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Uni Watch

A Ghost from the Past

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Reader Mark Haarmann recently visited the Rangers Hall of Fame at the Ballpark in Arlington, where he took the photo you see above. “It’s from the team’s first season in 1972,” he says. “Look closely and you can see the Senators’ script. Did they really use the same uniforms from the previous season and just rip out the old stitching?”

Yes, they did — sort of. As you can see, the lettering on that jersey is straight, not arched. According to Dressed to the Nines, the Rangers only wore that style in spring training. So they apparently used repurposed Senators jerseys for spring training and then got new jerseys, with the arched style, once the regular season started. Very nice find by Mark!

Speaking of Rangers jerseys, can you believe Texas opened the World Series last night by wearing their softball tops? Sigh.

New ESPN column today — the long-delayed NHL goalie column. Look here.

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Stop the presses! Notre Dame’s helmets, which had previously been gold, will now be, uh, gold. Only it’ll be a goldier shade of gold than the old shade of gold. And you know this new gold is better than the old gold because they’ve produced a 12-minute video clip about it. So, to review: Old gold = sucks. New gold = awesome. Carry on.

And hey, as long as we’re talking about the Irish, “Lots of rumblings out of South Bend that Notre Dame will be wearing a surprise home version of the throwbacks they wore earlier this year against Michigan,” says Jack Quinn. “The leprechaun tweeted last week that the team would be wearing green. Combine that with UM’s surprise on Saturday, I think something is afoot.”

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Uni Watch News Ticker: Another high school — Steubenville, in Ohio — has gone Amateur Pacifist. … One of the nicer uniform catalogs in my collection is this Harv-Al catalog. The “Harv” in that company name was Harvey Lipkin, a sporting goods giant. Just learned that he passed away a few weeks ago. R.I.P. … New solid-blue super-stretchies for Grand Valley State (from Forrest Page). ”¦ A small NHL note: The Stars’ team-logo helmet decal has gone from solid gold to green/gold (good catch by eagle-eyed Kevin Wang). … Scroll down about halfway down this page, to the “Football News and Notes” section, to see UCLA’s new hard-hat merit decals (from Art Kerdmanee). ”¦ Speaking of UCLA, Tom Horngren says this alternate helmet photo has been floating around on Bruins message boards. ”¦ An NCAA tidbit left over from last weekend: Colorado State wore white at home (as noted by Marc Altieri). ”¦ The NY Rangers are using an old fedora as a “victory hat” (from Alan Kreit). ”¦ Yesterday I Ticker-linked to a video of World Series patches being sewn onto the Cardinals’ jerseys. Many readers noted that the video featured a glimpse of a camouflage Michigan State hoops jersey. “They’ve got to be for the aircraft carrier game in November,” says Ben Hayden). ”¦ Job listing: Adidas is looking for a jersey specialist (if you get the gig, send a muffin basket to A.J. Frey). ”¦ Gotta love these White Sox socks (from Michael Gargano). ”¦ Do those Tooth Fairy necklaces really work? Sure, if you believe in the placebo effect (from Eric Bangeman). ”¦ A source who prefers to remain anonymous is connected to someone who’s seen the new Seahawks uniforms that Nike’s been working on. “He saw three sets with a new helmet design,” says my source. “The three colors are a darker blue than the current set, white, and gray (apparently an homage to the northwestern skies). He said the team wasn’t happy with the color of the dark uni and how it looked on the HD, so nothing is final.” ”¦ New hoops uniforms for Providence (from Michael Berluti). ”¦ The mighty Fleer Sticker Project has done a great post about a series of early-’70s NFL posters by illustrator George Bartell. ”¦ Chris Carpenter doesn’t wear long socks. Tsk (screen shot by Marc-Louis Paprzyca). … I’m spending most of the day out on Long Island with my Mom. See you tomorrow.

 
  
 
Comments (148)

    Now THAT is a gold helmet. Bravo.

    Unfortunately, you know they won’t be able to match the pants to it at all so the uniform as a whole will look worse.

    But the new gold looks like Old Gold, while the old gold doesn’t look like Old Gold. So if the new gold is actually Old Gold and the old gold isn’t Old Gold then what shade of gold is the old gold, since it isn’t Old Gold?
    /cross eyed/

    Seems in the video that the manager was saying that they experimented with different helmet colors last year to match the pants, found a match, and then decided to blow that up and match the helmet to the dome. Which, fine, fair enough. But now are they going to go back and try to find fabric that better matches the new helmet?

