Skip to content
 

Monday Morning Uni Watch

batty.jpg

Flying Elvis lived up to its nickname in the third quarter of yesterday’s Jets/Pats game, as stand-up comedian Wes Welker took a head-to-head hit that resulted in fragments of his helmet decal — and, I’m pretty sure, some of the underlying paint — going airborne. You can see video of the play in question here. (If the copyright police have already taken that one down, try here.) As for Welker, he played the rest of the game with a partial logo. Hey Wes, ain’t that a kick in the head?

In other gridiron observations from the weekend:

• I’m not sure what Jets defensive lineman Sione Pouha was wearing, but it wasn’t pretty.

• A cold-weather Bears game means at least one torn helmet decal. That’s offensive lineman Frank Omiyale.

• When a Seattle defensive back had to be carried off the field after taking a knee to the head, the Fox TV crew brought NFL rules guru Mike Pereira into the booth. He said there was a strong chance that knee pads, thigh pads, and even hip pads could become mandatory next season — not just to protect those body parts, but also to protect the heads of opposing players that come into contact with those parts. As Pereira described it, the pads would probably be sewn directly into the pants. That’s something to keep an eye on.

• After the two minute warning in the fourth quarter of the Ravens/Steelers game, which was called at 1:58, Ben Roethlisberger came out without his visor. Close inspection reveals that he was also wearing a different facemask (before: one vertical cheekbone-area bar on each side; after: two on each side), which probably means he switched helmets altogether.

• Ravens RB Ray Rice was wearing weird adhesive thingies on his upper arms. Anyone know what that was about?

• Packers WR Jordy Nelson tore his jersey, which forced equipment manager Red Betty to perform some quick sideline sewing.

• No photo, but several readers noted that Packers RB John Kuhn’s helmet didn’t have a neck bumper, which exposed some uneven tape trimming on his helmet stripes. If anyone DVR’d the game and can provide us with a shot, please do.

Meanwhile, the four teams left standing have some of the most traditional looks in the league. No matter how things shake out next weekend, looks like we’re gonna have a very old-school Stupor Bowl.

Screen shot 2011-01-15 at 9.41.32 AM.png

(My thanks to all contributors, including Aaron Wiens, Bill Blevins, Nicholas Law, Jacob Reed, Joshua Brisco, Dan Cichalski, and Rick Rutherford.)

+ + + + +

Nylonization Nation: Most of you know that the Pirates introduced stretch-knit uniforms in 1970 (a development I covered in detail in this ESPN column). But many people keep mistakenly saying that the flannels being worn up to that time were 100% wool — they were not. By the late 1960s, most teams’ flannels were a cotton/nylon blend. (By coincidence, just yesterday I came across this blank Rawlings cotton/nylon jersey. One of you DIYers should snap it up.)

But in between the 100%-wool flannels and the cotton/nylon flannels, there was an interim phase: wool/nylon flannels. And exactly when did the nylon get added to the wool? In 1959.

That New York Times article is from Feb. 1, 1959 (here’s the jump). It’s loaded with interesting info, including the following:

• Casey Stengel (who was then skippering the Yanks) had a watch pocket sewn into his jersey, to hold his glasses. Does anyone know of a game-used Stengel jersey that included this feature?

• Spalding exec R. Earl Jones is quoted thusly: “In training camps we measure ’em all, sometimes up to eighty players, for tailor-made uniforms. That is so that no youngster will feel that he won’t make the club because nobody measured him.”

• Yogi Berra is referred to as “Yankee catcher and a dude.” Not sure what the writer was trying to tell us there.

coops.jpg

Lots of other great stuff in that piece — recommended reading. And a tip of the cap to Jon Springer, who sent the article my way.

+ + + + +

Potentially major Coop coup: Someone on eBay is selling what he claims to be a set of game-used Darryl Sittler Maple Leafs Cooperalls. You’re probably thinking, “How can that be? Only the Whalers and Flyers wore Cooperalls.” Right. Except the auction listing has this to say: “Cooperalls were worn by all NHL teams during the 1981-82 preseason. All the teams had the choice of whether to continue wearing them for the regular season.”

I’d never heard that before. It’s probably bullshit — just another erroneous eBay seller claim. Except this seller has a 100%-positiive feedback rating, so he isn’t a fraud, and he doesn’t sound like a doofus. I still think it’s probably bullshit, but I have to ask: Anyone know more about this?

(Special thanks to John Baranowski for bringing this one to my attention.)

+ + + + +

Contest results: Congratulations to Edgar Latorre and Chris Frate, who were selected by Grey Flannel Auctions as the winners of their recent “anomalous uniform” photo contest. Edgar submitted several photos relating to the famous (at least on this site) Big Klu typo, while Chris submitted two images I hadn’t seen before: Lou Boudreau with an odd-looking Indians script (front row, fifth from left) and Marion Motley with mismatched block-shadowing (note how his 6 doesn’t match all the other numerals in the photo). I love that Motley photo — great catch by Chris!

Thanks to all who entered. More contests and giveaways coming soon.

