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Posts filed under 'Uniforms in Movies/Advertising/Etc.'
Now that the first slate of NFL preseason games has been played, a few new developments have come to light (aside from those green dots on QBs’ helmets, which we’ve already discussed at length). Let’s take a look:
• At first glance, it appears that the Chiefs are wearing an AFL logo patch. But upon closer inspection, it turns out that the patch includes little “LH” initials at the bottom, in memory of Lamar Hunt. Personally, I’ve always loved the AFL logo and am happy to see it in just about any context, and I realize Hunt was a prime mover behind the AFL’s inception, but this still seems like an odd memorial choice, especially since it’s so hard to see the “L.H.” initials. Maybe if all the original AFL teams were wearing the patch..? Visually pleasing conceptually puzzling.
• Great to see the Browns wearing their old striped socks again, instead of what they were wearing last season. Additional views here and here, just cuz it looks so damn good.
• Nice catch by Chad Wilcox, who notes that many of the Redskins with non-Riddell helmets are wearing the team’s stylized “R” secondary logo (the one usually seen on Joe Gibbs’s cap) on their nose bumpers Here’s another view. I like. Meanwhile, we’d all seen the team’s 75th-anniversary patch before, but it’s worth noting that it looks plenty sharp on the field.
• Speaking of anniversary patches, the one being worn by the Steelers doesn’t look as good. And although this is still appearing on the Bengals’ home page, it’s not on their jerseys, at least for now.
• There’s something weird about opening your season — even your exhibition season — in your alternate jersey.
• I wish the Chargers’ pants bolts had a few more jags in them. Otherwise, I think their new design looks sharp.
• Subtlest change of the year: Motorola has outfitted the coaches with new headsets this year. The microphone bar is much thicker and clunkier-looking than last season — apparently so the Motorola wordmark can be printed on it as much as possible. Just in case anyone’s missing the point, the wordmark is also now appearing on both sides of the upper strap. (Note, incidentally, that while Joe Gibbs wears earphones on both ears, most other coaches only have an earpiece on the mic side.
That’s enough for now. Look for further developments in the Ticker as more games are played (like tonight’s Eagles/Ravens and Niners/Broncos tilts).
Charge It: The story behind this commercial and its inconsistent lightning bolt designs (compare this view of LaDanian Tomlinson, in which the upper-front point of his shoulder bolt is pointing forward, to this one, in which it’s pointing backward) continues to evolve. Last week I posted a note from Steve Due of AIS Uniforms — the company that made the unis — which didn’t fully explain the inconsistencies. Now I’ve received a dispatch from Due’s AIS colleague Bob Halfacre (who, as elephant-memoried readers may recall, had some very strong opinions a while back on the subject of nameplate initials), which I think finally closes the book on this story:
We made the bulk of the uniforms in a week with no help with patterns from the NFL. All we had was a replica-style jersey from Reebok. So the jersey itself isn’t perfect. … When the commercial was filmed, the Chargers sent Antonio Gates, Philip Rivers, and LaDanian Tomlinson with their actual tailored game jerseys. The shots of those three players are a mix of footage of those players in their actual uniforms along with footage of actors in the jerseys made by AIS, edited into what looks like continuous football action. I noticed the problem when I saw the commercial the first time also.
This shot is actually LT in his real jersey. Now that I have studied it a little more, I can see the problem. We put the bolts on backwards. If you look, the actual pictures of Gates and Tomlinson have the bolt with the first jag inside low and outside high. The AIS jerseys have the bolts the other way.
This explanation matches up with yesterday’s Chargers/Seahawks preseason game, where all of the Chargers’ shoulder bolts had the upper-front point facing forward (additional views here, here, and here). So there you have it: an all-too-rare case of someone taking responsibility and admitting his mistake. Thanks, Bob.
Membership News: We’re almost caught up on membership designs. Lots of good new stuff in the design gallery, including, as you can see at right, our first Bad News Bears treatment. Also newly added: a San Diego Chicken design. (I confess that I had never noticed the Chicken’s jersey logo until member Michael Rawson asked for it on his card.)
The next batch of designs, which Scott should have ready in a day or two, includes a really brilliant request that’s gonna look sooooooo cool — stay tuned. Meanwhile, new members are still welcome, so keep those orders coming.
Uni Watch News Ticker: No photo yet, but David Conley reports that Tiger Woods’s baby girl, Sam, “was actually wearing a red jumper with a large Nike swoosh on it when they showed her on TV yesterday after Tiger won the PGA.” And if you’ll excuse me for a second, I need to go throw up. … Okay, I’m back: The Celtics have announced that Scot Pollard and Eddie House will be wearing Nos. 66 and 50, respectively. Why? According to Friday’s Boston Herald: “‘Because all the other (expletive) numbers were taken here,’ Pollard said, looking around a conference room that had the numbers of Bill Russell (6), Tom Heinsohn (15), John Havlicek (17), Robert Parish (00), Larry Bird (33) and Kevin McHale (32) hanging on the wall.” (With thanks to Matt Englander.) … If you’re into modifying the uniforms on your video games (as discussed in detail here), you’ll want to check out the customization videos on this page (with thanks to Trev Ulmer). … Shorpy continues to be a great source of old uni photos, including this shot, captioned as follows: “Opening Day at Hilltop Park, April 4, 1908. New York Highlanders and Philadelphia Athletics” (as forwarded by Bob Andrews). … Brilliant catch by Peter Fahey who notes that Red Sox uniforms often have an upside-down 8 (the bigger opening should be on the bottom). … Elena Elms reports that the Durham Bulls will be wearing Livestrong jerseys, to benefit the Lance Armstrong Foundation, on August 19th. … While doing a bit of membership-related research, Scott Turner came across this photo, taken in 1984. “How come Dorsett’s got a big star on his chest?” he asks. Good question. Anyone..? … If you haven’t read Game of Shadows, some of its most damning evidence about Bonds concerns his uniform: “[Giants equipment mananager Mike] Murphy could document Bonds’s physical changes via the changes in his uniform size. Since joining the Giants, Bonds has gone from a size 42 to a size 52 jersey; from size 10 1/2 to size 13 cleats; and from a size 7 1/8 to size 7 1/4 cap, even though he had taken to shaving his head” (with thanks to Matt Schudel for forwarding that quote). … Bryan Redemske notes that Chris Duncan, like all the other Cardinals, wore red shoes on Friday but switched to black on Saturday. … Matt Algeo reports that the Russian national baseball team wore throwbacks the other day. “Who knew there was a Russian national baseball team, or that they were around long enough to wear throwbacks?” he writes. Details and additional pics here. … Not often that you see “Sr.” on a nameplate. The player in question is Nebraska wide receiver Chris Brooks, whose young son is Chris Brooks Jr. (nice find by Brian Hansen). … Small item about Rick Ankiel’s uni number history about halfway down this page (with thanks to Tom Chalifour). … Dave Gardner sent along a few hockey-related links I hadn’t seen before, including a discussion forum for vintage goalie masks and a gallery of Russian jerseys. … “Found a cool gallery of lacrosse photos from the Victoria Shamrocks of the Western Lacrosse Association, a semi-pro summer box lacrosse league in Canada,” writes Thomas Langan. “Looks like some of the jerseys get recycled, as evidenced by the tape over the name. Some nice retro-looking jerseys too.” … “This blog entry has two uni-related tidbits,” writes Kim Kolb. “One is about a United midfielder trading jerseys with Beckham, the other is about some guys trying to steal the Galaxy’s laundry, leading to a chase through the bowels of RFK Stadium.” … The Twins’ recent I-35W memorial decal provides a uni-related connection for this excellent story about how a new signage typeface is being used on American highways. … Soccer note from Jeremy Brahm, who reports that Montreal Impact goalie Matt Jordan was injured with a broken jaw a month ago but is now playing with a mask. … My worst nightmare recently came true down in Virginia, where the Richmond Braves had a purple jersey promotion (with “thanks” to David Rosenthal). … Latest MLB team to pull the totally bush move of wearing their BP jerseys for a regular-season game: the Mariners, who did it yesterday, apparently because it was so hot and muggy and they don’t have a Cool Base road jersey option. … Speaking of the M’s, many of them are wearing a custom-designed undershirt. Details here (with thanks to Jerry Gardner). … Amusing column here about the PGA’s no-shorts rule (good spot by Alan Kreit). … Eyebrow-raising note buried in Phil Mushnick’s Sunday New York Post column (as spotted by Seth Horowitz): “The University of Utah’s new basketball coach, Jim Boylen, could be the guy we’ve been looking for. At Boylen’s urging, black has been eliminated from the team’s uniforms. ‘Our [school] colors are red and white,’ he explained. ‘Black is not one of our colors.’” … The Texans are the latest team to publish their jersey schedule for the upcoming season (good find by Seth Harris). … No photo, but Morris Levin reports that Bruce Froemming is still wearing his All-Star Game cap. … “Adam Gaylord plays his college baseball at Stanford, but this summer he’s been playing for the Waterloo Bucks of the Northwoods League,” writes Matt Nelson. Sunday he sported these nice stirrups.”