    That UCLA helmet looks like a customized bowling ball. Add that to their super stretchies and they’ve got to be a shoe in for the ‘&1’ any week they wear those. Or is that just the light reflecting off of it?

    Sadly I don’t think that’s light. Customized bowling ball is about right. Maybe if they were the UCLA Clouds it might work… but they’re not.

    Hmmmm… new UCLA helmets floating around… national TV audience tonight on ESPN… wonder if the two shall meet?

    Not to keep soundng like an old fart living in the past but, man, UCLA used to wear beautiful uniforms. Beautiful mixture of colors and stripes with iconic gold helmets. What the f**k happened to them…?

    I used to like the old script numbers that UCLA used to wear. Anybody know anything about them…or have pictures?

    At least the bowling ball helmet is original. Hopefully they’ll be paired with something resembling those early 1990s tie dye sublimated New Jersey Nets uniforms so everyone can get the vomiting out of the way early. Truth be told, though, I prefer this over horn-shaped stripes and piped trim all over the jersey.

    If nothing else, the helmet colors at least match the colors of their jerseys. The current navy blue UCLA logo looks really out of place — although its not as egregious as their band-aid sized UCLA shoulder stripes.

    Definitely dislike Notre Dame’s new lid. It would be like Ohio State going chrome. It does have the potential to look impressive under the lights, though.

    And WHAT is going on at UCLA? It looks like they’ve lost their… marbles. Is this link?

    I love it. Even the texture looks like a cast gold ingot. I loved the old color, too, but that didn’t match the pants either. We’ll see how this one goes.

    Sometimes I think a lot of us here are just too picky when it comes to these schools trying out new designs. I think to myself, we shouldn’t be so quick to hate. Then I see something as stupid and pointless as UCLA’s marble helmet, and it snaps me back to reality.

    also, IMO… being a total homer… i’d say the ND helmet change would be like the steelers going with a deep clear shine. kinda like the ravens have. just doesn’t look right.

    When I saw Beckett in that Phiten ad, I was really hoping to see a grease stain or at least a Bud Light in his hand..

    Hippy? That’s uncalled for. Yeah, Bill’s put on some weight, but he’s still in pretty good shape for a guy his age.

    Those George Bartell posters are masterpieces, one and all. I especially love how the complete word “Baltimore” never appears on the Colts’ picture; it is left for the viewer’s imagination to fill in.
    Additionally, of all the Texas Rangers’ scripts, and there are a bunch of good ones, the first year’s are my faves.

    I had a few of those posters in my room, too. They’re as cool looking today as they were in ’72.

    Yes, I had most of those Bartell posters hanging on my bedroom wall as well. Fine art and football uniforms, what’s better?

    And, walter, I agree with you about that first Rangers script. I thought it was the coolest thing since the Expos’.

    The first RangerS script was a tribute to the whopping ego of link They leave a taste in my mouth link to appreciate their aesthetics.

    I’m normally OK with the whole initial-terminal caps thing, but for whatever reason it doesn’t work for me with the Rangers script. It may be a serif thing; the examples I can think of that I don’t mind are mainly either sans-serif or very, very lightly serifed. Or maybe it’s that the interior letters are true lowercase, not just smallcaps.

    Plus, you know, the legendary but apparently true Robert Short business. But even without that, there’s something about the RangerS script that just doesn’t work for me even though I’m fine with, say, San DiegO.

    I love uniqueness in baseball scripts, and that first Rangers wordmark hits the spot. Then they decided to be the Dodgers, which I why I don’t mind the present TEXAS so much.

    Have they ever thrown back to their 70s unis? Talk about perfectly balanced blue/red.

    Pushbutton perfectly expresses why I like the current Rangers unis & logos. The Dodgers script was a terrible interregnum. It’s not that it was bad, but it said absolutely nothing about that team or its place. Might as well have been black stencil letters reading “BASEBALL TEAM.” One of the things I like about the original Rangers script is the battleship-style drop shadow. Seeing the Rangers so much the last two postseasons, I’ve wished they’d use drop shadow consistently and well. They way they do it on their caps is just fine, but the way they do it on their jerseys, when they do it at all, is the wrong approach. The shadow should either touch the letters, like the original script, or it should be separated with an “invisible” outline. That is, an outline the same color as the jersey or cap fabric beneath it. Having a third-color outline between the letters and the drop shadow is just awful, and pairing a drop-shadow cap logo with a regular old outline script is only barely better.

