Tracking The Unis, Part I

By Phil Hecken

Welcome to the first part of the first edition of “Tracking The Unis,” an undertaking of many Uni Watching baseball fans. What began as a “suggestion” in the Comments way back in April, has transpired to well over 20 of you fine folks “tracking” your favorite team by uniform — whether it be by spreadsheet, graphic or pen and paper, many of you have kept diligent records of your team’s performance, based upon wins and losses, and tracked this according to the uniform the team wore for each and every game. Today, we’re here to look at the preliminary results of this tracking, for games (all of them through Memorial Day, some further, some with running counts, etc.) and to see if any “trends” emerge. As most of you know, I’ve been tracking the Mets, who are one of those teams who seem to have a different uniform or combination for each day of the week.

For those who responded to my “call” for uniform tracking, I sent the following (as an example) in my e-mail: “the Mets (rolls eyes) are one of the most egregious ‘offenders’ in their uniform choices. While their “official” home uniform is the pinstripes with blue caps, they have (thus far) chosen ONLY to wear this on Sundays. They have a propensity for wearing all black (cap and jersey) on Fridays, either home or away (although this is not exclusive to Fridays), while they wear the ‘snow white’ uniform (either with the black/blue cap or solid blue cap) at home other days. For weekdays, they seem to stick with the black/blue cap (and hence, black socks and sleeves), while on the weekends and a few select weekdays they stick with the snow whites and blue combos (and they are 7-1, as of Thursday) in that particular combo — by far their best record. For the road, they primarily have just two possible outfits — the all grays with the black/blue cap (worn for MOST road games) and the black jersey/black cap (worn for a few games so far). Including the ‘stars & stripes’ red caps and Jackie Robinson Day, the Mets have worn EIGHT different uniform combinations thus far and have the possibility of 10 (and maybe even more, depending upon the red cap, as the season progresses). To date, they have not worn the pinstripes with black/blue cap nor the (extremely rare) road grays with blue cap (God is that gorgeous). There doesn’t seem to be any specific reason for going with any particular jersey and cap (other than the Sunday pins), and it’s not chosen by that day’s starter, nor is there any apparent ‘slump buster’ outfit.”

In return, I asked each respondant for their particular method of tracking, some kind of “visual aid” (whether it be a link or a screenshot) of this tracking, and to give me a brief description of their impression of their team’s performance in each of the uniform combinations their team has worn this year. Some of you (this is Uni Watch after all) are incredibly detail-oriented, others less so, but still very accomplished in this undertaking. The summaries which follow are long, short, and somewhere in between, but all evoke a spirited undertaking, and will hopefully begin to yield “clues” as to the importance of a certain uniform to a team’s record. Some of you are tracking the same team, but in different ways. Some of you are tracking one team in multiple ways. No matter, each has his/her own style — a style we will now explore below.

In no particular order then, are our first day’s batch of trackers. My great thanks to everyone who is participating in this.

~~~~~~~~~~

Our first tracker simply wants to be known as Billy. Billy has been tracking the Orioles. Here then, is Billy’s report:

You can refer to me as “Billy” when posting this information. I keep track of the Orioles record by uniform using Excel. The Orioles have 4 combinations: Home Whites, Road Grays, Alternate (Black) jersey at home with home white pants, and Alternate (Black) on the road with road gray pants. They wear their alternate jerseys every Friday (home or road) and standard uniforms all other days. Thus far, they are 11-9 in standard home uniforms, 6-12 in their standard away uniforms, 1-2 wearing their alternate jerseys at home and 1-3 wearing their alternate jerseys on the road. Which makes them 17-21 in their standard garb, and 2-5 in their alternates.

Attached is a screen shot of my spreadsheet.

Billy

~~~~~~~~~~

Next up is Shaun Tunick who is an Atlanta Braves Tracker. Here’s Shaun’s report:

