems last night for Kosuke Fukudome (with thanks to Cara Morefield). … “I was watching How I Met Your Mother from last Monday,” writes Mike Rich, “and noticed Ted (played by Josh Radner) wearing a bizarre T-shirt with a Cleveland Indians logo surrounded by a Cincinnati Reds logo. There was also a logo on his left sleeve, but they never showed a clear view.” … Several amazing new contributions from northwest baseball historian Dave Eskenazi: The first two are of the Vancouver Beavers, circa 1918. Nice, right? But the real prize is this shot of the 1938 Vancouver Maple Leafs. Man, is that totally gorgeous or what? “The players probably hated it, especially the veterans,” says Dave. … New member of the stirrups club: Matt Kemp. … The NHL’s great front-office coordination strikes again.
April 24th, 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
SI.com’s photo galleries are usually pretty good, but their current “Greatest College Football Players by Number” rundown offers a particularly rich lode of uni-related details. Here’s a rundown (several of which were also spotted by various readers over the past few days):
• I had completely forgotten about Texas A&M’s shoulder stripes.
• Was there a particular reason Oklahoma State was wearing a huge shoulder flag?
• I don’t think I’ve ever seen such small or high-positioned uni numbers as Iowa was wearing in the late 1930s. Also, note how the knee pads appear to be poking out below the pant cuffs.
• I’ve mentioned Ohio State’s big-ass TV numbers before, it’s always worth another look, just for the “Holy shit!” factor.
• Love this shot of Doak Walker wearing an all-star uni.
• Think monochromatic uniforms are a modern phenomenon? Then check out this old shot of Syracuse wearing solid orange. Plus note that the helmet stripes don’t match, and dig Jim Brown’s Lucite facemask.
• What’s the deal with Dick Butkus’s helmet stars? Were these early merit decals?
• I had no idea that Nebraska had worn this number typeface in the early ’60s.
• Check out Greg Roberts’s helmet — looks like a cross between the Willie Lanier style and the ProCap. Anyone know more?
• I love how football photos from the 1920s always seem to feature lots of little patches and rivets on the pants, like in this shot of Bronko Nagurski.
• Look at this shot of Buck Buchanan. Looks like he’s got “Bell” written on his elbow pad. At first I thought maybe this was a makeshift memorial for former commish Bert Bell, but he died in 1959, when Buchanan was still in college. Can anyone shed any light on this?
• Dig the stripes on Jim Seymour’s shoes — pretty cool. Also, it’s tough to say for sure, but it looks like the official may be wearing two-tone (i.e., non-striped) socks.
Too bad the gallery stops at uni No. 99 — they could easily have included an entry for Chuck Kinder, who wore No. 100 for WVU in 1963, to mark the 100th anniversary of West Virginia’s statehood.
We Can’t Make This Stuff Up: My ESPN.com colleague Patrick Hruby is looking to get his hands on a giant ear costume (something like this) as soon as possible. If anyone has any idea where to find such an item, please let me know, post-haste.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Yesterday’s item about the guy with the Patriots logo tattooed on his head led Jon Smith to send along this photo, taken in 2006. That’s Jon on the left, posing with what he describes as “the ultimate Chargers fan.” He says there’s a matching bolt on the other side of the guy’s head. Wonder how he felt when the team changed its bolt design last spring. … According to this item UGA’s black jerseys have helped the school’s recruiting efforts (with thanks to Greg Riffenburgh). … Did you know that American-style football is played in Italy? I didn’t, until Travis McGuire sent me this photo from the Italian Super bowl. Not sure what the temperature was, but dig that ref in shorts! … Fun NOB find by Caleb Borchers, who notes that Richard Wigglesworth (of the Sale Sharks rugby club in Manchester) wears “W’Worth.” … Dude, you forgot your mouthguard (as spotted by Glenn Chamberlain). … Several Canadiens and Black Hawks old-timers were honored before last night’s Habs/Hawks game. Happily, the oldsters got to wear CCM jerseys, not newfangled Reebok models. … Maryland wore yellow alts last night (thanks to Bryan Duklewski for the screen grab). … Remember yesterday’s Ticker item about basketball gloves? Turns out that idea was first floated (and presumably sank) way back in 1991, as you can see toward the bottom of this page (great find by Matt Shevin). … Just as I was about to post today’s entry, this query came in from Matt Weber: “Recently a friend told me that Arizona State’s football team wore gold jerseys for one game vs. University of Arizona, a game that they lost. I believe it was in 1989. However I can’t find any pics of these jerseys. My friend said that since ASU lost that game, they would never wear gold jerseys again.” Can anyone confirm and/or provide more info? … Every now and then it’s good to remind people that I don’t just write about uniforms.
January 9th, 2008
The nice thing about co-owning an NBA team is that you can work out with the players whenever you want. And of course you’ll get an official team practice jersey to wear — hey, you’re a part owner, you can raid the pro shop for whatever gear you want. High-five! But wait, the practice jersey features the logo of the company that manufactured it, and you have a longstanding promotional arrangement with a rival company. That’s a slight dilemma, but everyone knows what a savvy businessman you are, so you’ll come up with a smart and elegant solution.
That was the situation facing Michael Jordan yesterday. And here was his smart and elegant solution: He slapped a piece of white tape over the Adidas logo on his chest, although I think it’s fair to say that this maneuver went straight into the “Not fooling anybody” file, especially since he didn’t bother covering up the Adidas stripe treatment (presumably because they ran out of white tape).