    What is the story behind the little sheriff (Ranger) star inside the script? I do not remember that.

    The Rangers would never make it in the Fedora Lounge. link

    And the Seahawks are getting new unis? I would say there is no where to go but up, but then NIke is designing them, so there is room to sink even further.

    I was friends with the late Willie Pastrano the boxer who was light heavyweight champion in the sixties. Willie’s trainer was Angelo Dundee and it was long said that Cassius Clay (Muhammed Ali) chose Angelo as his trainer because of Willie. Ali idolized Willie and emulated his hit and run away style.

    link

    Willie had lots of stories about the young amateur Clay whom they began calling “Tomorrow” because he kept wanting to get in the ring with Willie and they would tell him to come back tomorrow. He and Ali remained friends throughout Willie’s life and for some of his big fights Ali would fly Willie in.

    But the story about the Rangers jersey reminded me of a story Willie told me about when it really hit home that boxing was just a ruthless busniess that casts you aside when you’re done. He said Angelo was taping him up before a fight (might have been the Jose Torres fight in which Willie lost the championship) and he noticed on Angelo’s sweatshirt the needle marks of where another fighter’s name had previously been sewn on before Angelo replaced it with Ali’s name. Tough business…

    “…an he noticed on Angelo’s sweatshirt the needle marks of where another fighter’s name had previously been sewn on before Angelo replaced it with Ali’s name.”

    Sorry…meant to say Willie noticed where HIS name (not Ali’s) had been sewn on over where another’s boxer’s name had been. Sorry for the typo…brain fart.

    Count me as a fan of the new Notre Dame helmet. I’ll admit, it’ll be sad to see the Painting-Of-The-Lids tradition go away, but this new helmet is a tremendous improvement over their old helmets, IMO.

    LOVED the lead about the Rangers/Senators jersey!
    Great picture, it’s always great to see such absolute evidence. Reminds me of the Pilots/Brewers change-over in 1970…and how so many older major league jerseys became reused in the minor leagues.

    The Washington Senators shipped their uniforms in the late 1930s to Trenton, where a black diamond with a T on it covered up the W on the sleeve.

    Wow, those Grand Valley State unis are very… not good. Too Smurfy. I’m not a fan of mono-color, anyway, but jeez. Points for having a vibrant blue as one of your colors, but please, wear some white pants.

    Regarding Notre Dame’s new helmet paintjobs, I’m having trouble viewing the video, does it mention the kind of paint they are using? Look at an enlarged image and you’ll see it is a textured paint that allows you to paint a surface without much sanding preparation or defect repair. I’ve used this stuff before…once painted an old National resonator guitar with it.

    Remind me again and I’ll show you what the guitar looks like today…repainted and restored again after being underwater for ten days in Hurricane Katrina. Most importantly, I was able to save the original resonator, and it sounds great.

    The Seahawks aren’t happy with how they’re jerseys look in HD? Is that the new norm for jersey design; how it will look on an HDTV?

    I don’t wanna live on this planet anymore.

    Don’t forget, a design looks more like real life in HD than in SD. It’s not a bad yardstick to use.

    It’s more of the concept that the designers are more concerned about how the uniforms look on TV than how they look on players (which should be #1). The logic is that the better it looks on TV, the more people want to buy the replica jerseys, which is the number #1 yardstick designers follow.

    Also, logic would follow that the better the uniform looks IN FREAKING PERSON, the better it will look in HD, no? Are the people running this part of the show at Nike and the Seahawks really that dense?

    I just chuckled a little bit thinking about an athletic looking model running around in front of a green screen in a Nike studio while they make a ‘trailer’ of sorts to send to the Seahawks.

    I think it cuts more the other way. It seems more likely that a uniform would look good in person that wouldn’t look good in HD than one that looks good in HD and bad in person. Natural light tends to be more forgiving than a recreation on screen without post-production.

    In 2011, do we think there are more people who watch football games on television, or in person? I’m fine with taking that into consideration.

    Gotta agree with Jason here. I’ve seen the Seahawks on TV plenty of times but never live.

    I’ll actually be at the Bears/Seahawks game a couple months from now so I’ll get a chance to see how they look in person. Maybe their unis will actually look OK to me.

    But, you would never design a uniform to look bad in person just so it looks better on TV, unless you were insane, in my opinion. And, I didn’t say that a uniform can’t look good in person but bad on TV. I said that the better a uniform looks in person, the better it will look in any other type of media, which is obvious.