OK Phil, here’s my spreadsheet … the Braves are pretty consistent, at home they wear white every day except for Sunday, when they wear red with the alternate cap. On the road, the starting pitcher gets to decide between blue or gray. There is nothing to it more than the pitcher’s decision, even the home team’s choice doesn’t matter, as the Braves wore blue earlier this year while the Mets wore black, causing it to look like a spring training game. Blue has been far more popular, maybe because we are 0-2 in gray. Will be interesting to see if this changes come those July/August day games…

~~~~~~~~~~

Our next tracker is Justine DeCotis, who has been diligently tracking the Boston Red Sox. Quite an amazing tracking she’s been doing, too. Here’s her commentary:

This year, the Red Sox have two alternate uniforms. The red jersey for home and the navy blue for the road. These uniform sets are complete with the “hanging sox” cap. They wear the alternate uniforms on Fridays only. They have only worn the blue jersey once, the only other two Friday road games were played in the regular away jersey since the home teams (Tampa Bay and Seattle) chose to wear their navy blue alternates. The Red Sox have worn eight different uniform sets this season so far: home, alternate home, green home on Earth Day, road with blue socks, road with red socks, alternate road, road with 42 for Jackie Robinson Day, and road with the stars and stripes cap. The sock choices made by the Red Sox sparked some controversy early in the season when they wore blue socks with their road and alternate road uniforms. The switch as made back to red socks on April 27. It still remains to be seen what color socks will be worn with the alternate road uniform, since those have not been worn since the first week of the season. Not surprising the Red Sox went 2-4 while wearing blue socks.

I have a flickr account with some photos. There are two spreadsheets, one for home games and one for road, and two graphics one for the whole uniforms and one just for hats and socks.
Here’s the link.

~~~~~~~~~~

Moving along, we have Matt Windsor who is a Washington Natinals Nationals tracker:

Hey Phil, I have attached a screen grab. For the writeup/summary (I’ll include a few set-ups for links to their notable uni blunders this season as well):

The Nationals, despite their inability to spell correctly, lack of attention to detail on number direction and failure to follow their own style guide, have a fairly simple uniform set. Lets start on the road, where the Nationals wear their new for 2009 gray top with red Washington script, blue and red trimming, blue socks and blue curly W caps. In the N They have put this combo out on the field more times than any other (20) and it has delivered a 7 game loosing streak, a 3 game skid and the worst road record in the majors. The only change that has occurred with the road uniforms was pairing the gray jerseys with the red Memorial Day stars and stripe cap. Earlier in the year paul mentioned that he would like to see the Nats wear their red caps with the jersey, but the stars and stripe pairing looked awful (in my opinion) with the blue trim and also resulted in a loss. The Nats “official” home uniform is the white Nationals jersey with red caps. The Nats are fairly loyal to this combo and have worn it15 times. The Nats first alternate is the red Curly W jersey with red cap. This is supposed to be worn at all day games at home, however do to an agreement with the city regarding traffic in the district, the Nationals hardly ever play at home unless it is a weekend. So far they have worn this combo six times, five in the day and breaking protocol once to wear it at night against the Orioles. The final jersey is the blue stars and stripe DC alternate with DC stars and stripe blue cap with red brim. The team announced they would wear it no more than 10 times this season and only on holidays or military appreciation days. So far they have worn it twice, once on DC’s emancipation day and once for seemingly no reason at all. They are scheduled to wear it again on July 4 and September 10th, since the team in on the road September 11th. Let’s hope by the 4th, they correct the red sock issue with the blue jersey.

Interesting uni tidbits include the Nats and Phillies being rained out on Jackie Robinson night and making up the game as part of a day night double header, however, the rescheduled game from April 15th was the day game, but both teams wore 42 during the night cap. The Nationals have won in their alternate jerseys three times, but have never worn the alternate the day after winning in it. In fact, they have only worn alternates on back-to-back days once, on a Saturday and Sunday day game against the Marlins where the bullpen blew saves in the ninth on both days and the team lost. Finally, the Nationals and Astros played a game on May 5th that was suspended in extra innings due to rain. Since the Astros don’t come back to DC or close enough to finish the game at home, the teams will resume the contest in Houston on July 9th. Will the Nationals take their white home jerseys on the road for what could turn out to be an inning, or will they be the home team and wear the road gray? How will it affect my stats? Stay tuned to find out.