+ + + + +

Really Long Uni Watch News Ticker: This has to be the best case of logo theft ever: The T.C. Williams Titans (yes, the same school from Remember the Titans) have managed to rip off the Minnesota Twins and the Tennessee Titans at the same time (major thanks to Bryan Boltik). ”¦ Not sports-related, but here’s a minutiae-ish issue that I suspect many of you will have very strong feelings about: Is it OK to type two spaces, instead of one, after a period? Discuss. ”¦ Oregon’s new court, which debuted last Thursday, is already drawing criticism. Further details here. ”¦ According to the very last item on this page, the Mets have promoted St. Lucie equipment manager Kevin Kierst to take over that job for the big club. I’ll be getting in touch with him shortly. ”¦ I really like the stripes on this varsity sweater. ”¦ Icethetics is reporting that the back uni numbers on the NHL all-star jerseys will look like this — woof. ”¦ Meanwhile, was the NHL originally planning to have East and West all-star teams this year? Maybe — look what Bradford How discovered at the NHL Shop in Manhattan. ”¦ As many of you know, David Frost has turned his DIY skills into a side business, turning out jerseys for people’s fantasy teams. Some of his more recent designs are for the Broncs, the HornDawgs, and the Super Marios. ”¦ Did you know that the NFL’s fines for uniform violations get higher as the playoffs progress? It’s true (big thanks to Alan Kreit). ”¦ Here’s a rundown of current cycling kits, plus an opportunity to vote for your favorites (with thanks to Sean Clancy). ”¦ More DIYism, this time from Ryan Connelly, who used his now-familiar Invaders motif to make a T-shirt for a friend’s son. ”¦ Check out the facemask in this Lance Rentzel photo (nice find by Frank Bitzer). ”¦ Some kid in Tacoma was threatened with being suspended from school for wearing a Steelers jersey on Seahawks Appreciation Day. No word on whether the school blamed the whole incident on the refs (thanks, Brinke). ”¦ Here’s a rare sight: Brett Favre wearing a four-point chinstrap. “That’s from a game against the Eagles at County Stadium in Milwaukee in 1992, his first year as a Packer,” says Kurt Rozek. ”¦ Remember the photo of the Texas A&M baseball player with the football facemask? Kenny Montross has positively identified him as Rob Swain. Even better, he’s found a photo of Swain playing with the North Pole Nicks — that’s an Alaskan team — while still wearing the facemasked Aggies helmet. ”¦ Major find by Dan Cichalski, who discovered an old Vitalis commercial featuring Gil Hodges and the Mets’ pitching staff. ”¦ Jacob Pomrenke recently acquired a copy of the complete radio broadcast of the Dodgers/Braves game from April 8, 1974 — the game when Hammerin’ Hank hit No. 715 — and says Vin Scully made the following observation in the top of the fourth inning: “He said Braves manager Eddie Mathews was considering a protest against the Dodgers because the red number 44 on the front of Al Downing’s jersey (and the other pitchers) was ‘too shiny’ and was a distraction to his hitters.” ”¦ New uniforms for Air Force hockey (with thanks to Chris Folger). ”¦ Here’s some really interesting info on the KM Pro cap brand, which supplied many MLB teams before New Era monopolized the market. I love KM Pro’s old slogan: “Milliner to the Majors” (with thanks to Paul Hirsch). ”¦ Incidentally, the site where that KM Pro piece appears, The Ballcap Blog, is new to me, but it appears to have some decent info. Worth poking around. ”¦ John Freeman spotted this gumball-style helmet display kit at an antiques shop. I really like the helmet design they used for the guy on the box — that’d work. ”¦ In the AFC Asian Cup, Syria’s team is using European 7s (with thanks to Jeremy Brahm). ”¦ Back in 1962, the Times featured Mets pitcher Jay Hook, who studied mechanical engineering in college, in an article about the physics of the curveball. Hook was subsequently contacted by an industrial manufacturer called Sarcotherm Controls, which featured Hook in their quarterly journal — check out the great cover design (awesome documentation by Jon Springer). ”¦ I’ve seen stadiums rendered in Lego before, but never one as magnificent as this. Additional images here (with thanks to Larry Bodnovich). ”¦ New soccer kit for Hiroshima Sanfrecce of the J-League (Jeremy again). ”¦ Villanova broke out the sweatbacks against Maryland on Saturday (with thanks to Rob Browne). ”¦ In 1943, the Yankees sold Lefty Gomez to the Boston Braves for $10,000. He never appeared in a game for Boston — they released him, and then he briefly hooked on with the Senators — but Alan Tompas found a rare photo of Gomez in a Braves uni (that’s Ernie Lombardi on the left). ”¦ Also from Alan: Satchel Paige in an Astros uni. ”¦ While looking for something else in Bill Henderson’s jersey guide, I spotted something I hadn’t noticed before: The Phillies had originally planned to go with low-rider uni numbers in 1970. They eventually decided to have them aligned with the chest logo, but it’s interesting to see that they had considered doing it the other way. I believe that style had been pioneered several years earlier by the Finley-era A’s (is there an earlier case study I’m overlooking?), and of course there have also been lots of recent examples. Personally, I’ve always hated that look — it’s much better when the number and logo align. ”¦ Yet another team with new sweatbacks: Ohio State. Further info here, and here’s a photo of the full package. I love the stripes, natch. ”¦ Troy Polamalu isn’t the only one to wear a cross beneath the rear collar. That’s Palm Beach Atlantic, which calls itself “Florida’s Top Christian College.” ”¦ New cycling kit for Team Europcar (with thanks to Craig Ackers). ”¦ Here’s our first look at the Cubs’ Ron Santo memorial patch. I really like that it’s rendered in the team’s color and uni number font, instead of just a generic black patch (big thanks to Dan Dykstra). ”¦ The LA Kings wore their purple throwbacks on Saturday. Heinous color or no, that’s a really nice uniform. ”¦ Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: For reasons that aren’t clear, Archbishop Moeller High School in Cincinnati is wearing the Blue Jackets’ anniversary patch. Weird. ”¦ If you like cats (and if you don’t, you’re definitely reading the wrong obsessive uniform blog), you’ll love this amazing cat design chart (great find, Kirsten). ”¦ There’s some chatter about Indiana possibly tweaking its school colors (as noted by Matthew Robins). ”¦ Friday’s entry about the 1967 A’s wearing white caps prompted this from Dave Starbuck, who’s VP of the Kansas City Baseball Historical Society: “I can affirm that the A’s wore white caps in at least part of 1967. I have a series of snapshots of A’s players that I took in 1967 during the annual Picture Day, and they are all wearing the white caps.” ”¦ Oh baby, look at this sensational baseball equipment catalog cover. ”¦ Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: I really hope this is the only guy out there with a Padres logo tattooed onto his scalp. ”¦ For reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, Pats center Dan Koppen pasted a photograph of Tom Brady on his jersey a while back. ”¦ Color-vs.-color alert, old-style. That’s Sid Luckman quarterbacking for the Bears. Not sure who the opposing team is. ”¦ Dan Dobczyk notes that the Bulls have worn their black alts for eight of their last nine road games, dating back to Dec. 15. “The one exception was the Christmas Day game against the Knicks, which was a red vs. green game,” he says. “I like the black uniform, but that classic red is, well, classic.” ”¦ The women’s hoops team at Mesa State College revived the old Pacers/Hawks-style jersey design last week (with thanks to Dom Lewis).

 
  
 
Categories
NFL
Comments (190)

    1) Looks like The Flying Elvis logo lived up to its name.