    HD television is about the same quality view you get from the stands (if not better), when you’re talking about fine details. When you’re talking about color, then it’s all moot because everyone’s screen depicts the color differently.

    Isn’t any uni with non-contrasting numbers (or names) designed to look better on TV than in person?

    “Maybe their unis will actually look OK to me.”

    ~~~

    ok…now we KNOW who’s gone soft

    I really hope UNC doesn’t wear camouflage jerseys as well for that game. Anyone have any details on that?

    They couldn’t both wear camo. A better question is what uniforms will Carolina wear, since the camo unis are pastels. It may end up being the dreaded BFBS, or possibly navy for navy’s sake.

    I actually think UNC will be wearing camo as well. If you look at the video, right next to the MSU jerseys is a carolina blue jersey. I bet Nike sent both jerseys to this place to add a patch and get the players last names sewn on.

    heya paul and other mets fans. question. look at the 1969 mets world series program cover. (many for sale on ebay, for ex. don’t know how to link a pic here) why is the 1969 met saying to the 1962 met “remember me? shouldn’t it be the other way around?

    “…why is the 1969 met saying to the 1962 met “remember me? shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

    I think the 1969 Mets-guy is talking to the other major league teams and probably fans too, not directly to the ’62 version of himself.

    The personification of the 1969 team, a big, strapping adult, is holding a picture of the personification of the 1962 team, a hapless little child, showing everyone else what he’s become.

    link

    From TarHeelMonthly on Twitter: RW on jerseys: “We will have a new uniform for the Carrier Classic.” Will be worn just for that game.

    It says Steubenville HS is getting the new Nike pro-combat uniforms which are innovative, more breathable and lighter, yet they are still using their old helmets.

    Since their bodies are going to be so much more streamlined, fast and lightweight, won’t having that heavy antique non-breathable clunky helmet be a huge hinderance?

    Wearing any type of heavy, rigid headgear is a huge hindrance, both to yourself and to the other players on the field. Plastic/polycarbonate helmets are the reason concussions are a problem. Look at rugby or Australian football as an example; more broken bones, but far fewer head injuries, which don’t heal.

    For Notre Dame, the pants didn’t even try to match the helmets until Holtz arrived. Prior to that they ranged from mustard to tan to khaki colored. The current pants are a little to light for my taste but I actually like there to be some contrast between the helmet and the pants

    link

    “The current pants are a little to light for my taste but I actually like there to be some contrast between the helmet and the pants”

    If there’s one school that makes the Mismatched-Golds-In-The-Helmets-And-Pants thing an art form, it’s link.

    What isn’t being talked about that REALLY bothers me and I’m not even a Notre Dame fan, is the fact that in the comments on the Facebook page with the pics of the new helmets, people are commenting that the helmet painting tradition is no longer going to be done by the students. WTF???? Like I said, I am not a Notre Dame fan but I am a fan of tradition and i feel that the helmet painting is one of the best in all of sports. I HATE how traditions seem to be falling all over the sports world. Very disturbing if this is true.

    The superior tradition is that the Notre Dame helmets are supposed to be metallic gold. The student-managers’ weekly painting of the helmets was the means to that end. That it, too, developed into a tradition is a great thing, but one must not lose sight of the superior tradition.

    Through changing circumstances (mostly the fact that the paints of the 70s and 80s are no longer available for environmental reasons, and the helmets of the 70s and 80s are no longer available for safety reasons), it has proved increasingly difficult for Notre Dame to continue to paint the helmets a consistent gold color, despite much trial and effort to do so.

    Through further trial and effort, they have come up with a system of hydrographics (including in the formula gold dust from previous gildings of the Golden Dome) that produces what they believe to be as close an approximation to the Golden Dome as possible.

    DJ, I see your point about the “superior tradition.” Metalic gold ND helmets > student managers painting them. Fair enough. Maybe some managers are happy to be relieved of the paint job. But I find myself wondering how many – if any – of them have been afforded the opportunity to train in this new process.

    I see that too, Chris. They’re even throwing student managers under the bus. To wit: “…the tradition of managers painting helmets and have a subpar helmet or alter the painting process and get a superior helmet. We felt it was more important to get the color right.
    The new paint process is not in the skill set/capabilities of student managers.”

    What I’d like to know is how many student managers WANT to be trained in the new process but were denied the opportunity. Yes, the new helmet looks better – I’ll give them that – but at what cost?!?