Our next tracker is Scott Gladin who is another Atlanta Braves tracker. Scott writes:

Here is a screenshot image of the Braves Uniform/Record Splits through May 26, 2009.

Method of Tracking:

I am using Apple iWork Numbers ’09 to keep track of the Atlanta Braves record splits. I am actually covering a wide range of variables, such as the record depending on weather and television channels, not only uniforms. I enter game information day-to-day on a separate spreadsheet, and it automatically links, formats, and updates charts and graphs to make sense of all the data.

Club Write-Up:

After introducing the Alternate Blue Away Uniform in 2008, it quickly became a favorite of the team. Although still designated as an alternate uniform, it has been worn an overwhelming majority of the time on the road in 2009. The Braves policy on the road is for the starting pitcher of the day to choose the uniform. So far, the Primary Away Gray Uniforms have only been worn twice, once by Jair Jurrjens in an April 17 loss and once more in an April 21 loss by Kenshin Kawakami. It doesn’t look like the Braves much of a reason to move away from the Road Blues, as they are 12-8 and outscore their opponents by an average of a half-run while wearing the alternates. However, if Tom Glavine makes a comeback, look for him to choose the Primary Grays. In two 2008 starts when he wore the Blue uniforms he was injured and placed on the DL.

The Braves home uniforms are not chosen by the starting pitcher, but by the day of week. The Primary Home White Uniforms are worn Monday-Saturday, with the Alternate Home Red Uniforms reserved for Sundays. Despite only wearing the Alternate Red Uniforms three times so far in 2009, they might should consider wearing them more often. The Braves are 2-1 in those games, and outscore their opponents by an average of 3 runs. The only positive thing about the Primary Home Whites is that Turner Field averages 49 more people in the stands while wearing the classic uniforms. In 20 games they are 9-11 and have been outscored by a total of 22 runs, or an average of 1.1 a game. The only starting pitcher with a winning record in the Primary Home Uniform is Derek Lowe, who is 2-1 in 5 starts.

~~~~~~~~~~

Next up is Andrew Greenwood (“Greenie”), who is one of several Milwaukee Brewer trackers. Here’s Greenie’s report:

Hey Phil, Here’s a screenshot of the pitcher’s choices I worked up instead of the excel sheet.

You’ve probably already seen the link about the Brewers’ pinstripes (someone at Uniwatch found it) but they said they’d only be wearing them for the first Friday of each month. They didn’t bother to wear them in April, but did for the May 1st game. First home Friday game in June is interleague on the 12th against the White Sox.

What I found from the pitcher breakdown (also here was that Gallardo and Parra seem to like the blue alts, but Suppan, Bush and Looper stick with white and gray. Suppy’s pitching in home whites tonight against the Cards. Other details are in the screenshot.

I don’t mind a little notoriety. (Very little).

I do have a question for you though. Are there instances where a teams’ choice of jersey for the day are determined by what the other team wears? Obviously in the NFL, they don’t like two teams wearing white against each other, but can each team pick any jersey at any time in baseball? (Keeping road and home pants consistent of course).

~~~~~~~~~~

Our next tracker is Jason Hicks (“Hickory”), who’s a Baltimore Orioles tracker. Here’s Hickory’s writeup:

I had always wanted to try my hand at “uni-keeping” but never really wanted to sit down and think up a format – I had some of it written down on a sheet of paper at my desk at work. But after seeing Phil’s post about the Mets and his record keeping system – I decided to completely hi-jack his format (btw – thanks Phil!).