August 13th, 2007
I can’t imagine why anyone would want to watch something as completely irrelevant as the Hall of Fame game, which is pointless even by NFL exhibition standards. But it’s a good thing someone watched, because now we have our first real uni-related development of the football season. As I first mentioned in yesterday’s Ticker, several people who watched the game reported seeing a little green dot on the back of some of the quarterbacks’ helmets (here’s a larger view). Most people seemed to think it had something to do with the radio sets that the QB helmets are equipped with, and it turns out they were right — sort of.
ProFootballTalk.com reported yesterday that the green dot “to help officials confirm that only one player on offense is wearing a helmet with a radio receiver from the coaching staff. So, if a team plans to put two quarterbacks on the field at the same time [for a trick play], one of them must change helmets before entering the game.” (You can see the full report by searching for “green dot” on this page.)
But how does the dot end up on the helmet? Is it embedded into the plastic by the manufacturer, or is it just a decal applied by the team? If the latter, what’s to stop a team from beating the system by “forgetting” to slap on the decal? I posed that question to NFL spokesman Dan Masonson, who responded thusly: “It’s a decal. The team’s equipment manager puts the decal on. Officials will make random spot checks throughout game to make sure they are on proper helmets.”
I meant to ask Dan why green was chosen as the operative color, but I forgot. I didn’t want to bug him again, so instead I e-mailed Giants equipment manager Joe Skiba (soon to be the subject of the next Uni Watch video report, incidentally), who responded, “Why green? I guess they said, ‘Let’s give the equipment guys some of the ugliest decals to throw on a helmet.’ Personally, I like the idea of having defenders spot the green dot from the backside and hitting the QB.”
I kinda like the idea of color-coded decals. Maybe they could impose the same “only one on the field at a time” rule for the following decals:
Red = Only player allowed to make stupid TD celebration
Blue = Only player allowed to make stupid sack celebration
Gray = Only player allowed to make first down signal
Orange = Only player allowed to whine when flagged for a penalty
Brown = Only receiver allowed to lobby for pass interference call
Plaid = Only player allowed to have one chinstrap buckle unsnapped
And so on. Admit it, it’s a brilliant system. Mr. Goodell, I await your call to discuss the financial particulars.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Did you realize that pine tar rags have team logos on them? I didn’t until last night, when Matthew Lepke sent me this note: “The camera crew from Fox North caught the Indians using a Tampa Bay(!?!) pine tar rag in the on-deck circle tonight. Very strange. As the Twins’ announcers said, ‘No wonder they aren’t scoring many runs.’” … Pulitzer-worthy move by the Houston Chronicle, which is providing a very amusing tutorial on how readers can convert their David Carr jerseys into Matt Schaub jerseys. Of course, the best move might be not to spend $250 on a jersey to begin with, but maybe they’ll run that bit of advice next week. … “Fanbanta.com has been having a ‘Design a Kit’ contest to publicize the launch of their website and to possibly outfit a Scottish 3rd Division team they are sponsoring,” writes David Walker. “Most of the designs are, as it turns out, horrible. But interesting.” … Good site dedicated to 1978 World Cup uniforms here (good find by Denis Hurley). … Intersting shot here of UConn players being fitted for their football helmets without facemasks (kudos to Matt O’Brien). … We’ve all heard about how the “armor” worn by Barry Bonds and others allows hitters to lean over the plate with impunity. But according to this analysis Bonds’s armor may also aid the mechanics of his swing (thanks, Vince). … Speaking of Bonds, several people have mentioned to me that he had his fly unzipped while on deck about a week ago. I couldn’t find a good shot, but it’s plainly visible in this video clip. … And speaking of XYZ issues, remember that item last week about Kerwin Danley umpiring with his fly unzipped? Here’s the visual evidence (with thanks to Vince for poring over the game video). … Great find by Scott Turner, who stopped designing membership cards just long enough to find this great photo of early-’70s White Sox stirrups. … A week or so ago I briefly linked to a photo of the Redskins’ 75th-anniversary throwback jerseys, but then I had to take down the link. It must be kosher now, though, because the jersey is being shown on the NFL’s own site. Let’s hope the sock stripes match the sleeves. … Wyoming is apparently moving to a Broncos-style template. Full unveiling on Friday (with thanks to John Eisel). … Good rundown here on the history of the Cork jerseys in the Irish sports of hurling and football (as forwarded by Denis Hurley). … “A buddy of mine named Michael Carasik lived in Chicago during the early 1980s,” writes Morris Levin (whose Victory Pennants site sells some great throwback pennants, incidentally). “He was part of a group of Cubs fans who were active in the Jewish community. Ivan DeJesus played shortstop so they had T-shirts made up that read, ‘Jews for DeJesus.’” … Rick Porter reports that the Penguins and Sabres will wear throwback uniforms for their New Year’s Day game, which may be held outdoors. … Yesterday I linked to this commercial (and noted that the Chargers’ lightning bolt designs were inconsistent). That prompted a note from Steve Due of AIS Uniforms, which manufactured the unis for the commercial: “The Bears jerseys were cut on an older pattern that is baggy. The Chargers were a new-style jersey that we had to make patterns for and had three days to do everything. As is commonly the case, since Reebok, Nike, Under Armour and the rest aren’t manufacturers, but promotion-driven, they plan to have things ready for commercials and often can’t, so they have to rely on AIS/Sportsrobe to make them. Usually with the knowledge that a cast and huge crew are going to be shooting in a very short turnaround. Often with nothing to go on but some pictures.” None of which really explains why the lightning bolts were inconsistent — stay tuned. … Latest minor league team to wear pink jerseys: the Portland Beavers. … An Australian Rules Football team was recently fined for wearing the wrong uniform (cheers to Steven Russell). … After a few weeks of back and forths, it looks like the logo creep on NFL photographers’ vests is here to stay. … Speaking of logo creep, people who wonder why I get so worked up over corporate marketing logos should take a look at this. … Jeremy Brahm reports that skullcaps are becoming increasingly common in Japanese baseball, but the players wearing them seem to lose their caps and helmets with distressing regularity. … Reprinted from last night’s comments: Steve Prudente reports that the announcers in last night’s Giants/Nats game mentioned that Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum keeps track of his strikeouts by writing tally marks under his brim. Gotta find a visual of that. … Also from last night: Jarrod Saltalamacchia wore a logo-free helmet for part of last night’s game (he later wore a proper one), and he’s switched from No. 23 to 25, but I’m only showing that because it’s fun to see his name on the back of a jersey. … The 49ers will wear throwback uniforms for their season-opening game on September 10th, in honor of Bill Walsh. … Soccer news from Nick Noyes, who writes: “Freddy Adu’s new club in Portugal, Benfica, will be sporting new kits this season, with the road variation featuring pink.” Further details here.