    The new technique is Water Transfer Printing, which cannot be done by student managers in a warehouse. See: link

    In the video, it was stated that student managers have been trained in a “refurbishing process,” so they’ll do that instead of the painting. Like DJ wrote, the current helmet materials (which provide superior player protection) led to mismatched and sub-par painting when done by the student managers.

    That Senators/Rangers uni seems almost unfathomable by today’s uni standards, with teams having several alts and going through several changes of unis in a season. But it was a whole ‘nother world in 1972.

    I recall some tidbits about the defunct California Golden Seals hockey team over the years. I remember reading somewhere that some of their jerseys were sent down to the Salt Lake City Golden Eagles farm clubs where the “Seals” lettering was removed and replaced with either the “Salt Lake City” or “Eagles” script.

    Another one I think I read in the book about the Seals called “Shorthanded”, where a player got his invite back to training camp for the upcoming season, and in the letter it reminded him to bring his jersey from the previous season.

    Yup, it was a different world.

    -Jet

    A lot of that is just economics. Prior to the 1980s – prior to the 1990s for some – baseball teams were little more than mid-sized local businesses. Think of a dry-cleaning chain that has maybe five locations, or a delivery company with a fleet of a couple dozen vans. They were doing business on about that scale, and often with very slim margins. Today, baseball teams are effectively regional franchises of a hugely profitable, privately held global corporation. Instead of Sun’s Dry Cleaning, a baseball team is Cargill.

    If relocating teams had the kind of revenue or access to capital in 1971 that they do today, the Rangers would have purchased brand-new unis for spring training instead of reusing their Senators gear. Likewise, if the Expos, shoestring as they were by MLB standards, had the same fiscal constraints teams faced in 1971, the Nats would probably still be wearing restitched pinstriped jerseys to this day!

    Maybe just too much traffic all at once, but most of the ingoalmag.com photo links are nonfunctional for me. Some just spin and never load, others give me a 505 error.

    I’d just like to note that Ray Emery took his ducks helmet and just crudely painted the chin of the mask black and threw on the Indian Head. It’s still entirely ducks colors and the Indian Head is so small it’s almost not worth the effort.

    1) The company that now paints the Notre Dame helmets is based in Oregon. You’d have to fly the student-managers out there for training.

    2) It’s not as simple as applying spray paint, so that training will be lengthy:

    link

    3) Considering their academic workload, and their non-helmet painting managerial duties, I doubt the student-managers would want to add the extra work.

    Ah OK, DJ, I can now see how hydrographics training would be too much on a student-manager’s plate. The logistics make it impractical and there’s better uses for a manager’s time. I do appreciate your reply – thank you.

    Whats with all these surprise jerseys? I Think ’11 will go down as the most un-uniform uniform season in NCAAF.

    Teams who have (or will) worn uniforms outside of their regular sets:
    Mich (twice)
    ND (maybe twice [just new helmet doesn’t count])
    Maryland
    Stanford
    an OSU
    THE Ohio University
    LSU
    Oregon (pro combat game, technically)
    Army
    Navy
    Air Force
    Michigan State
    Georgia
    Boise State
    Marshall
    Possibly Northwestern
    Probably missing a few

    I’m going to say no, because thats just editing the normal set (IU BrEaST cancer ever unis, Northwestern Flag’N). In my book, which may mean nothing, I need a major overhaul in a design of the jersey and probably helmet.

    Can’t say I agree with the constant hate of what you call “softball tops.” Whats wrong with them? Its a nice change from constant games of white-vs-gray all the time.

    As a White Sox fan, I love my team’s softball top. Now, that could be because the Sox wear their black softball top for the majority of home and road games, but I think there’s nothing wrong with using a softball top that often if it’s that good.

    On the flip side, the cubs should ritualistically burn their blue softball top and never speak of it again. It’s so damn ugly.

    I think the White Sox wear the black alternate top way too often, and after 19 years of the same basic design, it’s redundant. My issues are the sleeve trim is overly thick and unnecessary; the double outline trim of black & silver on white is excessive – especially for the NOB. And I don’t know if it’s the material, but there seems to be a light sheen in the sunlight that makes the jersey come off as “near black” as opposed to “jet/matte black”.

    I’d prefer (if they absolutely must have an alternate) would go back to the single script-trim / no sleeve stripes like the original 1991-only version (but with black buttons):
    link

    I’m with concealed here, Tim. Sleeve trim is too much, outlines are unnecessary, and they wear it entirely too often.