The Orioles are pretty straightforward when it comes to their uniforms. When you consider Memorial Day’s Red Stars & Stripes hat and Jackie Robinson day – they have worn a total of 6 combinations. The Orioles also played the Red Sox during this year’s Patriots Day game (same day as the Boston Marathon) but the O’s wore their traditional road uniforms.

At home, the O’s wear two basic uniform combos – white jerseys/white pants and black jerseys/white pants. They have their best record in the all white uniforms, going 10-8, in fact, this is the only combo where they are over .500. The O’s wear the black jerseys strictly on Fridays whether they are on the home or the road – they change their pants accordingly.

The road jerseys mark a renewed sense of pride in the ballclub because “Baltimore” has retuned to the front of the jerseys – it had been missing since 1973. On the road, the two combinations consist of – gray jerseys/gray pants and black jerseys/gray pants. Again, the black jerseys are specifically reserved for Fridays and they wear the gray jerseys all other times. In recent years, the O’s have been horrendous on the road, so once again, they sport a sub .500 record while wearing gray pants.

The O’s have two options when it comes to hats, the hat that features “O’s” with an orange brim and another new & improved ornithologically correct bird with orange brim. The “O’s” cap goes with the Friday alternate black jerseys. The bird hat, with orange brim, is now worn everyday but Friday (regardless of home/road). The bird has undergone slight changes from last year, from this to this.

I am interested to see what uniforms the O’s show up to Yankee stadium in of 9/11. Since 9/11 is a Friday, they would normally wear the black jerseys – with the red stars & stripes hat – this will no doubt look ridiculous.

I have posted my data on Flickr – here.

Feel free to refer to me as Jason “Hickory” Hicks.

~~~~~~~~~~

Patrick Campbell is another Atlanta Braves tracker. He checks in with this:

Hey Phil,

Through tonight’s game with the Giants, the Braves are 23-22 overall, 9-11 in the home white, 2-1 in the Sunday home reds, 12-8 in the road blues, and 0-2 in the road grays. Here is a screen shot of the Excel spreadsheet I’m using. The W-L column is updated automatically based on the score, and the records boxes are also updated automatically with formulas.

As for the uniform selection, for the Braves, the home uniform is simple. White is the primary, while Red is used only on Sundays. I can only remember two times that the Braves have worn the reds on a day except Sunday. The year those uniforms were introduced (2005?), they wore them on Memorial day, but with the regular cap (not the Sunday “Tomahawk” cap). They got blown out if I recall and they’ve never done that again. They also wore them for a playoff game that wasn’t on Sunday. Since then, the reds only appear on Sundays.

Now the road unis; for years, the Braves only had the gray uniforms, but that changed last year with the introduction of the blue jersey, which was paired with gray pants and the all blue cap. They still used the regular blue cap with the red bill for the gray unis and they were using blue and red helmets in all games. My understanding is that the starting pitcher for each game got to choose whether they wore the blue or gray jersey, but the choice also depended on whether the home team wore blue (or some other dark color). About midway through the season, however, they complicated things by sometimes pairing the blue and red cap with the blue jersey, and the all blue cap with the gray.

This year, things are simplified. The all blue cap is now the official road cap, and it’s paired with an all blue helmet. The Braves have made their blue jersey the official road jersey as well. So far, they’ve worn the gray only twice, once in Pittsburgh (when the Pirates wore black), and once in Washington (the Nats were wearing white). Since that game in Washington, they have also worn blue in two games where the home team wore black (once against the Marlins, once against the Mets).

~~~~~~~~~~

Our next tracker is U2Horn, who is a Texas Ranger fan:

Hey Phil, here are my thoughts on the Rangers (Yes, I refuse to call them the Texases).

I mainly use an excel spreadsheet to track the results, but I liked the way you did it with a graphical representation, which made it easier to see the results more quickly.

