Beerfest of Champions

By Phil Hecken

Although DIY isn’t my cuppa, there are many of you fine Uni Watchers out there who do love to create your own jerseys, uniforms, and assorted paraphernalia which accompanies your creations. Michael Malinowski (who posts as “MEMAL”) is one of those guys. And what he has created for this DIY segment is pretty amazing — logos, jerseys, “glass”ware, even tabletops — it’s quite a display of the deep talent out there in Uni Watch-land. Last year, Michael teamed with Jim Vilk and myself to bring you a look at Super Bowl fields and logos, and he’s back with me today to share his DIY talent. So, sit back and enjoy his look at…

Beerfest of Champions
By Michael Malinowski

Good morning UniWatchers,

I was one of the crazy people who instead of just living off student loans while in college worked full time and thus missed out on a lot of fun college experiences. The only one I truly regretted missing was participating in a Beer Olympics. A year after graduating I watched the movie “Beerfest.” Its hilarious antics, sensational beer drinking games and shows of teamwork and camaraderie inspired me to create my own beer drinking event.

My friend TJ and I were a team and having been inspired by the frequent DIY contributors to the website I decided to make our own uniforms. They were inspired by the pickup summer soccer games our friends have played every year for the past ten years. We played at Dible elementary school right next to Turner’s Dairy, which is a name anyone from Pittsburgh would recognize. We had often joked that we should have uniforms made and that we should get Turner’s to sponsor us.

Since these were soccer jerseys, I figured it would be appropriate to include a sponsor on the front. I went with a simple, adidas-esque three stripe shoulder look for the shirt, which was just a t-shirt and not a jersey, though buying a jersey with three stripes would have been easier than hand sewing the stripes myself. I made a few sketches of what I wanted our logo to be and ended up using a combination of Microsoft Word and Paint to create it before cleaning it up, literally pixel by pixel, to get this. I tried cutting this out in felt, but since club patches are so small on soccer jerseys and I wanted all the detail included I determined that it would be easier to do a iron on transfer paper. I also printed it out bigger since I spent over 10 hours working diligently to make sure there wasn’t anything my OCD eyes would regret leaving in the finished product.

The numbers were Chicago Bears font and I basically blew up the numbers from this (thank you NFL Shop) and cut them out of tackle twill I bought at Jo Anne Fabrics. I had to double layer them so that the orange didn’t bleed through the white fabric and I really wanted the white to pop out. I cut the T for Turner’s out of the same material, double layered it and used my grandmother’s embroidery machine for the words Turner’s. I unfortunately ran out of time when it came down to putting the names on the shirts and I just used heat transfer letters, a detail that would only irk someone who gets *it*. We paired these shirts with these socks and wa la! Although the chest logo didn’t come out as good as I would have liked(especially since it looks red on the shirt), we were proud to sport it and were the best looking team there.

Unfortunately we didn’t win, which was a shame, because I made a trophy, which I dubbed “The Beerfest Cup” (truly original, I know). The Cup is actually a tall vase I bought from Michael’s at cost since it had a couple little chips in the top. I don’t know the name of the font for “Beerfest Champions”, because I was looking at Old English style font sets online and picked it out so quickly that I didn’t save the name. I then sketched the logo in the center. A little background on that is that Beerfest was held up at my camp, the name of which is The Rainy Knights, a play on words since my dad and his three friends actually own the camp and they spent many rainy nights at hunting camps in just tents before they bought the camp. The deer-head-in-a-rain-drop logo was something I designed originally for this bottle cap table we have sitting on our front porch at camp, which was a yin yang motif and once again a play on the words Rainy Night/Knights (notice it’s raining on the Knight) and on the other half there’s a spot of rain in the night.