    2) As for double-spaces after a period, I am a single-space guy. Double-spacing makes documents look sloppy along with the wasted space. This needlessly lengthens documents and wastes paper. I work with legal documents so I see this on a daily basis where a sentence or two gets bumped to a second page when it all could have been placed on a single sheet. And, depending on the font used, makes the gap look even wider.

    I was taught double spacing in school so that’s what I do, and that double space really helps with those minimum page essays :)

    I took a typing class in Junior High School in NYC in the early ’60’s and we were taught two spaces after a period.

    And never hyphenate the last word of a paragraph.

    PS My wife, who was trained as a legal secretary, also a long time, agrees. (And she never agrees with me.)

    I was taught to use a double space in a typing/keyboarding class in 1995. I don’t know when it became “wrong” but I still use them most of the time.

    I learned to type in high school back in the 80s. I double space automatically, without even thinking about it. Seriously, it had until this very moment, never ever crossed my mind as to why it was done that way, or that some folks did or didn’t.

    This just became another one of those moments…..

    It became “wrong” long before you learned to type in 1995. It’s about monospace versus proportional space font. If you were using an electric typewriter in 1995, you were using a proportional space font, then you should have been using one space after a period. Your teacher was wrong, and had been for at least 20 years.

    Quick test to determine whether any particular advocate of typing two spaces after a period is talking complete BS: Does he also say that you should type a lowercase letter “L” instead of the number 1? Because most monospace typewriters didn’t have a key for the digit one, and often zero, requiring the typer to key “l” or “O” instead of 1 or 0. So I’m willing to take people who advocate for two spaces after a period if and only if they also eschew the use of the 1 key. The one’s as ridiculous and obsolete as the other, but I can at least respect the consistency of anyone who’s actually thought the thing through and decided to follow obsolete typing conventions in whole.

    Actually, in my case we were using computers running Windows 3.1 and some outdated word processing program that did use a monospaced font. Now it’s just instinct and I’m going to keep doing it that way because I want to.

    I don’t see what’s so obsolete about it. It does serve the purpose of making it easier to see the end of a sentence. Who the hell gets to make up that rule anyway?

    THE, I think you mean you were running Windows 3.lowercase-L. If you’re going to adopt the obsolete conventions of monospaced typewriters, you’ve gotta go all-in. Two spaces after a period, and you type the letter “l” instead of the digit 1.

    Also, since monospace typewriters often didn’t have an exclamation-mark key (no “1”, remember), you shouldn’t type “!” – you should instead type a period followed by an apostrophe, and trust the reader to figure it out. Or find the non-deleting backspace key, which allowed typewriter users to create hybrid characters like that.

    I also learned to type in high school in the mid-90’s, and learned the two space rule. I still use it, I think it looks better, and I’m not changing. It’s personal preference.

    At this point, it isn’t even a preference or a choice. 20 plus years of doing something, which to begin with your were taught to do without thinking, is very hard to break with. Like I said, I don’t think it’s better or worse, it’s just somthing my hands will alwasy do automatically. At the end of a sentence, hit the space bar twice. This is honestly the first time in my life I have even thought about this!!!!!!!!

    High school business typing in the late 70s. It’s always two spaces. Additionally, it differentiates the end of a sentence from any abbreviations within a sentence, like the author of that article, Mr. TightAss.

    When taught writing (pen and paper) I was taught to leave more space after a sentance. I always thought the two spaces in typing was because of that rule, nothing about typewriters.

    I think it’s funny that in your posts, you gents advocating the use of two spaces only have one space after all your sentences.

    It’s been mentioned here a couple times already today, but in case you missed it, that’s done automatically. I just typed a double space after that period. I’m sure it’ll come thru as a single.

    Orwillit?

    I learned to type with two spaces after a period. Not sure when I learned to type (probably the 1980’s by my mother, because I remember typing papers long before any typing class of any sort.)

    I’m aware it is technically wrong, but I just can’t stop doing it. And a single space really does look strange to me.

    I learned to type in High School back in the late ’80s. I, just like most of the posters, also was taught to use two spaces after a sentence. I also do it automatically now, and have no plans to change. I’ve never heard that it is technically wrong, and I don’t care much either. I think one space looks goofy, although I hadn’t noticed much until now.

    Paul,
    The facemask Lance Rentzel is wearing is made by Marietta, who also made helmets (and which later became MaxPro).
    Also, I think that Big Ben probably did not change helmets, only facemasks, as Riddell has the special, quick release clips that attach the helmet and mask making removal pretty fast.

    “Yogi Berra is referred to as “Yankee catcher and a dude.” Not sure what the writer was trying to tell us there.”

    Pretty sure the writer was using “dude” in the nattily dressed, fashion-conscious sense of the term. In a lot of Western movies and TV shows, cowboys would derisively refer to “civilized” men, often Easterners, wearing fancy clothes as “dudes.” It’s roughly the same usage that gives us the term “dude ranch.”

    The patches that Ray Rice is wearing are similar to the pro balance wrist bands that a lot of athletes wear. I dont believe the product has been released yet but there are high profile athletes from various sports that will be wearing them.

    hes been wearing them all year either on his bicep or tricep. but a lot of the time they fall off.

    No mention of the Jets sporting green pants to avoid wearing the same uniforms as their 45-3 defeat?

    And when I was taught typing in school, 2 spaces after a period as the method, but now the correct format is a single space. Originally 2 spaces were used when typewriters were the major instruments used in typing, and often a single space didn’t provide adequate room between a period and a capital letter. So the double spacing was at one time a necessity, but has now become out dated.

    Also note Welker is now wearing a Revolution Speed instead of his usual VSR4.

    This is the 2nd game Roethlisberger has done this change. His first game back after the broken nose he did the same thing, except at the half. Supposedly he didn’t like the way the visor was responding to the rain/snow (can’t remember which).

    Two spaces is only correct when using a manual typewriter (or when composing in Courier or other monospaced faces, I guess). In every other instance, two spaces is unnecessary and incorrect. It’s not really a subjective thing. The rules are the rules, and the rule is one space.

    It’s a good thing that people on the internet follow proper rules for spelling and grammar, isn’t it?

    / link

    I rarely watch AFC games, and for the most part when I do, it is usually just on in the background and I will peek at the score or watch for a minute or two.