August 7th, 2007
If you’re a regular reader of this site, I’d say there’s a pretty good chance that you used to doodle uniforms or at least logos in the margins of your notebooks back in junior high. No shame in that — I did it myself, and so did uniform designer Todd Radom. But when it comes to uniform doodling, we’ve all got nothing on Marty Hick.
I met Marty a few weeks ago at the Uni Watch party in St. Louis (he’s the one who wore the super-cool St. Louis Cardinals necktie). At one point during the party he went outside and then returned carrying a cardboard box. When I asked him what was in it, he was all noncommittal. “I’m can’t show you yet,” he said. “I need a few more drinks before I’ll be ready for that.”
A few beers later, I asked Marty if he was ready to give me a peek at his stash. Still a bit wary but now clearly eager to share, he hauled the box onto the bar, reached in, and pulled out a big stack of notebooks — notebooks filled with amazingly detailed uniform drawings.
I flipped through the notebooks as Marty explained that he’d been making these drawings for years. But I soon stopped listening to him, because I was too busy engrossing myself in the drawings, which were incredible. There were stripe patterns and studies, comparative pants concepts, logo redesigns, Olympics uniforms, baseball sleeve treatments, all-star designs, NFL sock comparisons, some bizarre corporate brand uniforms, and more. It was a mother lode of obsessive-compulsive uniform illustrations.
The most interesting artistic trope in Marty’s drawings was his habit of combining home and road designs in the same drawing (additional examples here, here, here, and here), which created a weird In-Betweener or Lokai and Bele effect. When I asked him why he did that, he replied, “To save ink.”
By this time Marty’s initial reticence had given way to exuberant self-promotion. “Look, look at that!” he said as I flipped the pages. “Look, a logo on the Bears’ pants! Who else would think of doing that? Nobody! Look at that Islanders concept! Look at that Rams redesign! And look, here’s where I reconfigured the American and National Leagues in three divisions each — years before they actually did it themselves!” Somehow this all came off as charming instead of egotistical. I mean, really, how could you not be charmed by this? (You can see even more of Marty’s work in this slideshow.)
It was pretty obvious to me that Marty didn’t create all this artwork because he wanted to; like all creative visionaries, he did it because he had to. So I got his address and then, when I got back to my hotel room, I immediately ordered him a copy of Blackstock’s Collections, the book of obsessive “visual lists” that I reviewed a few weeks back. In the spirit of Blackstock’s work, as well as his own, I hope he’s doodled a few drawings in the margins.
Membership News: Lots of cool new stuff in the membership gallery, with lots more to come in the next few days. Remember, you can click on your card’s icon to explain what the design is based on and why you chose it, and you can also leave comments for anyone else’s design.
Meanwhile, every enrollee should now be listed on the membership roster. If you’ve signed up and don’t see your name listed, please let me know and I’ll make things right.
I’m happy to report, incidentally, that we’ll soon have a very special raffle — one that will make all you glad to have those three bonus raffle entries that come with membership. Details soon.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Oklahoma will have player names on the jerseys this season. … Reprinted from Friday’s comments: Although not truly uni- or logo-related, this is really, really cool. Details here. … Dennis Hurley has created a gallery of Cork City FC uniforms. … Brandon Roberts notes that Kentucky appears to have a new white helmet stripe this season. … College hockey report from Tom Konecny, who writes: “Though no official announcement from the school, the top two pics on this page appear to be the new Bowling Green State University hockey jerseys.” … The Bengals have once again published their jersey schedule for the upcoming season. Why can’t every NFL team do this? … In a vaguely related item, Chris Gilligan reports that this year’s N.Y. Giants season tickets show the team’s uniform history (additional images here and here). … Despite what you might think, I had nothing to do with this video (but Vincent Barone says his sister did). … Remember how we all noted some inconsistencies in the shoulder lightning bolts on the Chargers’ new uniforms when the design was unveiled a few months back? Check out this commercial, which shows the new uniforms in action. Not only do the bolt styles vary from player to player, but compare this view of LT to this view — and it’s the same play! … The Lakers have a new 60th-anniversary logo. … The Nats and Cards wore Negro League throwbacks on Friday. Interestingly, the Nats had throwback caps but cheated by using their navy road helmets, even though it was a home game. … Justin McGrail notes that the Celtics are plastering Kevin Garnett’s image everywhere in a numberless jersey. … Chaminade University is sponsoring a logo design contest (with thanks to Chris Chaussee). … “The Ottawa 67s of the Ontario Hockey League wore special jerseys during pregame warm-ups to honor longtime coach Brian Kilrea’s 2000th back in February,” writes Joe Dunman. “Luckily they didn’t all wear the jerseys during the actual game — the play-by-play guy would have gone crazy.” … Several readers have asked about this photo, which recently ran in SI and appears to show Hank Aaron wearing a two-digit number starting with 5. Now, the Hammer actually wore No. 5 when he first came up, later switching to his familiar 44, but I can’t find any info about him wearing fifty-something (or fifty-anything). Joe Hilseberg notes that neither of Aaron’s minor league teams was called the Braves, so that rules out that possibility. Anyone know more about this? … Might just be the lighting, but it looks like the Wizards are changing their trim from bronze to gold. … Willie Randolph added a “B.R.” inscription to his cap the other day, in memory of Bill Robinson. … Interesting NHL logo-o-rama site here. … Syracuse has unveiled a helmet revision, and if you squint a bit and break out the magnifying glass, you might just notice it. … Matthew Hackethal recently came across some old 1986 Topps stickers that show some of the Braves wearing really shitty-looking mesh-backed caps. “The photos appear to have been taken during batting practice (Dale Murphy’s shows him leaning against a batting cage),” he writes. “I’m wondering if this was just a spring training thing or did it continue in to the regular season.” Anyone..? … This always cracks me up. … In fact, it cracks me up so much I’ll show another example. … Not quite uni-related, but an interesting superstition. … Chosen logos (nice find by Matthew Scher). … The