A Reversal of Fortune Color

June 13, 2009

By Phil Hecken, with Dave Magruder

You may recall that recently I ran a post with Mike Engle, “What Is Your Uni Secret?,” which asked readers to come up with their “guilty pleasure” for a uniform. In that column, I mentioned that the idea for such came from a reader whom I could not remember at the time, and I asked that reader to come forth and accept the glory for a wonderful suggestion. He did, and it turns out that suggestion came from Dave Magruder (“Dave Mac”), who joins me today with another interesting suggestion (a portion of which also appeared in the comments a while ago) He has expounded upon that original suggestion.

Here’s Dave:

In 2000 the Rams changed their uniforms from royal blue, yellow and white, to millennium blue, gold and white. At the time this seemed like relevant change due to the team’s new identity in St. Louis as “The Greatest Show on Turf.” Recently, however, I’ve been longing for the team to return to their classic royal blue and yellow uniforms (thankfully they will wear them as throwbacks in 2009). These uniforms were a staple of Rams time in Los Angeles as well as the team’s Super Bowl 34 championship in St. Louis.

However, I have always been fond of the current logo introduced with the 2000 uniforms. It is fairly no-frills and modernistic, but it still has a certain charm and connection to the past. This gave me the idea to combine the best of both worlds ”¦ the new 2000 logo with the classic LA Rams colors. These types of old/new hybrids don’t always work, but it was intriguing enough for me to see how it would look. Not knowing much about design myself, I asked some Uni Watch readers if they could help me create this logo and several of them posted responses.

Compare the current Rams logo to the current logo with traditional colors (this one created by UW stalwart Chance Michaels).

Interesting. This got me thinking of other logo possibilities. Have there been teams you’d like to see combine a current color scheme to an old logo? Or vice versa? What if the Milwaukee Brewers brought back the old MB ball and glove logo with their current gold and navy color set? Or what if the Seattle Seahawks current, more aggressive hawk logo was filled in with the old Pacific Northwest colors of green, gray and blue? Or what about Milwaukee Brewers barrel man with current colors, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Bucco Bruce logo in red and pewter current color scheme, the Green Bay Packers “G” logo in blue and yellow (1940s team colors), or the Detroit Lions (pre-2009) logo with a gold or red color scheme (see grafs 12 & 13) from the team’s early history?

There are a lot of interesting possibilities I haven’t mentioned that may be worth exploring.

Indeed there are Dave. As fate would have it, Chance Michaels has already created the Barrel Man in current Brewers colors. Pretty sweet, huh?

What say you, dear readers? Do you have any suggestions for former logos or wordmarks or images you think would look awfully sweet if they were updated with your favorite team’s current color scheme? Or, how about a logo from today with colors from the past? I think this could be a really interesting project. If you have the Photoshop/Illustrator or other graphic skills, would you like to try your hand at a few of these? If you don’t, how about you make a suggestion for a “new” logo with updated colors (or altogether new colors) and post it here. Perhaps those of you (and there are so many talented UWers out there) with the skills can take some of the suggestions which are sure to follow and create what has been suggested? I’ll gladly run your submissions in a future column! Either post them directly into the comments or send them directly to me and we can take a look at these again in a short while.

As you guys know, I’m not much in the way of a graphic artist, but I figured I would give a couple of Dave Mac’s ideas a shot, just so we could get an idea of what he’d like to see. So, here’s the Seahawks old & new logos (with the new logo in old colors) and the Original Bucco Bruce, and how he might look with current Buccaneer colors. Finally, here’s what I came up with for the Brewers classic Ball in Glove logo with today’s colorscheme.

And since I’m not much of the graphic artist, I commissioned Pretty Boy Paulie (Paul Soto), UW graphics genius, to help out with the remaining logos Dave had described: the Green Bay Packers in Blue & Gold, the Detroit Lions in Red & Black as well as the Lions with Gold outline. Thanks Paulie, yer the best!

Thanks again, Dave, for the suggestion. OK Uni Watchers, let’s hear what you got!

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Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: OK — you guys have gotten so good at this game, I’m gonna try and stump you, or at least make you work a little today. Slight changes to the “rules” as well: DON’T email me with your guess, but don’t put it on the board either. Instead, if you wish to take a shot at the answer, go to Baseball Almanac or Retrosheet and copy the URL of the game that’s about to follow. Just say something like “I GOT IT” and post the link as your “answer” in the comments. This way, those who wish to guess can still do so without seeing the answer in the comments. Ok? Ok! Here we go: Guess The Game. Remember, I want the date, location and final score (all of which can be gleaned by posting the link from one of the reference sites). Let’s see how long this one takes you.

*If you have a scoreboard photo you’d like featured, please send it to me. I’m compiling a pretty good “stash” for your guessing pleasure, but I can always use more. Make sure to include the date, location and final score! Thanks.

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This is pretty cool. Brinke Guthrie (“=bg=”) sent me this really cool collage he created this week. I liked it so much, I told him I’d share it with y’all.

Also extremely cool is this. Check out the Royals 40th Anniversary Website. Notice anyone in particular? (In case the website happened to rotate out the photo to which I am referring — here’s a screengrab). If the name of the kid in the uni isn’t familiar to you, that’s UW’s own “Lwiedy“.

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BOBBLE-iscious: Well, it came! UW Bobblehead Guru & Artistic Genius Robert Marshall‘s custom bobble arrived this week in a standard FedEx box…standard until you saw the customization on the side. My anticipation was high as I opened the box to reveal my very own bubble-wrapped “LI Phil” bobblehead baseball boy … he even came with a custom bubblewrap neck brace. And now I have actual proof that, at the very least, the bobble-likeness Gets It (TM). Awesome! Bobbleboy now sits atop my computer desk, looking ~~down upon me~~ at the ceiling with disdain.