    But is it just me, or does Phil Simms sound a million times football smarter than Aikman or Buck?

    Yes and definitely yes.

    Also it was nice of Phil to point out that the Jets were wearing their green pants yesterday as opposed to the white ones they wore when they got blown out, theorizing that it was maybe an attempt to put that entire debacle behind them. Not often do you hear an announcer talk about what uniform a team was wearing in an earlier game and why they switched up.

    I love seeing that picture of Page in the shooting star Astros uni! I remember the first time I saw it on here–few years back when uni-cameos were talked about–it caused a little confusion as to what they were showing. Even though it was for the introduction if the new Houston Astros and the Astrodome, I think Judge Hofheinz would have actually let Page pitch had Ol’ Satch had been a little younger.

    I first learned to type in fourth grade, in 1994, and we were taught single spaced, except in Courier. It annoyed me that I got almost points off a writing assignment earlier this year for not double spacing. My professor had taken the points off originally but I assume crossed out the correction after she realized every student had single spaced their sentences.

    I’m just the opposite I like Troy Aikman more than Phil Simms. Maybe it comes from watching a lot of AFC games but I never cared for Phil Simms because it seems like he is in love with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick when he does a Pats game. I do however like Jim Nantz more than Joe Buck.

    Aikman only knows how to do color for the Cowboys games. When they’re hosting an AFC team or on bye he’s lost.

    If you didn’t know that Simms and Aikman had been athletes, what would you think of them then?

    My take: Aikman sounds a lot more like a professional announcer. Calm, in control, very little ego. Simms sounds like someone who clearly came to announcing very raw — he oversells some of his points (either with volume or inflection), doesn’t modulate well, and has ego-driven moments.

    I don’t mean I dislike Simms. But I think he’s a much lesser talent in the booth than Aikman.

    I agree 100% that Aikman sounds a lot more professional than Simms. It seems like the booth and mike “fit” him better. However when it comes to some of the finer points of the game, strategy, tactics etc….it just seemed to me that Simms was really on point with most of his observations. He was almost play calling for a while… Aikman rarely does this, not sure if its on purpose or not.

    It’s not just during the broadcasts, either. When I hear them on the radio during those “NFL Expert” segments, Aikman just sounds so much more polished than Simms does.

    Perhaps it has something to do with their accents. I don’t know if it’s something Aikman has consciously worked on, but he really seems to have nailed the professional “non-accent” type of accent. I can still hear a lot of the Kentucky upbringing when Simms speaks.

    Also, I can’t think of a time when I’ve thought “shut the fuck up, Troy” when watching a game he’s done. I can’t say the same is true for Simms.

    I agree that Aikman sounds more like he knows what he’s doing in the booth. The problem is his knowledge base is limited to the Cowboys and the rest of the NFC East. When he’s outside his comfort zone, he still sounds more professional than Simms, but he also sounds shy or scared in the booth without being able to talk about the ‘Boys.

    I disagree. I think Aikman comes across as well-prepared and knowledgeable no matter which teams are playing.

    He knows most about the NFC East in general and the Cowboys in particular, but I’d imagine he spends a lot of time on Dallas-area broadcasts breaking down Cowboys games. And obviously, they play at least 6 games a year against division rivals so he’s going to see a lot of them.

    I’ll give you a similar example from a different sport. Eddie Olczyk — he does color on most of the Blackhawks local broadcasts, but he also does color for Vs. and NBC’s NHL games. Obviously, he’s going to know the ins and outs of the Blackhawks and the rest of the Central Division, but I don’t feel that it makes him less of a broadcaster when he’s doing a national game like Sabres/Capitals. (Maybe Sabres and Caps fans would disagree with me on that one, though.)

    For me I have to look at the pairing. See how the chemistry works.

    I like Simms somewhat, but Nance announces games like they are golf matches. Boring

    Buck and Aikman are better, but Buck sounds like he is at a baseball game.

    Gus Johnson and a bag of balls makes every game as exciting as a last second shot to win the NCAA tournament.

    My fav team was Simms and Greg Gumbel. Why they switched Gumbel out for Nantz is beyond me. Nantz is OK but I just thing the guy should stick to covering golf instead of the NFL.

    I love Gumbel and Dierdorf, although I get that DD is not everyone’s cup of tea. He DOES tend to overpower the broadcasts from time to time.

    Their maybe something to the different accents. Aikman is a milion times more polished. Simms was born and raised in Kentucky and then spent the last 30 years in Jersey!!

    And maybe my opinion is based on the fact that I hear Aikman almost every week, and Buck for most the year since he also does baseball.

    But there was just something about some of the observations that Simms made that just seemed so on point. I don’t recall Aikman ever being insightful.

    I disagree that Aikman only “knows” Cowboy or NFC East football. He seems like the ultimate professional and I’m sure prepares all week for his games. He never says anything “wrong” an like I said his voice sounds great…but there’s something missing….

    And I heard it from Simms yesterday….

    I caught that Pouha outfit and immediately thought, “Please tell me I didn’t just see a 300 pound dude in a man-thong.”

    I’m assuming the wrong drop shadow on Marion Motley’s 6 is because it’s an upside 9. Nice catch.

    On the whole sew-in knee pad thing: I assume they’ll be made from the same material that makes up Brandon Jacob’s thigh pads, so that they won’t degrade in the wash?

    link

    link

    And will the NFL do the smart thing and mandate the pants to go totally below the knees, so the knee pads can… you know… actually cover the knee? Because too many college players wear their knee pads ABOVE their knees, thus negating their function.

    link

    “In 1943, the Yankees sold Lefty Grove to the Boston Braves for $10,000.”

    Nope, that’s Lefty Gomez. Big difference between Grove and Gomez.

    Having worked for a company where the official style was two spaces after a period, I’ve pretty much continued to do so without much thought.

    I love the front view of those Air Force hockey unis, and the back view is alright. But the two put together have no symmetry what-so-ever and looks really weird.