batting helmet from Bonds’s 755th homer is heading for the Hall of Fame (thanks, Vince). … June Jones apparently has some unorthodox coaching methods (thanks again, Vince). … Here’s something you don’t often see: an NHL/NASCAR connection (the trifecta for Vince). … Someone has tracked Florida State’s record by uniform combo (with thanks to Bob Jordan). … Rutgers has apparently tweaked their football jersey (compare to last year’s version). … The following item was buried in yesterday’s column by Newsday’s Ken Davidoff: “The commissioner’s office issued a memo last month to remind teams that proper uniform tops are to be worn at all times. That means that managers such as Boston’s Terry Francona can no longer go with the sweatshirt look.” I’ll believe that when I see it. … We’ve seen the Steelers’ 75th-anniversary logo before, but here’s how it looks on their jersey. … Several readers reported seeing a green dot on the back of many players’ helmets during yesterday’s Steelers/Saints Hall of Fame Game. Haven’t been able to find a photo. Anyone know more about this? … This site got an insane number of hits over the weekend, and I can’t figure out why. Not complaining, mind you — just mystified. Links from my Friday ESPN column account for some of the increased activity, but there’s gotta be more to it than that. Did some big mainstream site link over here without my being aware of it?
August 6th, 2007
[Editor's Note: Eriq Jaffe is one of several Uni Watch readers who specialize in modifying (or simply "modding") the uniforms on their video games. I'm not a gamer myself, but I'm intrigued by the design-it-yourself ethos exemplified by Eriq and other modders. He recently offered to write an overview of his modding practices and it turned out to be fascinating stuff. Enjoy. -- PL]
By Eriq Jaffe
Ever since I can remember, I’ve messed with, or modified, my video games, whether it’s coming up with a cheat code for nearly unlimited cash in Ghostbusters or spending countless hours manually inputting team stats from my Neft & Cohen into SSI Computer Baseball, I’ve never been able to help myself.
Why? I think it’s got something to do with leveraging technology to create a sports-themed fantasy world. From the time I was 6 or 7 years old, I would set up fairly elaborate universes of dice-based football leagues, and I had full uniforms — and, in many cases, historical uniforms — that I would design and then laboriously map onto players by re-coloring traced photographs (unfortunately, none of that work survived a cleaning purge a number of years ago). And, yes, some of the teams featured purple as their primary color. And now, thanks to the fine folks at Electronic Arts — as well as a number of other talented people in various modding communities — I am able to fully indulge my passion for changing my games (and, probably, violating my license agreements).
It’s safe to say that I spend more time creating uniforms for MVP 2005 than I do actually playing it. There are many other things that you can mod with MVP 2005 — and pretty much anything that can be changed is changed by somebody. There are people who specialize in ballparks, “cyberfaces,” and a whole host of other esoterica. But me, I’m a uniform junkie, so I focus on modding the unis. The rationale for a particular modification can vary, but here are some of the common reasons:
- To improve on the quality of the work that’s already there. All of my mods are done in what’s called “2x,” which means that the textures are twice the resolution of the stock textures — this provides for a much sharper-looking uniform, although at the risk of overpowering slower computers.
I have a tremendous soft spot for uniforms that are generally considered to be ugly (that’s what happens when you grow up as a White Sox fan during the ’70s and ’80s as a White Sox fan), and that tends to be a theme in my work. Be it re-creating uniforms from 1999’s infamous “Turn Ahead The Clock” promotion (additional examples here, here, here, here, and here, and let’s not forget those worse-than-2007 All-Star uniforms) or painstakingly rendering White Sox uniforms the late ’70s (those are from 1978, to be specific — the number of sock stripes varied from year to year during that period), I can’t seem to stop glorifying some of the more unattractive chapters from baseball’s past.
I also have a morbid fascination with defunct sports leagues and franchises. I know more about the USFL than most people would consider healthy, and I’ve recreated some vintage Pacific Coast League uniforms (additional examples here, here, here, and here), although that tends to be a bit harder, as finding good image sources can be tricky.
The actual process is a bit more tedious. First off, I have to research what the uniforms looked like. I find that Bill Henderson’s “Double Knit Era Collectors Reference” to be the best source, along with Google Images, eBay, and my own collection of baseball cards. Once I have a clear idea of what the jersey needs to look like, I’ll refer to Chris Creamer’s site for the logos and wordmarks (as well as my own private stash of logos that I’ve collected over the years).
Once all those parts are collected, it’s off to Photoshop, where I assemble the various jersey components using a series of templates that I have downloaded, created, or modified to suit my own workflow. This is the monkey work — cut, paste, shift, color, apply a little bevel here, a little drop shadow there. All in all, there are 28 different pieces that need to be created to create the uniform itself, as well as 36 items for the jersey lettering and numbering (a few teams, such as the Dodgers, require an additional set of “front” numbers, since they differ from the ones on the jersey backs). Mercifully, I have that part more or less down to a science at this point.
Thanks to the heroic efforts of others who have managed to crack open file formats and write tools to deal with them, we are able to modify the games. Some of the tools were written specifically for MVP (such as FuzzOne’s brilliant MVP Studio — you have to create an account on that site to download it), some tools are from other EA Sports communities (particularly the NBA Live and NHL players), and some are from non-sports games entirely. Some tools have fairly easy-to-understand GUIs, some are command-line driven, but once you get used to them, it’s actually pretty easy.
EA uses “.fsh” (”fish”) files as their container of choice — one .fsh for the uniform and one for the letters and numbers. There’s a specialized application known as FshEd that I use to insert the various components into a the .fsh files. The completed .fsh files are then packed into another container format (this one known as a “.big” file) using gfxpak (which I linked to a screenshot of above). There is yet another .big file that contains the “preview” in the jersey select screen of the game, but that’s just one 125×125 picture — small potatoes.