The Rangers are similar to the Mets in that they’ve only worn their “official” home uni combo of white pants, white jersey, blue cap 3 times out of 20 home games. This should become more prevalent though, since the Rangers came out and said they’d no longer wear the red hats with white jerseys at home. They wore this combo 4 times early on to mostly negative reviews on uniwatch, but I didn’t think it was bad, really. The red cap/red jersey combo was first introduced in January as a Saturday night home game combo, but they’ve taken more liberties with it. Here’s the press release from the uni unveiling.

They wore the all reds on Opening Day, and have now had 2 weekend series that they declared to be “Red-Outs”, where they wear the all reds on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. They did this against the Royals and the hated Angels, who apparently like to wear their red alts themselves, so this may have been a sign of some one-upsmanship by the Rangers. Not sure how often the Angels do in fact wear the alts, but I’m sure someone will be passing along that info to you.

On the road, the Rangers have just 2 combos to choose from — blue cap + gray pants with either gray jersey or alt blue jersey. This is where the results are the most striking. The Rangers have been playing unexpectedly well all season, and have posted a .500 or better record in every jersey combo except one–the standard gray road jersey. They’re just 2-7! Ditch the Gray!

They wore this combo for the first 5 road games, going 1-4. They’ve started wearing the blue alts on the road more often than the grays (10 times in their last 12 road games), but there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to which one they wear.

With all this hoopla about the Rangers going back to red, it’s interesting that they’ve actually worn the blue alt jersey twice as often as any of the other 3 jerseys they wear.

I’m also tracking the scores of each game just for kicks, to see if one jersey combo results in an inordinate amount of runs (or lack thereof). The results weren’t too interesting at this point, so I left that info off of my chart. It could make a reappearance later in the year.

~~~~~~~~~~

Checking in next is Chris M., our Colorado Rockies tracker

Sorry, Paul, but maybe the Rockies should break out the purple tops this year. They can’t manage an above .500 record wearing any other uniform so far in 2009, but I guess you could blame that on the bullpen. Do the Rockies have any rhyme or reason to go with a certain uniform on a certain day? It depends on how they’re playing. You may recall the lucky black vests in late 2007 when the Rockies won 21 of 22 games to advance to the World Series. In all but one of those 22 games, they were wearing the black vests. Why didn’t they wear them one game? In Game 2 of the 2007 NLCS, the Diamondbacks chose to wear their black alternates so the Rockies would be forced to wear their standard gray away uniform in an attempt to snap the Rockies lucky streak. 11 innings and bases loaded walk later, it didn’t work.

So far in 2009, wins have been very sparse, so it’s hard to tell if they still wear the same uniforms based on a winning streak. I don’t have the source, but I read somewhere that the Rockies’ starting pitcher for the day gets to pick which uniforms they wear.

The most successful thus far has been the black vests on the road and their alternate whites at home at an even .500. The Rox have only worn their standard home uniform 6 out of a possible 20 times, winning only one of those contests.

So will we see the Rockies break out the purple alternates later this year? It depends on whether Clint Hurdle’s replacement likes purple or not.

-Chris M

~~~~~~~~~~

Our penultimate post today comes from Mike Bergan, who is a Chicago Cubs tracker (and slightly “lower-tech” than most):

My method for uni tracking has been no more than marking notes on a schedule. I always try to keep a schedule for marking wins and losses (mostly while bored at work). This season the Cubs have worn 5 uni combos (home pin whites w/ blue hat, road grays w/ blue hat, blue alt w/ pin white pants w/ blue hat, blue alt w/ gray pants w/ blue hat, and home pin whites w/ red stars stripes hat). I have noticed 2 definite patterns. Carlos Zambrano has worn the blue alternate jerseys for all his starts, and conversely Ted Lilly has worn the home white or road gray for each of his starts. I believe the starting pitcher gets to choose the jersey for the day for the Cubs and none of the other starting pitchers seemed to have a favorite combo like Zambrano or Lilly. I have compiled the records for each uni combo.

