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Uni Watch

Cubans Versus Crawfords

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By John Ekdahl

The Mets and Pirates honored the Negro Leagues in their rain-shortened game by wearing the uniforms of the New York Cubans and the Pittsburgh Crawfords last night. This is the second time this season the Mets have worn New York Cubans uniforms, both times as the away team. The first was on May 29th against Milwaukee, who wore uniforms belonging to the Milwaukee Bears. That’s Milwaukee “Bears”, not “Beers”. Phil has kindly identified the uniforms as the 1944 Cubans and the 1935 Crawfords.

There weren’t many pictures available, so here’s a couple screengrabs. Also, if anyone can find a place that sells the authentic Milwaukee Beers (not Bears) jersey, please let me know. I’ve been searching for years.

Update (4:09 PM): As most of you know, Paul has spent most of August working on his “Fire Hagin” campaign. He’s also made it clear that he doesn’t much care for the Sterling/Waldman comparisons because:

“Frankly, I don’t care about Sterling and Waldman — they’re Yankees fans’ problem, not mine. Also, their shortcomings have been widely chronicled and documented, while Hagin’s work has flown under the radar. And for better or worse, Sterling and Waldman are institutions who aren’t going anywhere. By contrast, Hagin is just the latest placeholder announcer keeping the second seat warm in the Mets’ radio booth. It’s important to get him out of that seat before he takes root.”

Well, I thought I’d pass this along anyway. My father and I were just coming home from lunch and caught this hilarious exchange:

John Sterling: “…and the pitch is fouled back and it’s coming right towards us…”

*clang*

John Sterling: “Wow, that ball came screaming right over heads and hit the wall behind us inside the booth”

Susan Waldman: “Luckily, I can get under the table faster than anyone”.

Your move, Paul.

 
  
 
Comments (37)

    couple things about last night’s game…

    i didn’t see the majestic mark on the mets unis at all — so im guessing that’s why they looked good — a very deep gray, more like what UA was doing with a couple college teams

    this was the second time the mets have thrown back to the cubans, as john mentioned — but the first time they wore this particular uni…in the game against the bears (brewers), their uniform was closer to the road version of this, which was worn by, among others, minnie minoso, and is from circa 1948

    im thinking EFF did these throwbacks

    pirates have done the craws numerous times — im sure some of the pirate fans on the board can comment more on those

    The Mets and Pirates did the Cubans-Crawfords thing July 9, 2005. That day, the Pirates gave out red “C” caps to all fans in attendance.

    Trust me, ur not gonna find a beers jersey. It’s almost impossible to find anything for baseketball.

    Bob Costas joined Bob Uecker in the booth on Sunday and brought up BASEketball. Uecker said something like that was exciting, and Costas said, “Just like BASEketball.”

    Did anyone else notice that Pittsburgh’s jerseys said “Crawford”? The jerseys aren’t pluralized. Anyone know of any other team that officially was plural (ie. Flyers, Giants, etc) that only had a singular version on their jerseys?
    PS-Red Sox, Jazz, Thunder, etc. don’t count.

    There was an NFL Team from Staten Island pre-1933. In current historical records of the NFL, they are referred to as the Staten Island Stapletons, or in some cases, Stapes. Yet, in doing old time footballl uni research, I see that more often than not, back in the day the club is simply referred to as “Stapleton”.

    They were sponsored by the Crawford Grill.
    Hence, only “Crawford” on the jersey.
    “Crawfords” was a colloquialism.

    link

    I believe “Athletics” came about in the same sort of fashion. The original team represented the Philadelphia Athletic Club.

    Brooklyn Bushwicks name evolved, too. They also had only “Bushwick” on their uni; Bushwick being a neighborhood in Brooklyn.
    link

    Next door neighbor (back when I was spending time in Boca Raton) had played shortstop for the Bushwicks prior to WWII. Had some GREAT stories, including about playing again Negro League teams.

    —Ricko

    Ran into Joey Chestnut at a street food festival in San Francisco yesterday. He wore a Pepto Bismol baseball jersey for a promotion.

    link

    It is always interesting to see throwback uniforms. I don’t know how accurate they are, but they look nice to me.

    Fiesta Day at the Oakland Coliseum and the A’s are wearing “Atlèticos” on their jerseys.

    It’s always mystified me why MLB and NBA teams switch to a different language like that on their jerseys. Is there really an increase in jersey sales? How precisely does altering the traditional jersey name to another language recognize the different cultures in our country and the Hispanic players in MLB today? Can anyone actually prove cultural sensitivity increases the day these jerseys are worn, or does it have the opposite effect intended? Makes no sense to me, does the Mexican League switch to English names once a year?

    I would say in California it’s good for sales. Surprised it took the A’s this long to do it. I see a lot of the Gigantes jerseys around.

    I’m not sure it’s totally about sales or recognizing the latin players. Instead, I think a “Los Mets” or “Gigantes” jersey has more to do with recognizing the latin fandom of the particular team. A lot of the names on the jerseys are reflective of what the fans themselves call the team.

    link

    I have boughten that jersey from that guy and a mighty ducks movie jersey. Shipping takes a while but the quality is pretty good.

    Best I could find for a Beers Jersey is a t-shirt. I can’t believe no one is selling them, I would think they’d be pretty popular.

    link

    Watching the Niners playing the Wafflers. Couple thoughts:

    1. First time I’ve seen a helmet logo being modified due to being applied on a Riddell Revolution Speed helmet. The Vikings’ EJ Henderson has each of his horns interupted by the vent holes.

    2. Seems like every play one of the Niners loses their helmet. C’mon boys, make sure we’re strapped up!

    RE: Fire Hagin

    Paul, if you’re reading this,I feel like from an ethical standpoint, you should follow what is, essentially, the Bill Simmons rule. No critiquing announcers on non-ESPN networks because of the should you negatively critique an ESPN announcer, you would likely be punished. Use Simmons’ work around where he simply quotes the announcer and lets the idiocy speak for itself. But starting a stupid campaign to get a guy fired? Come on.

    Plus, as one of the many UniWatch readers who could care less about the Wilpon family’s team, the Hagin campaign means next to nothing to me. Every stupid plug is another whack on the horse’s carcass.

    In the editing process, I missed something. A sentence in the first graf should say

    “No critiquing announcers on non-ESPN networks because should you negatively critique an ESPN announcer, you would likely be punished.”

    Forgot to take out the “of the”. My bad.

    I’m curious. Should Bill Simmons follow this “Bill Simmons” rule? I’m only asking because I’ve seen him publicly trash Craig Sager, Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, Bob Costas, Chris Webber, Phil Simms, Troy Aikman, Tiki Barber, the entire WEEI radio station and a host of others on his Twitter page.

    I’m pretty sure that’s just his rule for his columns and not his personal Twitter account. So as long as Paul isn’t taking his Fire Hagin stuff to his ESPN columns, then he is following that rule.

    Honestly, I don’t want to start a ton of crap here. I could argue, but this isn’t a battle worth fighting. While I disagree with the Fire Hagin blog on certain blog on certain levels, I have a ton of respect for Paul and the uni watch community. I felt like the idea should be brought up, and I would really hate to start a fight that doesn’t need to be fought.

    I don’t have a dog in this fight, but for some reason I keep thinking, what if he gets Hagin fired…but then ESPN snaps him up?

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