So I took the deer head in the raindrop and surrounded it with what’s essentially a rip off from my favorite Scottish premiere League team (Celtic). Then, since I’m sure there’ll be some folks who will want to do this too, I took carbon paper and traced it, which I then stuck on the cup and cut out by hand with an exacto knife. There was so much detail that it took me about 7 hours to carefully cut everything that I wanted etched onto the glass. I then coated the front with glass etching paste, let it sat for fifteen minutes, washed all the paste off with water and after I peeled all the plastic off I was left with this! Much like the Stanley Cup, the champions got to drink from the Cup and I put their signatures on it (this photo includes this year’s champions signature as well).

My mother, who helped me with the sewing and is an avid quilter, asked if she would like for me to make a flag for Beerfest this past year. Believe me when I say she knew what she was getting into. I decided it would be sweet if the flag looked something like the Bavarian flag, so I stole the check print, changed the colors (an easy choice, green for the hops that go into the beer and gold for the wheat and color of beer (no sucking up to Paul intended) and created a logo. I was once again inspired by soccer logos (in this case FC Barcelona’s shield logo) and picked a few meaningful symbols to include in it.

In the upper left are the symbols for the patron saints of brewing beer, a mash rake and a chair (which I kind of cut the back out of so folks could tell that was a rake). In the upper right is the Allegheny court house taken from the City Flag. Then, in the middle is a saying which in Latin means, “To achieve the Golden Thirst” which, no joke, I came up with after I had a dream about Beerfest and everyone competing was yelling at each other… in English though, not Latin. Then in the bottom are the stripes (a theme from the jersey to come) and a beer boot. Sadly, my mother didn’t have time to make the flag, although she promised that it’s on for this year’s event. In the meantime, I decided not to let my Beerfest shield go to waste and I decided to create a hockey jersey in a Beerfest theme.

If you couldn’t tell by my Dible Soccer socks, I happen to have an affinity for stripes and wanted to keep the jersey simple with a few stripes though I first needed a secondary logo. I was playing with a few ideas for a secondary logo and created an intersecting B and F, though notice the B has the features of a beer stein and the F is bottomed out with a beer boot motif. I made these items out of felt that I glued together and then sewed all together and onto the blank hockey jersey I bought in a local hockey store.

When I ordered the tackle twill for the numbers and letters, I got a free trial of a CAD program that company was selling for uniforms people that coincided with a tackle twill cutter they sold. Needless to say, I only used it to create these two names (for my brother and myself). The numbers are an Algerian font with the drop shadow removed. I would love to actually purchase a software version and be able to do what Ryan Connelly does when creating his logos, since I used Microsoft Paint to create a clean version of both the logos to make stencils from.

I used ribbon for the stripes. So, put these items in place, glue it down (I used tacky glue from Michael’s) and you get this! Sadly, about a week after I finished this and was feeling all proud and original did I see a picture online of the Blackhawks in their away white sweater and realize mine looked like a cheap rip off. Oh well, I still love it and in fact my bro sported his to the Winter Classic Alumni game this past year where more than a few people were intrigued and stopped to ask about it.

Keep on creating DIYers!

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Phil here. Great job on that Michael, and thanks for sharing. You DIYers continue to amaze.

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Patches? We don’t need no stinkin’ patches…

In case you missed it the other day, the NFL delivered the special Super Bowl Patches to the respective teams. It’s a pretty bland and generic patch, which is fine (except the NFL has deemed that all participants for the foreseeable future will be wearing something exactly like this) — but look closely. The patch is more like a sticker, and it’s not going to be directly sewn onto the uniform, but will instead, be heat pressed onto it. This was suspected by a few readers the other night, and confirmed by Paul yesterday. Really?

The patch will actually look pretty good on the unis, but why not properly affix it with thread? Football is a violent sport, and we’ve seen our fair share of uniform malfunctions and assorted screw-ups, including the dreaded patches not quite staying in place before.

Isn’t this basically begging for a ton of lost, torn or slipped patches in the biggest game on the planet? Even if they’re using superglue, would it really take that much effort to sew the patches down?