Game time! Finally, I get to fire up MVP and see how close to right I’ve gotten things. Most of the trial and error comes from limitations when dealing with the 3D models — some jersey elements will tend to stretch a bit oddly, or have other strangeness. Sometimes, a jersey cannot be 100% accurate due to these restrictions — for example, the Don Wilson memorial patch on my 1975 Astros jerseys should have been positioned higher up on the shoulder, above the rainbow stripes. Unfortunately, due to the model, that doesn’t work in MVP, so I had to move it down — acceptable losses, I guess. Sometimes, the tweaking can take a long time. I don’t even want to think about how many I hours I spent just to get the stripes on these sleeves to line up with the stripes on the shoulders – that’s four different uniform pieces I had to juggle around (nudge the stripes on the left sleeve a couple pixels over, pack everything into the container files, play a game, rinse, repeat) to get that working. If the jersey is right, I take a screenshot using a program called Fraps (good old Print Screen doesn’t work with a lot of DirectX and OpenGL games), and then package the mod up for distribution.
Then I bask in internet-based glory!
If you want to get into this for some twisted reason of your own, the best thing to do is find a modding community for whatever game you’re interested in — if it’s on the PC, somebody’s probably modding it. For MVP, the biggest and best community (IMHO) is MVP Mods. Poke around, ask questions, see what other people are doing, grab some templates and tools, and start showing your work. Don’t worry if your stuff seems a bit unprofessional or off-the-wall, because somebody’s probably already tried something stranger, and one of the best ways to learn is through constructive criticism. If you can’t afford a copy of Photoshop, don’t fret — good results can be achieved through freeware programs like the GIMP or Paint.NET (you’ll need a plug in to handle Photoshop files for that one). While every internet community will have its share of bad eggs (except Uni Watch, of course), most people are happy to help the inexperienced — the more the merrier, y’know?
(I would be remiss at this point if I didn’t thank and recognize some other standouts of the MVP modding community: Kccitystar, whose templates have been the basis for most of my work; Royal Blues, for trading tips and techniques; FuzzOne, for making some indispensable tools; and Pirate and SeanO, whose stadiums add an incredible amount of realism to the game experience. Without these people, I probably couldn’t indulge myself to nearly the same extent as I do.)
Friendly Reminder: Paul’s on vacation. If you have questions, observations, or contributions, send them to Vince.
Uni Watch News Ticker: First, let me say that I know a lot of hockey news has been going on, including new Predators uniforms, but I know little to nothing about hockey, and I’m sure Paul is going to take a crack at it all when he gets back, so I’m leaving it out for now. If Paul were here, however, I wonder what he would have to say about this (with thanks to Rob B.)… Dario Sala seems intent on pissing off MLS and Adidas. First, he wore the FC Dallas away jersey in goal, which was nixed by Adidas because it wasn’t an official Adidas goalkeeper jersey. Then, he wore the dark jersey with green trim, but was told he couldn’t do that because it was too similar to DC’s black uniform. Now? Now he wears the white top that the coaches use for training. Brilliant, I say! (nice assist by David Walker)… Jeremy Brahm has gone on uni-overload this weekend, sending the following contributions – Norichika Aoki wearing a silver glove in the Japanese All-Star game, a great gallery of All-Star hats being made by NPB, memorial crape bands (see picture 3) being worn by the Brazilian athletes competing in the Pan-American Games for victims of the Sau Paulo TAM plane crash, and the new uniforms for the Japanese gymnastics teams… Jon Lauer reports that the Washington Wild Things wore retro Blue Jays jerseys on Saturday night, leaving the grounds crew no option but to wear the coaching staff’s regular uniforms… Awesome looking hockey jerseys (or sweaters, for you purists) from the Israel Ice Hockey Federation, Paul’s really missing out here (great catch from Avi Berliner)… Yesterday’s Open Thread focused on the Negro League throwbacks worn by Detroit and Kansas City on Saturday night, and luckily Mike Bendert was at the game and sent along his photo gallery… Patrick Nance passed along some logos from the Texas Collegiate League that he thought were pretty spiffy. Agreed… Some nice contrast in shorts style between Brazil and Canada at the Pan-Am Games… Finally, FANTASTIC argyle pattern socks on Boca Junior.
July 23rd, 2007
HBO’s Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts Of Flatbush debuted last Wednesday, but I was in St. Louis at the time and didn’t get around to seeing it until Saturday. Aside from all the relatively familiar sentimental musings about my home borough (I teared up, right on cue, during the sequence where Dem Bums finally won the Series in ’55), there was a wealth of interesting uni-related material. Check it out:
- I wrote about pinned-on uniform numbers in my last ESPN column. But check out this shot, which shows prospects being evaluated either at a tryout session or during spring training. As you can see, some of them have numbers pinned over the pre-existing uni numbers. Kinda feels like the baseball version of this.
- Here’s a spring training shot. Note the two guys with the big “VB” on their jerseys, which I assume stood for Vero Beach.
- There was a roughly 20-second sequence that showed the Hollywood Star wearing their pinstriped shorts (here’s another view). Oddly, the voiceover narration made no mention of the shorts — the script simply noted that L.A. was a minor league town until the Dodgers arrived. Very strange.
- Interesting shot here. Note that Jackie Robinson and Junior Gilliam are wearing sanitaries but no stirrups.
My only gripe: There wasn’t any footage of Burt Shotton managing in street clothes.
Travel Advisory: In the 14 months since this site launched, I’ve gotten out of town for a long weekend here or a work-related trip there, but I haven’t taken a proper vacation. That will change this Thursday, when I head off for — well, never mind where I’m heading. The point is that I’ll be visiting friends, road-tripping hither and thither, and not thinking too much about uniforms. My goal is to not log on to the site even once during the eight days I’ll be gone. We’ll see how realistic that turns out to be, but you get the gist — I need a little break.
But fear not — things will continue apace. While I’m gone, several teams of bio-engineered chinchillas, fortified on Balco-quality “nutritional supplements,” will be running on treadmills to keep all the wheels and gears turning. A crew of illegal immigrants, working under the dual threat of deportation and being forced to watch Lou Dobbs broadcasts, is at this very moment learning to mimic my writing style, so fresh content will continue to appear each day. And the major sports leagues have all agreed to hold off on any major uni-related announcements until my return.
The one major change is that Vince will be in charge of things while I’m gone, and will also be assembling Ticker material. So from the 19th through the 26th, if you’ve got a question, an observation, or a contribution, don’t send it to me — send it to Vince at uniwatchintern at gmail dot com. Vince will also be equipped with a Bat Signal-like communication device to get in touch with me, so in the unlikely event of an emergency (Jose Cruz Jr. going on the DL, for example, or Bruce Froemming splitting his pants), I’ll be brought up to speed.
I will engage in one major bit of Uni Watch business while I’m away, however: Next Tuesday, July 24th, I’ll be passing through Toronto and will convene a party upstairs at the Imperial Pub and Library. Festivities will commence at 8 p.m. — hope to see all you Ontarians there.