This is an amazingly high quality bobble. And it’s heavy too. Like, crack-your-skull heavy. Robert even made a video of the little guy before shipping. If you haven’t looked into getting your own custom bobble (hey — Father’s Day is coming up!) I cannot recommend this highly enough. Robert didn’t ask me for a plug, but I’m gonna give it to him anyway. Contact Him if you’re interested. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed!

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Add to the list another tracker, Timothy Killeen who has been tracking your World Champion Philadelphia Phillies. Here’s his report:

I realize I’m a little late on the uni-tracking bandwagon, but I was inspired by the spreadsheet of another Uniwatchblog tracker and decided to try my hand at doing it for the Phillies since no other track master had covered them yet. I’d love to post when the next round starts up, but until then, here’s what I would have written this time around (as of June 6):

This is my first post at Uniwatchblog, but I’ve been following it for a few months and never go a day without missing it. I’ll be posting as Secane Snake (don’t ask). I decided to start tracking the Philadelphia Phillies’ W-L record by pitcher and uniform as a way of teaching myself iWork Numbers which I recently started to favor over MS Excel. I was intrigued by the work put into user Scott Gladin’s spreadsheet being used to track the Braves, and I decided I would see if I had the chops to replicate it. I think I did pretty well, although I’ll admit the Phils are a much easier team to track. Here is a screen shot of what I have so far.

My WFC Phillies are a decidedly simple team to uni track. Not only do they mostly wear the same classic red hat for both home and away games unless instructed otherwise by the league (Memorial Day, 4th of July, etc.), but figuring out when they will/did wear their new (as of 08’) cream alternate uniforms and blue hats is simple: They wear ”˜em during home games that start before 7pm EST, or “day games,” if you will. Simple as that.

Wearing only 3 uniform sets makes me less inclined to believe the Phils’ winning percentage is at all influenced by their choice of uniform, but I do hope they’ll keep up the ridiculous 77% WPCT they’ve accumulated as of June 6th while wearing their away grays. Two players, Joe Blanton and Brett Myers, have been drastically better wearing the gray, and the pitching staff as a whole has only notched 2 decisions at all let alone wins in 8 games wearing the cream alternates.

Since the team was 4-4 before they started to wear the HK patch commemorating the April death of legendary broadcaster Harry Kalas, their winning percentage with the patch is going to be easy for anyone: simply check out the standings, the Phils’ WPCT overall is the same for their WPCT with an HK patch.

As for anomalies: I considered their gold trimmed home-opener WS jersey as just another regular home jersey, but I will always remember that they are 0-1 with that get-up. After that we have the gray Jackie Robinson #42 they wore in May against the Nats which they won, and the Memorial Day game in which they looked pretty much the same wearing another red hat in which they also won.

Thanks Tim. And now, officially, welcome to Uni Watch!

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This and That: While I was too busy watching Luis Castillo singlehandedly cost the Mets a win at Yankee Stadium last night, apparently there was some kind of hockey game on — Congrats to the Pens … We all flock to UW to see the athlete in uniform. Now, the WWL is hoping we want to see the athlete sans uni — like, REALLY, without uni … Sounds like big things are planned at next weekend’s Civil Rights Game, the first time MLB is playing it during the regular season — maybe the Chi Sox will recycle last year’s unis? Right. … Here’s more on the Civil Rights game and Cincinnati’s hosting of that event … Are you a male who’d like to make $100 the sleazy way? Then Rick Reilly has a deal for you … The United Football League will announce logos and colors and nicknames and sponsorship deals for its four franchises in the coming weeks — What the UFL should do: Pursue signing Michael Vick with abandon and assign him to the Las Vegas team … Especially since Vick was released by the Falcons … Apparently, the Red Sox threw at A-Roid on purpose … So will Petey be wearing a Rays or Cubs uni this season? — He’s lookin’ ripped … Apparently we’re not the only ones “Calling It Shea”: Awesome!

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Special Saturday Uni Watch Ticker (compiled by Paul): Very cool that the Nets still have this banner up at their arena (with thanks to Peter Wunsch). ”¦ Utah and BYU are getting new field designs (with thanks to Jon Alviani). ”¦ So many weird things going on in this photo. First, you’ve got New York Giants players wearing Mets caps. Then you’ve got Mets PR guy Jay Horwitz getting a Giants jersey. And finally, why did they give him a road jersey instead of a home version? ”¦ Patrick Williams, who works at the Braves Museum and Hall of Fame, saw the recent Ticker note about the upside-down N at Turner Field. “I pointed out the mistake to my supervisor,” he says. “It has been passed on to the engineering department and will be fixed soon. Thanks for the catch!” ”¦ Awesome 100-year-old ad for baseball gear here. ”¦ You know how some old baseball jerseys had button-on sleeve extensions? Look — you can own a set of the extensions! Never seen that before. ”¦ Did you know that MLB teams can prohibit any minor league team in a 60-mile radius from conducting a bobblehead giveaway? I didn’t, until Robert Ruszczyk sent me this and this. Amazing. Also very sad. ”¦ Here are Washington State’s new football uniforms. ”¦ Virginia Tech plans to wear special throwback helmets for their home opener (with thanks to Jonathan Sluss). ”¦ Here’s an odd but useful view of the Bills’ white throwback (with thanks to Mike Sullivan). ”¦ Great shot here of Dave Bing wearing wrestling headgear, presumably due to an ear injury (nice find by Tris Wykes).

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Enjoy your Saturday everyone!

Comments (144)

I GOT IT!!