Home Whites (8-4)
Road Grays (3-8)
Blue w/ white pants (6-3)
Blue w/ gray pants (6-7)
Home Whites w/ red stars and stripes hat (0-1)

~~~~~~~~~~

We’re going to conclude today with Alex Poterack, who is another Milwaukee Brewers tracker:

Alright, so, first things first, sorry for the redundancy, but I’m going to give you the uni log a few different ways just to make sure. Here’s a screenshot that I uploaded to photobucket. Also, here’s a google docs copy of the spreadsheet I’ve been keeping, just in case anyone wants to see that; if I understand correctly, this link will update as I update the spreadsheet.

Okay, as for the analysis, I included it below; I tried to cut it down as much as I can, and I hope it’s not too long:

The Brewers have a fairly simple uniform palette, with a white home uniform, a gray road uniform, and a blue alternate jersey worn with white pants at home and grey on the road. In addition, the Brewers have a “Retro Friday” uniform, which they wear for the first Friday home game of each month; however, because their first Friday home game in April was their home opener, they wore their home whites, so they’ve only played one game, a loss on May 1st, in the Retro Friday uni. They do not seem to have a clear winning advantage in any uniform; they’re 7-5 in their road grays, 7-6 in their blue alternates with gray pants, 11-6 in their home whites, and 2-2 in their blue alts with white pants (The combined record in home and road blue alts is 9-8). The home whites appear to have an advantage, but it’s probably just a reflection of home field advantage; out of 21 games played at home so far, the Brewers have worn their home whites for 17 of them.

The Brewers let their starting pitchers choose what unis to wear each day (with the exception of retro Fridays). Interestingly, out of 5 starting pitchers, 4 have deviated from their normal choice at least once, and two of them appear to be changing their uni preference. Initially, the three older, more veteran pitchers, David Bush, Braden Looper, and Jeff Suppan, wore the home whites and the road grays, and the two younger pitchers, Yovani Gallardo and Manny Parra, wore the blue alternate both at home and on the road. Only David Bush has remained consistent, completely eschewing the alternate uniform. Yovani Gallardo exclusively wore the blue alt up until this past Monday, when he went for the home whites. This may have been because of the Memorial Day red caps, which still looked horrible with the white uniform, but would have looked even worse with the blue alt. Jeff Suppan has continued to wear the whites and grays, except for his start on April 19th against the Mets, where he went with the blue alt; this may have been because he had lost his two previous starts, but he won that start, and then reverted to his standard white and gray pattern. Most interesting are the cases of Manny Parra and Braden Looper. Manny exclusively wore the blue alt jersey until his start of May 12th against the Marlins, where he wore the home white; he has since worn the road gray for the first time, and wore the home white again for his last start, so he seems to have switched away from the blue alt. Braden Looper, on the other hand, had not worn the blue alt all year until May 18th, and wore it in his next start after that, so he may also have changed preferences. The intriguing thing about these two changes is that they do not seem to be “slumpbuster” choices; both Parra and Looper had won their previous starts before changing up the unis.

As for nicknames, I don’t have one on the board, so you can just credit me as Alex Poterack.

~~~~~~~~~~

OK. That’s a lot to digest. We’re going to call it a day for the Uni Tracking today. Back tomorrow with even more tracking! Thanks again to everyone who has participated so far. If I missed you, contact me as soon as possible, and if I can, I’ll include you in tomorrow’s post. If not, I’d love to have your tracking when we do this again, sometime after the All Star break, when the real uniform trends (and surely, there will be some) will emerge. Until tomorrow, then.

~~~~~~~~~~

Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: Today’s scoreboard is actually a “joint” effort between myself and Lance “Squiddie” Smith. Working independently, we both came up with this one almost simultaneously. (I’d insert something about “great minds think alike” but that would be an insult to Lance — he’s the genius at work here — I just work here.)

The degree of difficulty, we have ascertained, would be “Very Difficult”. If no one can solve the game, we’ll begin posting clues throughout the day until we have a “winner”. However, knowing how good you UW readers are at “getting it,” we wouldn’t be surprised to have this one nailed within an hour of posting.

So, without further ado: Guess The Game (and we’re looking for stadium, teams and date). Good luck! I’ll give the winner 1/2 of my salary at UW or a Coke.