    Paul,
    I think that you made a slight error. You included an item about Lefty Grove. “In 1943, the Yankees sold Lefty Grove to the Boston Braves for $10,000. He never appeared in a game for Boston – they released him, and then he briefly hooked on with the Senators – but Alan Tompas found a rare photo of Grove in a Braves uni (that’s Ernie Lombardi on the left).”
    Lefty Grove never played for the Yankees. He played for the Philadelphia Athletics and the Boston Red Sox. Perhaps you are confusing him with Lefty Gomez who did play for the Yanks and would up his career with the Washington Senators in 1943 and who appears in your linked picture.

    I was starting to get worried a bunch of the Patriots logos were going to fall off – leaving the team looking like the 1976 Seahawks with plain silver helmets.

    -Dude, it’s really not funny anymore. Knock it off.

    Dang!
    I hope no one asks about the green dot today?

    The silver helmet of the 76 Seahawks is now funny to me. I would like to hear more about them.

    Patriots didn’t play like themselves.

    Figure Rush Limbaugh will be all over them today for being so “un-Patriotic”?

    —ricko

    Answer to your Cincinnati Moeller question… Moeller is now part of the Capital Hockey Conference which is made up of the 13 varsity programs in Columbus and Moeller. All of the members of the Capital Hockey Conference were given the Blue Jackets 10th season patches to wear on their jerseys this season.

    According to link, the link link is on the way out of the NHL! I hope the Blues return to link look, although their link aren’t bad… (If I’m late to the dance on this, my apologies; I just saw the blog post this morning, and it made my day!)

    I was taught in both my keyboard class at school, and by my mother (who was a legal secretary for my father) that you ALWAYS use two spaces after a period in a sentence. I still do it by default, because it’s the way I learned. O

    Of course, given the fact that grammar, punctuation and spelling are all going the way of the shiny satin baseball jersey, it’s only reasonable that rules of keyboarding would go the same way. (For that matter, most people seem to have forgotten how to use periods, so this argument is probably moot.)

    Two spaces is not a ‘keyboarding rule.’ It’s a ‘manual typewriter rule.’ At the time your mother learned, she was likely using a manual typewriter, and was correct to use two spaces.

    The kid with the Steelers Jersey in Seattle… He could have tried to find a Franco Harris Seabags jersey. Granted it would have to be special ordered because nobody remembers Franco in that blue kit.

    I used to live down the street from TC Williams, home of the Titans, and very much enjoyed attending a rally in the school gym with Senator Obama underneath a beautiful Twins TC logo during the 2008 primaries. But then I moved south to Woodbridge, Virginia, where the local high school goes one step further than TC Williams in ripof identity mashups: The Woodbridge Vikings use the link mascot link in link with a link on their helmets.

    I don’t remember the Titans wearing those colors in the movie… didn’t they wear more of a maroon and white uni? Something like Texas A&M? Or maybe a brighter red like Arkansas….but definitely no red, white and blue…

    Considering Sittler was traded from the Maple Leafs to the Flyers in 1981-82, it’s very possible that there are game worn Sittle Cooperalls out there. However, they would not be blue and white, shown as such in the eBay listing. I’ve never seen a mention of any other teams wearing them in pre-season, so I’m going to say that this sale is pretty much BS.

    Haven’t those Cooperalls in question been auctioned, and questioned, before?

    I would swear that they have.

    Yep, the USAFA hockey sweaters are stunningly classy. No surprise, however, as those service academy kids both understand and respect the game.

    We can not expect Air Force to do things intelligently. That special football jersey of theirs was just about every kind of wrong. I could almost forgive the adding of red, but they went full-ridiculous by changing the shade of blue as well.

    I posted some time ago about the USAFA using the modern USAF symbol as a helmet design element. I like the hockey jerseys but they are a bit of a mishmash. The US roundel should have a red bar running through it rather than a silver one, unless of course they’re going for the low-visibility version which would be in shades of gray. Even then it’s not unique to the USAF as other services use it on their aircraft as well. Better to just use the USAF symbol on the front alone.

    The photo of Dan Koppen with the Tom Brady photo on his jersey is from the first day of training camp 2005. Some members of the offensive line,including Koppen and Matt
    Light,made light of Brady’s photos appearance in GQ which
    included a photo of Brady holding a baby lamb.

    Besides Wes Welker,Alge Crumpler and BenJarvus Green
    Ellis had decal problems. All three players were missing large parts of the middle parts of the decal of the left side of their helmets throughout mush of yesterday’s game.

    Packers vs. Bears in post-season? Yikes.
    Doesn’t mean the game will be great but, oh, my, this week should be some pre-game buildup.

    Of course, it does involve only the Midwest (and involves a TON of NFL history) so the national media probably will continue to fall all over themselves dissecting the Jets/Patriots, even though that game has already been played, or weighing the Jets’ chances of tripping one of the Steelers.

    —Ricko

    I hope there’s a good bit of historical video playback for this Packers and Bears game. It would be nice to see some of those great players in great uniforms of old. As some commentators mentioned yesterday, this will be only the second time in history they’ve met in the playoffs. It should be this game the NFL and the sports world focuses on! Plus, they’ve got the better uniform matchup.

    It’s going to be a beautiful thing: snow, cold weather, grass, great uniforms, good-hitting football. But oh, wait, Packers and Bears: you’ve got to align your stripes so they all match! ;)

    Yes. Yes they should. Why settle for a 9.8 uniform when one simple little change would make it a 10?

    Not sure about the year, but I agree it’s the NY Giants. Look closely and you can see slightly different color leather strips on the leather helmet (red and blue?. And I believe the jersey is red.

    Wow, how is it possible I never saw that Mets’ Vitalis commercial in real time back in the day??!?!

    -Jet

    Depends on where u lived at the time. Not all spots are/were aired nationally. Some, even for national brands, are/were used only regionally.

    —Ricko

    Been doing this uni-watching thing a long, long time, and I’d bet good money those visors, and probably the buttons, are athletic gold. Enlarge it to 200 or 400% and you’ll see(or has that been mentioned and I missed it?)…
    link

    —Ricko

    My point being, is that yet a third hat for the A’s in ’67?
    1. solid Kelly
    2. solid White
    3. White with gold visor

    Or was the solid White still for manager and coaches only?

    —Ricko

    I don’t know if those are yellow visors or not, but I do know of a camera picture processing result (have no name for it) where the edges are yellow one side and blue on the other. My shitty two-bit camera from the late 1980s shows this effect on a lot of my pictures.