I don’t know if Jordan’s still contractually forbidden to wear non-Nike gear, or the very idea of flashing a non-swoosh logo simply gives him a rash, but this little episode really highlights the continuing absurdity of how sportswear companies have become entangled with leagues and athletes. Did Jordan really think nobody would notice the piece of tape, or understand why it was there? Didn’t this actually draw more attention to the fact that he was wearing Adidas gear than if he hadn’t worn the tape to begin with? Couldn’t he have avoided this problem altogether if he’d just turned the shirt inside-out or worn a some other shirt? Oh, but then the Bobcats logo wouldn’t have been visible, so he wouldn’t have been promoting his team and its merch. What a mess — the whole situation reeks.
I’ll have more to say about logo creep tomorrow. Meanwhile, how much you wanna bet that some kid out there is gonna start wearing a piece of tape over the Adidas logo on his Bobcats jersey, just like his idol, MJ?
Raffle Reminder: Today’s the last day to enter the holiday raffle. For details, scroll down to the middle of Friday’s entry. As always, you can increase your odds of winning by joining the Uni Watch membership program. I’ll announce the winners tomorrow.
And hey, speaking of raffles: Are you excited about the Pro Bowl? Right, me neither. But the NFL is raffling off a free trip to its annual snooze-a-thon all-star game, and let’s face it, a free trip to Hawaii is a free trip to Hawaii, even if it does entail watching the world’s lamest football game. Plus the Pro Bowl is a uni watcher’s dream (assuming you dream about the really bad design), so it’s a win-win. To enter, look here.
Uni Watch News Ticker: The Vikings’ solid-purple look will not be repeated (that good news brought our way by Chad Burma). … Weird sequence of events yesterday, beginning when Kenn Tomasch sent me a note reporting that Steve Young’s orange jersey didn’t have stripes in 1985 like the rest of the Bucs had. Upon further investigation I discovered several other anomalies, to wit: Young appears to have ghosted sleeve stripes here and here; some of Tampa’s linemen didn’t have sleeve stripes either; kicker Donald Igwebuike (one of my all-time favorite sports names) had stripes, but his sleeve connected to his jersey down around his belly; if you factor in the sleeves, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen another NFL jersey look as mesh-y as this. … Michael Vick may not be in the NFL anymore, but he’s leaving quite a trail in his wake. … Looks like a Georgia Southern player was wearing a one-sleeved undershirt the other day (with thanks to Bob Jaye). … The Rutgers football team’s equipment manager is retiring (with thanks to Bruce Soltys). … Greg Riffenburgh notes that Minnesota’s Anthony Herrera appeared to be violating the NFL’s “only one footwear trim color allowed” rule the other night. … If you can’t prevent a concussion, at least you can know if you’ve gotten one. … Todd Krevanchi notes that Houston is using different font sets for its front and back uni numbers, and you can see in the 2s here. … Reprinted from last night’s comments: Awesome old newsreel footage shot in the Red Wings and Rangers locker rooms here.
December 19th, 2007
There was a classic moment during yesterday’s press conference to unveil the Blue Jays’ new road and alternate uniforms. It came when they trotted out old-timers Lloyd Moseby and John Mayberry to model the team’s new 1979 powder blue throwbacks, which will be worn for Friday home games. At one point Moseby was asked what it felt like when he first wore that uniform back in the day. The prop boy must not have been holding the cue cards high enough for Moseby to see, because instead of giving a scripted reply, he chose to ad lib: “The uniform sucked, okay? So we ain’t gonna go there.”
After a moment of nervous laughter from the audience, followed by a beat or two of silence, Moseby added, “’Course, it was big to put on any uniform,” but it was too late — his point had been made, namely that these things were ugly back then and they’re still ugly now. I know many of you have some sort of nostalgic and/or kitschy fascination with this uniform, but come on — it’s totally minor league. With the centered crest and the pullover style, it looks and feels more like a hockey jersey than a baseball jersey. Plus they’ll be wearing it at home, which means we’ll be treated to blue-vs.-gray games — ugh. (Moseby, incidentally, gave some additional choice comments about the design to a Canadian reporter after the unveiling ceremony.)
While the original design had pants with a double-snap waistband, the throwback has more traditional belted pants (Moseby approved of this change: “When dirt got in your snaps, they wouldn’t work”). The mock-up in the MLB Style Guide shows a striped belt, presumably to simulate the striped waistband, but the belts at the unveiling were solid blue, which is probably for the best. On the other hand, I give them credit for sticking to one aspect of the original design: NNOB.
As for the new road jersey, I like it. Yeah, it doesn’t match the home design, but I count that as a plus, because the home design blows. I see at least four reasons to like this revision: 1) vertically arched lettering; 2) the ascension of blue from trim color to main color; 3) uni numbers finally appearing on the front of the jersey; 4) a pretty cool number font (soooooo much better than the old one). Problems? I count one: They’ve retained the super-clunky NOB typography. But at least it’s blue now, which is mild improvement. Now if we could just get them to wear a blue cap.
Finally, if you believe in omens, there was a bad one: The “N” in “Toronto” is supposed to look like this, with the shadowed side of the bevel down and to the right. But the “N” on the jersey that Jeremy Accardo was wearing was upside-down. Nice going, guys.
(Special thanks to the Chris Creamer board, where many of the above-linked photos were first posted.)
Uni Watch News Ticker: Homeless man update from Mike Hennessy, who writes: “At a news conference sometime over the weekend, Belichick wore his regular sweatshirt with the hood cut off. I think with this he has hit rock bottom.” … Speaking of Belichick, for a few weeks now his headband has featured a Pats logo that I haven’t seen elsewhere. I kinda like it, especially since the “New England” part of the team’s name usually doesn’t get much play. Anyone know more about this logo? … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: Steve Smith threw his cleats into the crowd after Sunday’s game. … Great catch by Jeremy Iwen, who noticed that the first “R” in Dominique Barber’s nameplate was backwards a few weeks back. … Ray Lewis memorialized Sean Taylor on his eye black last night.
December 4th, 2007
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
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