~~~~~~~~~~

The UW Stirrup Club? UW Bobblehead Guru Robert Marshall has a public service announcement (pardon his punctuation, and capitalization, or lackthereof): “the day my coed softball team’s stirrups came in the mail last week, i casually mentioned in the comments, that perhaps we should have a UW stirrup club, and i have gotten more then a few emails on the subject. so let’s try to put something together, we can use the site advertiser, i have used him in the past. we can do this a few ways, but let’s start it like this, i want this stirrup — it would be ordered in an adult size with a 5″ loop, but i like mine to show minimum sani. most of the players honoured on this site wear a 7″ or 9″, i think that is too much sani, but next month someone else chooses the stirrup style and size, and if that person wants to get all george hendick, that’s cool with me, i am still in. as far as cost goes, they run $7 plus shipping(min 12), then i have to turn around and ship them to you, i am setting myself up for a headache, but it is all about the ‘rup, so let’s just say they are $10 this month, and go from there. you want the oriole? send me an email to rpmarshallart.com with “stirrups” in the subject line, say you want in on the old school oriole, and suggest a stirrup for next month, we will work out the payment later if enough people are down. there you have it, a UW stirrup club.

~~~~~~~~~~

This and That: (from yesterday’s comments) Natron noticed that the Twins have teased some new uni/logo changes for the 50th anniversary next season. Yesterday, they installed a logo above the scoreboard at Target Field, and it has a (very) minor change to the logo they currently use that may be an indicator of what’s to come for 2010. Check out the “s” on the current logo, and compare it to the one on the scoreboard. … I’m not usually a fan of a uniform where names and numbers are of the same color as the uniform itself — but for this I’ll make an exception … Bobble Head master Robert Marshall sends along his love and “uni realted” video — or so he promised me … ALSO from Mr. Marshall comes this: something he calls good grief … Fix the brim, and this is perfect … Hannibal Cavemen to unveil inaugural uniforms Saturday — wait…WHO? … Nice ‘rups? … Seriously…this shit has GOT to stop … If you’re trying to sell a hundred Konawaena football jerseys on eBay, the authorities might like a word with you … HEY POWERS — what kind of shoes is Chris Tucker wearing? and POWERS — isn’t Melo a ‘3 striper’? what’s that wristband? … Pearl Kuorikoski has sewn so many athletics uniforms over 20 years, she claims she could do it with her eyes closed … He ain’t heavy …Sweet — The Halifax Mooseheads announced today that they will be wearing two newly designed uniforms next season to adhere with the CHL mandate to have all junior teams wearing the new RBK Edge style uniforms …The Tigers could look even better if they would just trade in the solid socks for ‘rups … Asian & Pacific Rim Correspondent Jeremy Brahm checks in with this: The Central and Pacific League practice uniforms for the NPB All-Star game are out. The Central (red) are for the Hiroshima Carp who will be one of the hosts, while the Pacific (blue) will be for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters who host the other game … And…a softball game broke out in Texas … This is just a great headline: “SF Approves Three-Year Contract for White Man’s Overbite” … Is that a swoosh? … When really well-intentioned stadium give-aways go horribly wrong: Obama Bobbleheads Can’t Clear Customs — perhaps they should have been MADE IN THE USA???? … Yep, that’s a swoosh … The Wings & Pens are mirror images of each other — except when it comes to the unis, where of course, one team is good and classic and the other is modern and crappy … Yea…BronBron…I still need a ring for this finger … and finally, apologies if this was already posted, but Fred Taylor loves Flying Elvis.

Whew…

Have a great Saturday, and don’t forget to give props to this batch of uni-trackers…that’s some stuff, eh?