    It’s so consistent on the visors from edge to edge and from two angles (guy on left has his head tipped back a bit), plus doesn’t appear to be any similar effect elsewhere in the photo.

    Not saying I’m right, just splanin’ what led me to wonder…in the context of how I’d have looked at a 1967 photo IN 1967.

    —Ricko

    I see a yellow or blue outline edge, on both guys:

    #17: yellow edge on top and left side visor, ear & neck. Blue outline on right side visor, temple, ear and neck.

    #14: blue edge on left side of temple, ear & neck. Yellow edge on front & right visor, right cap side, ear & neck.

    Maybe I only see it :\ Here’s a quick Photoshop Auto Contrast if it helps:

    link

    The ear/temple effect is picking up color, leeching it from the natural, organic tones of the ear and hair. That kind of thing is entirely common in photos of that era.

    But if the visors were pure white, where are yellow and red (to make gold on the TOP edge of the brim) coming from? If that’s possible, shouldn’t maybe it be as pronounced and obvious around the hat crowns, too, where the lighting is every bit as a direct as on the top of the brim?

    I’m not arguing, just trying to figure it out. Almost always an anomaly is really obvious everywhere in the photo, not just glaringly so in one spot like those brims. If we have to go micro hunting for it elsewhere, it maybe isn’t the issue.

    Dunno. Just that after 55 years or so of doing such things, my first thought was, “What the hell, those brims look gold.” So I checked the image as best I could (better than I could back then, in fact), and I’d say it’s 60/40, maybe better, that they were, indeed, gold. At least that day.

    —Ricko

    Bottom line?
    Too bad one of those guys didn’t drop his chin a bit, or that there isn’t another player in the background, in profile, preferably.

    Would clear things up considerably.

    —Ricko

    Yeah, the “gold” doesn’t really arch high enough on #14’s brim to indicate it was that color (no such reference point on the other player.

    Could just be optics. In my defense, weren’t a whole mess of all-white hats to deal with back then.

    —Ricko

    Digging up what I have (it’s not much)

    link

    The left is from Dugout Memories website like circa 2000. On the right, the cap collection found in Oct. 2007 from a sports auction site, has a very pale yellow tone to it. Don’t know how many are fashion caps (probably at least the two all-gold ones) and the others might be authentics.

    Paul, and other commenters, don’t worry about typing two spaces after a sentence, at least not on this Web page. All of the two spaces has been automatically removed for you, just as it should be. Also, as the article points out, all publishing professionals will quickly do a find and replace and strip out the two spaces. That should point pretty quickly to what’s right and wrong, far more than what you learned in fourth grade typing classes.

    Good, I can keep typing it my way and they can fix it. It’s a lot easier than having to backspace after every sentence because your brain is hardwired to use 2 spaces. It’s instinct. I’ve been doing it for so long that it happens automatically.

    One more vote for two spaces. It adds readability by making the ends of sentences distinct from places where a period is used to abbreviate something.

    (One space is at least better than *zero* spaces. In Japanese, where characters fit into square blocks, the period and comma “contain” their own following spaces by sitting to the top half (when writing vertically) or left side (when writing horizontally) of the squares they’re in, so no following space is necessary. Same with the parenthesis, which sit to the bottom (vertical) or right side (horizontal) of the square. The problem comes when people used to this convention start writing in English and don’t offer any spaces at all after punctuation. My own work e-mail address contains this garbage (it looks like McDougal,Mark(Operations) and makes me want to add an apology on behalf of the company in my e-mail signature.

    Re:two spaces. It is not wrong if everyone does it.

    I hate split infinitives, but I have given up calling them “wrong” because that is the way people write today. The convention is right, no matter what the “experts” claim.

    As proof that “two spaces” is the convention, I point to the blackberry. If you space twice after a word, the blackberry automatically puts a period at the end of the previous word and capitalizes the next letter. Why would they do this if people did not expect two spaces to mean the end of sentence?

    The iPhone does it too, but it only leaves one space. That’s the more telling thing – it automatically corrects. It’s also a shortcut, since you have to access a secondary menu to use a period.

    hitting the space-bar twice on a Blackberry starts a new sentence by giving you a period, 1 space & capitalizing the next letter. Not evidence to support 2 spaces after a period.

    Exactly. I think that’s the reason all you two-spacers only have one space after the sentences in your posts. Uni Watch auto-corrects your two-space blunder and deletes the extra one.

    You cannot use the Blackberry as an argument that anything is right or wrong. Yesterday’s NY Times had an article stating that some word-correct programs change words they do not recognize. A woman got a message saying “Your mother and I are going to divorce.” What they typed was Disney!!!

    PS I double-spaced every sentence above. Let’s see how it comes out.

    …stand-up comedian Wes Welker…

    Was so funny (“How funny was he?”) that he was link for the Patriots’ first offensive series!

    I respect Welker as a football player, however Belichick did the right thing there. This attack, by Welker, was too close of an attack on the sneaker head nation.

    Point to consider:

    What if Brady was the offending player?

    I bet Hoody Man would’ve benched him, too. Maybe.

    I wrote to a North Stars game worn collector expert asking him about North Stars Cooperalls, since I figured if they were actually worn, there would likely have been 30-40 of them made based on the number of players who participate in training camps.

    With that number for just one team out there, I would assume that he would know something, anything about them.

    Here is his response:

    “This is the first I have ever heard any one claiming that all NHL wore these in pre-season. Maybe the teams were given the option to try them during the pre-season. I only know of the Flyers and Whalers ever wearing them. I have seen a few Maple Leafs pants floating around but have never seen a photo of them wearing them.”

    My thoughts are similar. If ALL teams wore them in the preseason in 1980, where are the other 400+ pairs of them and why NO pictures of them in game action?

    You just absolutely made my day with that LEGO stadium Larry. I would kill for a Kingdome version where I could light it up from the inside, and pop up into it through the middle of the field. hmmmmmm…got to go get me some LEGOs.

    You’ll have to post pictures in 5 years when you finish that, if you don’t go completely mad first.

    This might be a project better left for retirement. lol, how funny is that, I could totally see myself locked up in a room, at a ripe old age, building a LEGO Kingdome.

    That Ohio Stadium made with Legos was incredible I have no idea how guys do things like to scale.

    With curves and arches and all.