I pity the E-mail inbox of one Paul Lukas the night of the Super Bowl.

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Colorize This!

Occasionally, I will be featuring wonderful, high-quality black and white photographs that are just begging to be colorized.

Last weekend featured a number of great colorizations, and there are a bunch more — lets get started.

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We begin with Kyle Stevens, who has colorized an old University of Minnesota hockey photo:

Attached are the black and white and colorized versions. I grabbed the black and white version from VintageMinnesotaHockey.com. I have no idea if the colors are right (but the maroon, gold and white seemed obvious). I went with an old-school brown for the gloves, and winged it on the suit.

This is a first-ever attempt at this. I think it went ok (but slow).

Thanks,
Kyle Stevens

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Great first attempt Kyle! Keep at it.

Next up was Ed Lam, who sent me a series of E-mails, starting with this:

Hi Phil,

I’ve been sick as a dog the last couple of days so I’ve had plenty of time indoors to colorize one of the Uni Watch photos. If I don’t get better I might have to do another.

Big fan of the blog.

Best wishes,
Ed Lam

I guess Ed was still sick, because shortly after that, I received this:

Another one. Went for golden afternoon light.

Not satisfied, this soon followed:

Sorry to fill up your inbox, but I wanted to make the last image I sent a little more dramatic.

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Great job with that, Ed.

Going off the board for the next one was Matt Williams, who wowed us last week. Matt also took on a sport we’ve yet to see colorized, lax.

Hello again,

Attached is a colorized version of a picture of a lacrosse match between Maryland and Lehigh in 1925.

I could not find any information as to which team wore which uniforms or what the colors were back then so I took the modern colors for each school and assigned them as I saw fit.

Maryland currently has Red, White, Gold, and Black so I assigned those colors to the team with the dark jerseys. There is also a picture of a Maryland player from 1924 whose uniform closely matches this set.

Lehigh has Brown and White which I assigned to the team with the white shouldered jerseys.

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Super work with that.

And of course, no “Colorize This!” would be complete without George Chilvers, who not only has some “colourisations” for us, but some good suggestions as well. Check it out:

Hi Phil

Been busy at work this week so very little from me i’m afraid.

I’ve actually been doing non-sport stuff that I’ve put on Shorpy’s site, as well as a family pic which I’m attaching for you personally to see (not for the site obviously), coz I’m quite pleased with it. I retire fairly soon and think I might make a little business out of colourising people’s family pictures.

However — I was interested in last week’s comments. I would fully endorse the view that says make sure some colour is added to everything. In my picture of Nat Lofthouse for example I added a touch of blue into the cup as it reflects skylight; the same with the windows in the Sammy Baugh picture. Leaving things in greyscale looks a bit flat.

My other work attached this week may not be what you want but I recognised another sport that has high colour, and this picture looked fine for colourising. I looked forward to a rich tapestry until I did the research and found what colours were actually carried. D’oh! However I think the end result isn’t too bad – if you like brown.

Which leads me on to a suggestion. We’ve had (American) football, baseball, (ice) hockey, and (soccer) football for colourising. Last week we had boxing and this I’ve added horse racing.

You were looking for ideas for a free-entry colourise. So here’s the challenge. How many sports can we colourise?

I also go along with the message that suggested we should look mainly (but not exclusively) for pictures outside the colour photo era. So preferably pre-1965 or so is best (but if there’s something later that’s good no problem).

Maybe you’ll think this is a rubbish idea, but my team are heading out of what you call the EPL so my brain is addled anyway. :(

Let me know what you think – best wishes

George

Of course, George wasn’t satisfied with just that, so he included another for me later on:

Hi Phil

A late one for this week, or more likely an early one for next week. :)

Saw this guy and just had to do him.

He looks meeaaannn!

George

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Terrific stuff, as always, George. And I like George’s idea — lets see if we can’t go “off the board” and colorize (or find great hi res B & W’s of) sports we haven’t yet covered. I’m thinking basketball might be good.