Membership Update: I want to take a minute to point out some of the really great details that Uni Watch art director Scott M.X. Turner has been working into the membership cards lately. When recently asked to do an old-school Patriots treatment, for example, Scott did some photo research and noticed that the Pats routinely featured wide-spaced lettering on their nameplates back in the day, so he matched that style. And dig this EPL design, complete with the logos on the numerals! It’s little details like these that have made this project so much fun for us — and, we hope, for you.
One thing I’ve noticed is that designs that looked horrible as actual uniforms look really great on the back of a membership card. In addition to the Blues treatment shown above, check out this and this (plus comments section stalwart Teebz wanted us to do the Islanders’ seasick typography for his card, which I’m sure would’ve looked totally boss, but the type was too tricky to render, so Teebz settled for an all-star design [based on this]).
As always, you can see the growing gallery of card designs here. The active roster is here, and details on how you can join are here.
Lone Star Shout-Out: Member Jon Smith is interested in meeting other Uni Watch devotees in the Austin area. Feel free to contact him here.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Uni-related quote of the day, from Barry Bonds after yesterday’s Giants loss: “It’s an embarrassment for me to be wearing this [expletive deleted] uniform ’cause of the way I’m playing.” Not sure, but I think the expletive was “polyester.” … Big non-sports uni news out of the UK, where it’s recently been announced that trial judges will no longer wear wigs. Additional info here (with thanks to Bernie Langer). … Big article here about the jeweler who made Barry Bonds’s earring. … Latest minor league theme-night brainstorm: Star Wars Night, courtesy of the West Michigan Whitecaps (further details here). … The new Lightning logos will apparently look like this (a minor improvement, I’d say, but I’d rather have seen an overhaul). And the Sharks’ name/number treatment will now look like this (thanks in both cases to JR Boucicaut). … On Friday I ran a photo of this 1971 serving tray, which Vince was nice enough to pick up for me at a yard sale. That prompted the following note from Richard Stover: “That tray was a Shell gas station promotion. For a fill-up, they gave you a glass [additional examples here and here). I remember getting a Broncos glass from my sister, who had moved to Colorado, so it must have been a nationwide promotion. A few extra bucks and you could buy a tray. I’m 50 years old, and like almost everything else I had as a kid, I replaced my cracked, broken tray with one purchased on eBay. But my New England Patriots glasses somehow survived.” … Garrett Malcolm was attending a Padres/Orioles game in San Diego and happened upon a gent wearing this jersey. “He told me that it was game-worn, and was from the early ’40s, when the Orioles were a minor league team. The number on the back was 7, and I think you’ll agree that it is just a beautiful piece of work.” Indeed. (Quick, someone put a drool cup under Joe Hilseberg!) … Anthony Pellegrino attended a Phillies game on Friday night and snapped a pic of a combo you don’t see very often (thankfully): stirrups and mandals. … Vince notes that someone did a really bad radial arching job on Curtis Thigpen’s jersey (compare to this). … Good catch by Andrew Stebbins, who notes that the MLB.com shop lists this as a Chad Cordero jersey, when it was actually Francisco Cordero who made the All-Star team. … Several sources are reporting that Kansas’s new football jersey will look like this. … The Brewers did their annual Cerveceros promotion yesterday (with thanks to Jared Simon for the screen grab). … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: Short TV news clip here regarding Wisconsin’s attempts to police its motion-W logo. … Also from yesterday: Jose Reyes has been wearing orange shoelaces. … Still more from yesterday: Adam LaRoche’s pirate sleeve patch was partially torn off on Saturday night.
July 16th, 2007
Tuesday was a very good day.
I arrived in St. Louis at about 9:40 a.m. and headed straight for Liebe Athletic Lettering. This was just a “getting acquainted” visit, so I could get the lay of the land in advance of my video shoot the next day. It turned out to be an amazing facility, with patches, insignia, nameplates, and rolls of twill fabric all over the place.
Liebe is a subcontactor: They don’t manufacture jerseys, but the big manufacturers send their garments here to have numbers, letters, patches, and piping sewn onto them. For a long time they did most of MLB’s on-field jerseys; now, sadly, Majestic has taken all of that work in-house, but Liebe still does a lot of MLB’s retail authentics (including most of Mitchell and Ness’s throwback product), along with game-day and retail work for pretty much every big pro and college sports entity other than MLB. With the lovely Marcia Meyer as my tour guide, I was given complete access to the entire place, which means I was pretty much like the proverbial kid in the candy store. A very small sampling of highlights and observations:
- Although a lot of Liebe’s embroidery is now done by computerized machinery, an astonishing amount of the company’s sewing is still done by hand, primarily by women who look like they’ve been doing it forever. For example, although the main insignia on the Cardinals’ jerseys is done by machine (that’s just a sample piece of cloth, not an actual jersey), the finishing details, like the dark outlining, are all done manually.
- Back in the pre-digital days, the main embroidery work used to be done by hand too. Each logo had a pattern like this — basically a sheet of paper or plastic with lots of pinholes. The patterns would be positioned over a jersey and then a worker would smear some pigment over it, which would pass through the pinholes and replicate the pattern on the fabric. That would be the guide for the sewers to follow.
- Nowadays, sleeve patch designs are digitized and fed into a computer. But as recently as 25 years ago, the designs were blown up to six times their normal size to form a pattern. Every line on these diagrams represents a stitch. I can’t say I fully understood the explanation of the process, but the patterns were used to create rolls of paper with punches in them, like player-piano rolls. The punch rolls were then fed into the machine that would stitch the patch. The patterns, which are gorgeous pieces of artwork in their own right, aren’t used anymore, but they’re still floating around in old files, many of them dating back to the ’50s and ’60s.
- Here’s a nice little detail that nobody would normally know about: The Cardinals’ equipment manager arranged to have special patches sewn onto the shirttails of the Cardinals players and coaches attending the All-Star Game. This is a sample run of the patches.
- I spoke with a heat-press operator who griped about how little material there is to work with when pressing numbers onto football jersey sleeves. Check out his high-tech method of getting the sleeves to stay put on the press mount.
- Nowadays, all the letters, numbers, and logo appliqués are cut either by a laser cutter or a water jet. But they used to be die-cut, and Liebe still has drawers and drawers full of stamping dies (additional examples here and here). For some reason I found myself particularly charmed by this one, so the next day one of the plant managers used the die-stamper, three pieces of cloth, and a small heat-press to assemble a little Expos logo for me (look at an enlarged version and you can clearly see the cloth edges).
- The company has loads of old job order files. Here’s an old Rawlings order form for the 1989 Mets. Among other details, note that Lenny Dykstra wanted his sleeves shortened by half an inch, Keith Hernandez’s captain’s “C” was being removed, and lots of players wanted their pant legs to be a bit tighter.
I could go on, but you get the idea — it was basically a smorgasbord, a feast, an orgy of uni-related arcana. I didn’t want to leave, but I had to head downtown to the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum, where assistant curator Brian Finch was waiting for me (along with Jeff Scott, who runs the excellent Birdbats site). After gawking at Brian’s World Series ring — which dwarfed the rest of my hand — I had him lead me to the museum. Here’s a sampling of highlights:
- Pretty much every version of the birds on the bat insignia that you can imagine is represented in the museum, including this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one (that’s actually replica that was made for an old-timers’ game, not an original 1927 model), this one (note the royal outline on the birds), and this one.