    First of all, the Slate writer says that the manual typewriter invaded the American workplace in “the middle of the last century.” Surely it was earlier than that, no? I’m pretty sure the electric typewriter was outselling the manual by the 1950s – certainly in the “workplace.” Not that it really matters to his point.

    But we’re talking about a matter of STYLE here. That means there’s no absolute right and wrong (and what authority would decide that anyway?). When Mr. Slate says double-spacing is “totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably WRONG” he’s out of line, and it just makes me want to defiantly continue to double-space (and split infinitives while I’m at it).

    Split infinitives are correct as of the mid-90s, according to the MLA, the APA, and the ABA.

    For me, the matter was settled by Captain James T. Kirk in 1966 with his “To boldly go…” speech.

    The Slate article gets lots of other things wrong too.

    He thinks that the exclamation point is “arbitrary” and that we could just as well use the % sign for exclamations; no way. There are various theories on how these symbols came about (one is that ! is an I over an O, from Latin interjectio, and ? is Q over O, from quaestio, but there are other explanations; the percent sign is from an abbreviated per cento. Arbitrary they are not.

    So I’m not about to take his opinion as gospel here.

    think it might’ve been overlooked, but PL wondered what coaches who got fired did with their gear.

    Rich Rodriguez knows: Salvation Army.

    link

    For the love of all that is good, please just put one space.

    And you can argue that “everyone does it” except that it isn’t true: Pick up any professionally printed book or magazine, or surf any reputable website and what do you see after a period? One space.

    So just ask yourself, do you want your correspondence to look professional or “minor league?” (To use an appropriately sports-related metaphor.)

    Well, because, I want the way I do it to be the right way because I said so and that will make me feel good about myself and, besides, I have absolutely no idea how to say, “oh, I guess I’ve had it wrong”; that would mean I was wrong.

    —Ricko

    Luther Mahoney is correct!! those are the football giants in the Sid Luckman NY Times pic.. and the player #32 is Al Blozis of the giants who tragically was killed right after that season in WWII. Blozis played only that season and the giants eventually retired his #32.

    I would also venture to say that the giants were wearing their RED jerseys against the navy-clad bears. A great color-this project!

    It is the Giants. And they 100% wore RED as their first color choice in jersey colors from 1937 thru 1952.

    A-ha! Guess what. Got an email that one of our AE’s just told our video producer to “Make the logo bigger.”

    It’s good to know the world is spinning as it should (well, everywhere but New England, of course).

    —Ricko

    This stuff is just too funny (make sure to click on “older posts” at the bottom, there’s more than one page)…
    link

    —Ricko

    If we have a Steelers/Packers Superbowl – it’s going to be quite yellow.

    link

    (Old pic, I know, it’s the only Packers/home Steelers/away pic I could find)

    The shame of any Super Bowl involving the Packers, Steelers, or Bears is that it will be played in sterile Cowboy stadium, on artificial turf, and probably indoors. Enjoy the championship games while you can.

    and a jets-pack will be quite green (esp it the jets keep on wearing their green trou)

    and a stillers-bears will be very…but not quite…black vs black

    no matter who’s in it, it will be one of the best SB’s (uni wise) of all time and certainly in the past decade

    seriously, excluding the disappearing sleeve and reduced sleeve stripes — and because the jets have retrofied…

    bears have looked basically like this for decades (and would be wearing midnight blue like in SB XLI)…pack would look like SB I & XXXI…stillers have only changed their fonts from SB’s IX, X, XIII, XIV & XXX (all but IX in black), and look the same as SBs XL & XLIII, jets would look similar to SB III (unless they wear green trou)

    gonna be a good looking game tho…that much we know

    At least we’ll have that. But a poor backdrop to place those beautiful unis against. Saturday’s game at Pittsburgh and yesterday’s game at Chicago were just beautiful.

    How is double-spacing any different from a baseball player wearing stirrups? Both are stylistic decisions that once had a rationale behind them and (arguably) no longer do but which some people are still fond of.

    This is so correct for this particular blog comment section. Why not just use the same logic to defend all of the uniform changes these days, it’s what they do now so what used to be done is wrong.

    No it’s not, because the MLB style guide doesn’t specify that stirrups are incorrect for being outdated. Every major style guide specifies that double spacing is incorrect, not merely outdated.

    From the Modern Language Association’s website (cited by the Slate writer himself):

    “As a practical matter, however, there is nothing wrong with using two spaces after concluding punctuation marks unless an instructor or editor requests that you do otherwise.”

    Re: “It is not wrong if everyone does it.” Every newspaper, every book, every professionally written, edited, and typeset document you’ve looked at in your day to day life has one space after the period. It’s not a matter of opinion, education, or instinct. You can write however you want, including witholding capital letters, omitting all punctuation, and clever 733t spelling, but it will simply never be seen as professional.

    Fine, I’m wrong (happy Ricko?) – and since I’m not a professional writer – I don’t care. I’ll keep double spacing because it’s what I like doing, and this site auto fixes it anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

    You’re absolutely right. Unless it’s for business, where’s the harm? And, of course, thanks to computers we can always do a “replace all” if it matters. I do that all the time when copy-pasting info from AE’s, clients, etc.

    Honest, wasn’t aiming at you, The Jeff; just the sometimes apparently widespread general mindset out there.

    (Also, lol, I have an ex-wife who I don’t believe has ever said, “Oh, I was wrong” or “Yeah, your idea’s better” to anyone in her entire life…so there’s an involuntary Hair Standing Up on Back of Neck Factor for me).

    —Ricko

    doesn’t look bad — but the grizz’ look awful, and i do mean awful, in black socks and shoes with the powder blues

    definitely a case for white (or even powder with white socks) shoes

    We don’t like the “We’re playing in combat boots” look?
    (also known in some circles as “Dogpatch USA Stylin'”).

    Not to be confused with the Jimmy Chitwood look, of course, which is classic ’50s (as evidenced by Bowser adopting it).

    —Ricko

    Dont know if this was mentioned, but there was an article buried in the USA Today about the worst uniforms for each NFL team.
    link
    Overall it seemed pretty well thought out. I agreed with most of them

    Once again, precisely the same color gold the Steelers (and lots of other teams) wear becomes “mustard” when it’s paired with brown.