Finally, I was contacted by Christopher Bisbee, who has two suggestions for colorization for next time.

Phil,

Sending along 2 pictures of HHOF goalie Gump Worsley. Don’t know if the quality of either is conducive to colorizing, but I thought they were great shots.

Gump on Rangers

Gump on Canadiens

Respectfully,
Chris Bisbee

Thanks Chris. Indeed, those are great photos, but the resolution might be a tad small to make for good colorizations. Hopefully one (or more) of the colorizers will take a crack at it.

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OK, folks, lets keep the floor open for “off the board” colorizations, and lets see if we can’t find other sports to add to the library. For starters, see if any of you want to take a crack at this gorgeous shot of Wilt the Stilt as a member of the Harlem Globetrotters. Also, one that’s not quite as high a quality, but it’s still pretty good: the 1955 New York Knicks.

A long while ago, Jim Vilk sent me a ton of old books and photos, and I finally got a scanner when I got my new mac. So, the first thing I scanned was this gorgeous sketch which looks like it was done by Robert Riger. Unfortunately, I didn’t see that Jim had left some scotch tape on the clipping, so if anyone wants to colorize this, you may want to photoshop the tape out. Sorry.

As always, send your colorizations or suggestions directly to me. Please just include “colorization” somewhere in the subject line. OK? OK!

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Best of Benchies

Ricko is hankerin’ to start up Benchies again, so to get you in the mood, I thought I’d bring you a classic from a couple years ago.

With the NHL All Star Game tomorrow, the Boys are getting in the spirit with a bit of broomball. But it gets cold during those midwestern winters, ya gotta do something to keep warm, right?

Leave it to the boys to create a new hot toddy.

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Uni Tweaks

Lots and lots of tweaks keep pouring in, so obviously this is a popular feature. A bunch new to get to today. If you have a tweak, change or concept for any sport, send them my way.

Remember, if possible, try to keep your descriptions to ~50 words (give or take) per tweak. You guys have been great a keeping to that, and it’s much appreciated!

Got another set of tweaks today…so lets get right into it:

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Starting off the show is Alex Cloutier, who has two NFL tweaks for us.

Buffalo Bills First I took on my favorite team, the Bills… I tried something new with this one. We all know that the Bills current unis are some of the worst in sports, I took those terrible Mono colored unis and fixed them to the way the Bills were always meant to look.

San Diego Chargers: I thought that by adding more yellow to the Chargers would make them look more “electric”. And boy was I right…

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Next up is Chris Giorgio, who is here to introduce a new name and uniform for the future Brooklyn NBA franchise:

Hi Phil,

Here is my Uni Tweak. I’ve always thought that “Nets” was the worst name in sports, being named for a part of equipment and all. Brooklyn Knights has been rumored works as Brooklynites, BK, and just sounds cool. I have always been a fan of non-white home jerseys for basketball and with only the Lakers using them regularly, I saw a void needing to be filled. I went with a classic feel overall, colors unique to the NBA (no more blue jerseys), mixed with some Carmelo introspection.

Thanks, keep up the good work.

—
Chris Giorgio

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And last up today is Glenn Simpkins, with a redux for the Rox:

Phil,

I thought I’d take a stab at this Uni-tweaking thing, learning more about GIMP in the process, and give one of the worst dressed teams in MLB, the Colorado Rockies, a better set of road greys, replacing the purple with the better fitting “pine green.” It’s rough around the edges because of the learning process. If perfected, the tweak would have the size of the lettering knocked down a few points and use REAL radial arching, sans the character distortion.

Thanks for looking.

–Glenn Simpkins.

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Thanks to all who submitted. Back with more tweaks tomorrow.

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And with that, we’ll call this one a wrap. Great stuff everyone. Have a wonderful Saturday.

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You went full unitard. Never go full unitard. — “b-t-p-h” (Both Teams Played Hard)