- This is the Cards’ 1956 road jersey — the only year since 1922 that the team hasn’t worn some version of the birds on the bat. But they made up for it by including the super-cool Slugger Bird sleeve patch.
- It’s easy to forget that St. Louis was once a two-team town, so it was nice to see some Browns uniforms (additional pics here, here, and here.
- How awesome is the “Cardinal Organization” logo on this check?
- The Bowling Hall of Fame is in this same building, and they had some wicked cool shirts, as you can see here, here, here, here, and here.
After crashing for a bit at my hotel, it was off to the Uni Watch party. Small-ish turnout this time, but some very nice folks:
- Here’s Jeff Baxter, who I’d previously met at the Cards HoF, wearing what I believe is an actual game-worn Cards throwback jersey.
- Best attire of the night: Marty Hick and his old-school St. Louis Cardinals necktie. Marty also brought along some incredible show-and-tell materials, but I’m gonna save that for another day.
- To my surprise, two of the Liebe brothers showed up — a super-nice gesture that really impressed me. Here I am with Bill Liebe, whose grandfather founded the company about 80 years ago in his basement.
By 10:30 or so, I was pretty wrung out, so I scooted hotel-ward for some shut-eye. The video shoot the next day went extremely well, although I’m told that it will be boiled down to only three or four minutes after editing — a shame, since we taped so much great material. (I didn’t expect a half-hour feature, but I was hoping we’d clock in somewhere around the eight- to ten-minute range.) Not sure when it will be posted on ESPN.com — maybe as soon as next week, or more likely two weeks after that. I’ll keep you posted.
Membership Update: Scott’s been turning out some killer work, as you can see in the card gallery. We’re now over 250 members, and counting. Can’t even begin to tell you how happy I am over the way this project is evolving and growing — my thanks to all.
Signal Flare: Yo, Jeremiah McElwain — if you’re reading this, please get in touch. Thanks.
Uni Watch News Ticker: How great is my intern? This great: I got home from St. Louis yesterday afternoon and found a big package waiting for me, with a Cleveland return address. Inside was this old NFL serving tray, circa 1971. Wow. Thanks, Vince. … Some serious logo creep upcoming for the WNBA (with thanks to Matt Edwards). … “Looks like the Argentina women’s soccer team, which is competing in the Pan Am games, is wearing the uniforms of their male counterparts,” writes Jonathon Binet. “Why else would they still have the two stars above the AFA crest? The two stars represent the nation’s two [men's] World Cup wins in 1978 and 1986.” … JR Boucicaut of ModSquadHockey swears that this rendering of the new Sharks logo is legit. Personally, I think it’s an upgrade, if only because the tape goes all around the stick blade (which, as we’ve discussed before, wasn’t the case with the old logo). … Eli Ganias saw this MasterCard ad on the subway. He doesn’t understand it, and neither do I. What exactly is the point being made here — that you become “more than a fan” when you buy a cap with your credit card? … Several readers noted that Bruce Froemming (known, of course, for his tactful repartee) still had the All-Star Game logo patch on the side of his cap during last night’s Tigers/Mariners game.
July 13th, 2007
By Vince Grzegorek
By now most of you have probably heard about Scott Proctor’s equipment bonfire after Saturday night’s game at Yankee Stadium. (In a world of cell phone cameras, no one got a picture of this? Come on!)
Usually it’s the other way around, with the fans burning a jersey in effigy. But Proctor is the latest example of an athlete who, faced with the proverbial last straw, decides to hold an imprompty uniform cremation ceremony. Let’s take a look at some other torch bearers (pun intended) who’ve used their uniforms as tinder.
- In 1982, Frank LaCorte of the Houston Astros set his #31 uniform on fire after a game in which he walked the bases loaded in a relief appearance. Why? The 31 reminded him of a 3-1 count.
- Jose Mesa claimed last year that he’d matured throughout his years in the big leagues. His explanation: “I used to rip my uniform and everything. I’d throw the shoes in the garbage, I’d burn the hat.”
- Ernie Broglio supposedly burned his entire uniform in 1966 after taking too much heat from his teammates and the Cubs fans for his dismal performance.
- According to this page, “Toronto fans were particularly harsh with [Damaso] Garcia, especially after he burned his uniform in the clubhouse after one of his poorer performances.”
- Former US National Team member Jeff Agoos didn’t react well to being cut from the 1994 World Cup squad and responded by torching his jersey (supposedly in a fireplace).
- Then there’s the most coordinated and entertaining uniform bonfire of all time: the actual bonfire held by the Denver Broncos in 1962 to forever rid themselves of their infamous vertically striped socks. (And according to Paul, ” This looks like any other bonfire photo but is really and truly the Broncos vertically striped socks bonfire [indeed it is -- PL].”)
- Gino Odjick of the QMJHL didn’t do it himself, but according to this message board, his jersey was lit on fire by a fan during a game while Odjick was sitting in the penalty box. (And yes, it says he had to roll around on the ice to put it out.)
And just to give equal time to the opposite end of the temperature spectrum, Cardinals shortstop Brendan Ryan fell victim to a classic prank the other day when his uniform was frozen by some of his teammates (details here). When he tried to thaw it out with a hair drier, he ended up blowing a fuse and knocking out the power in Tony LaRussa’s office. At least he didn’t start a fire.
Over to you, Paul…
July Party Itinerary: I’ll be in St. Louis one week from today, July 10th, and will be convening a Uni Watch party for the occasion. Our venue will be McGurks — let’s shoot to meet there at 8pm.
Precisely two weeks later, on July 24th, Uni Watch will go international with our first-ever Canadian party, in Toronto. Festivities will commence at 8pm upstairs at the Imperial Pub and Library. And for those of you with stalker-ish tendencies, I am tentatively slated to “perform” the following evening at the Pontiac Quarterly, which is curated by Uni Watch Ontario bureau chief Liz Clayton, who’s a bit of a stalker herself.
Membership Update: I mailed out more membership kits yesterday and am now completely caught up with everything that’s been printed. So except for members King, Patterson, Lee, Bridgett, Versel, Brandt, Hart, and Eckensberger (whose cards have been designed but not yet printed — soon, soon), if your membership card is linked on the active roster and shown in the card gallery, then it’s either in your hands by now or on its way. As for the handful of you whose cards haven’t yet been designed, Scott’s working on those right now. And those of you who’ve joined at Level Four or above should expect to hear from Scott shortly regarding your logo designs.
We’re now up to 199 enrollees — not bad for the first month. Friendly reminder: All members who join by the end of July will have a special “Charter Member” designation added to their membership cards when they renew next year.