    And the original Bucs unis were all-time bad. Well, they must have been, because the team was all-time bad, right?

    Actually, an interesting list. He just included a few “same old, same old” choices.

    —Ricko

    Also, no mention of the Rams’ gold jerseys (which he did not refer to as “mustard”) being throwbacks — just that they were worn in 1994.

    I know that the writer is a Uni Watch reader (and he posts here sometimes as well) so that’s doubly disappointing.

    No one is perfect.

    Hell, the fact that he references UniWatch in the article and links to Chris Creamer’s is good enough for me.

    I just had a woman here at work tell me she’ll be rooting for the Steelers next week but not the Packers- their pants are too yellow.

    It is a well-done piece and I congratulate the writer. However I wouldn’t be a true Uni Watcher if I didn’t have some nits to pick. In that light, the Chargers entry was the most problematic:

    “In 1974 the team decided to make navy blue their main color.” Actually at that time they made royal blue their main color. By the way, they had worn navy before (in 1967) and what they wore prior to ’67 was not exactly powder blue, it was a bit darker.

    “Ever since 1974 the team has kept navy blue as their main color.” Actually they adopted the navy blue in 1988.

    “Navy blue isn’t very much a San Diego color.” Tell that to the Navy! Says Wiki, “San Diego is the site of one of the largest naval fleets in the world… San Diego has become the largest concentration of naval facilities in the world.”

    I’m sure the writer, being a Uni Watcher, will understand these complaints & the spirit in which they’re intended.

    The Chargers did start using navy in 1974 – on the helmet. They suffered from the same mismatched blue issues as the Giants & Rams – their helmet was navy while their jerseys were lighter. link

    1988 is when they finally made the jerseys darker to match the helmet color (and changed the bolts to white).

    Heard some interesting tidbits on radio on way home from the office re…

    PACKERS-BEARS in post-season.

    Only other time was December 14, 1941, a week after Pearl Harbor.
    The teams had tied for the NFL Western Division title.

    Sid Luckman, the Bears’s winning QB, went 4-for-9 for 48 yards( I believe it was). Bears had, like, 270+ yards rushing.

    Cecil Isbell of the Packers threw one TD pass. Was to Harold Van Avery, a Gopher teammate and long-time friend of my uncle and also, by sheer coincidence, a neighbor of my seond set of in-laws.

    For the arithmatically challenged (me, for example), 1941 was 69 years ago last December. In other words, only a couple years before Ralphie got his Red Ryder carbine.

    So, yeah, gonna be some buildup to this one, alright. At least in the Midwest.

    —Ricko

    Ricko,

    You were right the first time. It was the Western Division. I don’t think they started calling it Conference until the 1950 season when they were renamed American and National Conferences. They went back to the Western and Eastern in 1953, but stuck with the term “Conference.”

    for sure i sent that to non-UWers today too, it was gold.

    not the best look, does not have the crazy angles, but the link i was talking about yesterday.

    ok moose (you can dump “chimp” *forever* now)

    that was a little too sieg heil-ey for my blood, for sure

    good call on that

    i feel bad for even thinking it, it was just an odd anthem.

    i can’t believe i just fell for that jim.

    As someone who has worked as a legal word processor for many years, our convention was to use two spaces after periods (and I’ve worked for several law firms). Our preference was also to make our documents non-justified, i.e., ragged right. It just makes it easier to proofread. I understand all the arguments for a single space, but it really is a matter of preference. The only hard and fast rule is to be consistent.

    traxel, I wanted to thank you for the tips last night about unitweeks I do not have photoshop but will see what I can do sometime.

    I checked the comments this morning before work from last night.

    in re: single vs double space

    i was taught (in the sixth grade, so this was before computers) it was always a double space, a practice i’ve kept since then…still double space on letters and documents at the office

    our (UW) wordpress software doesn’t like the double space — and in fact, i’ve had to “train” myself not only to use capitalization and proper punctuation when writing the weekend posts, but also to single-space…and when i post emails and such from others, i must go thru them to ensure they are single spaced, or the copy will appear funny when it is posted in the main blog — i’d say a good third of you who send me stuff double space — jim vilk is a KILLER — since after every single sentence, there is a double space — so when im coding and repasting his 5 & 1, for example, it’s a PITA (but i luvya anyways mothersunbowlker)

    maybe we can’t tell who double or single spaces in the comments section, but i can tell you that of those who submit stuff to me, it’s about 2-1 single to double spacers

    Same here — learned the two-space method even though it was well after the era of manual typewriters. But working on the college newspaper staff, I learned that double spaces screw up layouts, so the first thing you would do when preparing an article for layout is do a find/replace for all double spaces. Virtually every file had double spaces. I stopped using them when I no longer needed to meet page-length requirements on essays.

    Fifteen years later, I do a lot of medical and scientific editing, and I’d estimate only one in 10 raw manuscripts I get (from all over the world) has two spaces after periods.

    I think at this point we can say it’s a generational thing. It sounds like the vast majority of double-spacers learned to type before PCs became widespread, when double-spacing was still the preferred method.

    Pitt basketball team also has new uniforms tonight. KDKA news said they have the Zoo on the back.

    So this is the new basketball uni trend huh.

    In Portland at the Blazers v Timberwolves game and I have to say the T Wolves BFBS unis don’t look half bad. At least from the upper deck.

    Nice to see the NBA starting to think about color the way I do… now if only I actually cared about basketball.

    Not to beat this to death, but if you’re using a computer, there’s no reason to use double spaces after periods. I was taught double spaces when I first learned typing, too, but that was based on the old typewriter method as well as computers and printers that didn’t have proportional fonts. And any current teacher that still teaches it that way is just stuck in old habits. It’s all about monospaced vs. proportional. In any modern typing situation (unless using a monospaced font like courier) there is plenty of proportional space by default after a period to provide separation between sentences. Double spaces just aren’t necessary. Period. Sure, it’s hard to break old habits, but welcome to the future, my friends.

    I was advised that discussion over the 1967 Kansas City A’s caps is whether the brims were white or gold. I have posted another photo on our KC Baseball Historical Society website that was taken on the same day in 1967 (by me). It shows Roger Repoz, Rick Monday and Sal Bando posting for pix and you can pretty clearly see the brims of the uniform caps were white. Hope that helps. Regards, Dave

Comments are closed.