Uni Watch News Ticker: “I was at the Cedar Rapids Kernels game Friday night and saw a couple of things,” writes Joe Wagner. “First, the Kernels (class-A affiliate of the Anaheim Angels) wore special jerseys to pay tribute to veterans. They actually didn’t look that bad in person. They were playing the Kane County Cougers — an Oakland A’s farm team — and apparently the parent club requires their affiliates to wear white shoes as well. They looked awful, especially with the couple of guys who wore their pants high to show off the black socks.” … I’ve previously shown illustration templates of the new Texas A&M uniforms. Now, thanks to Glenn Stern, we have photos — look here, here, here, here, and here. … Ronnie Poore reports that there’s yet another movie in production featuring period uniforms. This one is Our Lady of Victory, based on girls’ basketball team from a Catholic school winning a championship in 1972. “Not much uniform detail in the photo gallery so far,” says Ronnie, “but the players do wear skirts [and striped tube socks! -- PL]. Some shots of the real team, from the school’s web site, are here.” Yee-fucking-haw! … “During Glen Davis’s introduction to the Boston media, I saw that his left sleeve still had the designer tag that you ordinarily remove when you buy the suit,” writes Matt Englander. “I once did the same thing while wearing a new suit to a job interview. In the middle of the interview, and without missing a beat, the guy opened his drawer and handed me a pair of scissors to cut the thing off. Pretty mortifying.” … Good spot by Matt Mitchell, who writes: “Vince Young made an appearance last week at Ladainian Tomlinson’s annual summer football camp here at Baylor Stadium. I thought the Pro Bowl jersey was Young’s (I thought somebody else may have had dibs on No. 10), but if you look closely you can make out ‘McNair’ across his back, so this was apparently a shout-out to Vince’s boyhood idol, former Titans QB Steve McNair.” … Great find by Matt Olson, who stumbled across this page devoted to NCAA equipment trucks. … Aaron Peters recently attended a Myrtle Beach Pelicans game and got some nice pics, including this shot of an Astros-inspired throwback design that the team wore last year. … Great scene yesterday in New York, where the Rangers introduced new signees Chris Drury and Scott Gomez, both of whom were wearing No. 23 jerseys. Both players have worn 23 in the past, so they flipped a puck to determined who’d get to wear it with the Rangers. Drury won. Details here. … Lots of excitement in the soccer world yesterday, as the L.A. Galaxy’s new jersey was apparently leaked. … Classic moment during last night’s Mets/Rockies game, as the ever-alert Keith “I Love Keith Hernandez” Hernandez forcefully opined that MLB players “should wear their regular team uniforms” in the All-Star Game, “instead of those league uniforms.” When play-by-play man pointed out that the league jerseys are only worn during the home run derby, His Keithness replied, “Oh, that’s right.” I’d love to put Hernandez in the same booth with Ron Santo, but the space-time continuum might never recover.
July 3rd, 2007
New ESPN column today — here’s the link.
Meanwhile: In Monday’s Ticker I mentioned the Florida State League All-Star Game, where players wore generic all-star unis instead of their regular team designs. That led to a note from Doug TKTK, who informed me that the single-A Carolina and California Leagues have their respective all-stars play each other, with league uniforms. That discovery in turn led me to this page, which has a surprising amount of info about the past few years’ worth of minor league all-star games — and that’s where things got interesting.
For starters, I learned that although the Florida State League wore those awful East and West unis this year (there’s a full gallery here), the FSL stars wore their regular team unis last year and the year before that (which means some idiot had to go out of his way to create those East and West disasters they wore this time around).
That got me curious about some of the other low-level minor league all-star games, so I started combing through the archives. For the most part, the leagues have their players wear their regular team designs, but there were some exceptions and inconsistencies, as follows:
• NY-Penn League (short-season A): Standard team uniforms in 2005. Odd move last year, however, as players wore the jerseys of their parent clubs (this was actually discussed here on the blog at the time, but I’d forgotten about it). This year’s game isn’t until August, so we’ll have to wait and see how they handle it.
• California and Carolina Leagues (A): 2007: As noted above, these leagues had their players wear league-branded uniforms this year (check out the awesome star-patterned uni numbers on the California jerseys, shown at the top of this page and visible at full size in this gallery). It’s not clear what the players wore last year, but in 2005 they had regular team uniforms, so the league unis are apparently a fairly new thing.
It’s worth remembering, incidentally, that the “real” All-Star Game hasn’t always featured regular team uni designs. For the inaugural mid-season classic in 1933, the American League stars wore their regular uniforms, but the National Leaguers wore special all-star attire.
Incidentally, in the course of my research I discovered a historical all-star oddity that I’m currently trying to figure out. More details, I hope, tomorrow.
Raffle Reminder: The drawing for the free copy of the 2001 MLB Style Guide will take place tonight (after I get back from seeing this guy). Entries — one per person, please — can be e-mailed here and will be accepted until 10 pm eastern. I’ll announce the winner tomorrow. And remember, everyone who’s signed up for membership automatically gets three bonus entries.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Give ‘Em an Inch Dept.: First NFL coaches get the right to wear suits, and the next thing you know Rams coach Scott Linehan is walking around in a Russell polo shirt (nice catch by Mike Korczynski). … Haven’t oohed and ahhed about this guy in a while. … A little birdie tells me the 49ers will probably be switching to black shoes this season. … The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yanks will wear Pocono Raceway jerseys next month. … This smeared eye black thing — as shown in these pics of Alfredo Amezaga, both taken yesterday — is getting seriously out of hand (with thanks to Perry Gattegno). … Reprinted from last night’s comments: In response to yesterday’s Ticker item about Reggie Jackson wearing a Mariners uni for the AL team portrait prior to the 1979 All-Star Game, Steve J. Rogers came up with the portrait, and sure enough, there’s Reggie. … Greg Hanson and his buddies play a video game called Forza Motorsport, and some of them have created some pretty cool team-based car designs. As usual, I know zero about video games, but I like the designs, so I’ve put a bunch of them in this gallery. … Lucas Burdick provided these shots of Scott Eyre and Willie Eyre wearing odd Cubs/Rangers combo jerseys, apparently as part of an Illinois Sate Lottery commercial. No script, unfortunately — anyone know the supposedly storyline here? … Jeremy Brahm reports that Brazil’s teams will wear these uniforms in the Pan Am Games. … Reprinted from last night’s comments: The NHL has officially decided to stick with dark at home, white on the road (scroll down to the last graf of this page). … Kevin Gee says that when Reggie Willits came to bat left-handed in the bottom of the 7th in last night’s Angels/Astros game, he was initially wearing a right-handed batting helmet (he’d been hitting right-handed all game up to that point, but the ‘Stros had just brought in a righty pitcher). “Brad Ausmus [the Houston catcher] patted him on the head and reminded him he was wearing the wrong helmet, prompting him to go back to the dugout and get another one,” says Kevin. Unfortunately, the Anaheim broadcast, which is the only one I have access to, cut away to an aerial shot while this was happening. Did anyone in Houston happen to Tivo the game?
June 21st, 2007
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