    Sleeve trim is OK. It could be thinner, but I think it’s better with trim than without.

    The double outline is OK on the chest logo and the numbers but the NOB looks like complete garbage, especially on someone like Carlos Quentin. You can barely tell that the first letter of his name is Q.

    For some reason, sleeve trim & placket piping on alternates bugs the hell out of me. It just never looks right especially on a button-up.

    I don’t remember the White Sox alternate’s NOB silver interior trim being so thick that they didn’t cut out a sliver to show some black; especially on the Q’s, U’s and O’s:

    link

    With longer names like Lillibridge even in a condensed font, things get crowded in a hurry. It just looks clunky. Single or no trim I think would look better.

    As for the Sox and their modern faux-backs & color scheme, the current set is my least favorite of the double-knit era. I wish they would do retro Sundays again.

    Love them or hate them, with the absence of any stirrup or sock showing on the vast majority of players, they do bring some color to the game.

    I’m sure many here would say, “Well then, bring back stirrups.” Not that simple. Except for the occasional team mandating a sock/pants standard, that’s an area that’s been an individual style decision since at least the early 1960s.

    Given that reality, the colored tops aren’t bad. Some looks are wildly better than others…but what uni element doesn’t always have that factor from team to team.

    Does bug me when BOTH team wear them, though.

    Gotta disagree on one minor point: Socks/stirrups really is “that simple.” Teams can mandate that their players wear their actual team uniforms, and teams should do so. But since they’re not doing so, and since I can’t think of a single objective argument against softball tops that would not equally apply to, say, pinstripes, I think the key point is that softball tops need to be done better. For the most part, taking your regular home or road jersey, changing the base color to red or blue, and then slapping a white version of your regular jersey script on there isn’t good enough. (Exception perhaps for teams with only two colors. The Reds red alt is one of the great jerseys in recent memory for me, even though it’s basically just a red/white inversion.)

    For me, the problem with, say, the Rangers’ outfit last night wasn’t so much that they wore a softball top, but that the softball top they wore was badly designed. (I still say Game One is a Sunday-best kind of situation where you wear your road grays. Save the color alts for Game Two, Four, or any subsequent game in which you are not mathematically eligible to win the championship by winning the game.) The script is too different in style from the treatment of the cap logo, and the whole thing just doesn’t integrate well with the rest of the team’s uni elements.

    Plus, and this really bothers me about pretty much everyone in the league, the pants are always designed to work with a white or gray jersey, most often with identical colors and patterns of piping. If you’re going to change the colors or pattern of the piping on the shirt, then more often than not the pants will need adjustment too.

    Zactly. Some of ’em look pretty bad.

    Love the A’s cheddar, though (for example).

    Pirates in cheddar at home wouldn’t be bad once in a while. A nod to one of the bumblebee combinations.

    And, while some still long for the ball and glove, I think the Brewers’ navy jersey at home makes for an elegant baseball uni (y’know, in that context).

    I love the Rangers. But I almost cried when I saw CJ take the mound wearing blue. *sigh* Not in the World Series…

    I don’t mind alternate uniforms, but there should be some rhyme or reason to when they are worn. First off, softball tops NEVER appear in the playoffs. You know Texas wore four different jerseys to beat the Rays?

    Again, there should be a standard. Take the Mets for instance, at home: white jerseys except friday games (alternate) and sunday games (pinstripes). Road grays and sometimes alternates on the road. And again, softball tops disappear in the the playoffs.

    Paul raised a good point a few months ago when he was at a Mets doubleheader. You’ve just paid good money to go see your team play. Maybe you’re taking your 7 year old son to his first game, you know the Mets uniform and then they come out in black tops and black hats. Garbage. In a day and age where we root for laudry, crap, I wouldn’t root for that laundry.

    And granted, it was a double header and they played the second game in their alts, first game I would guess in either home whites or pins. Some leeway could be said for 2nd games of double headers.

    Nobody asked, but the softball top requires full-’70s drag, meaning white pants with a stretchy waistband and the full socks-and-stirrups gear. A dark top looks wrong with grey pants, wrong with pinstripes, wrong with a leather belt.

    I don’t get it, either. I have no problems with them in general. I like the “softball top” look way better than the monochrome look.

    Only thing I hate is that teams wear them waaay too much. Wish there was a rule where teams have on designated home alt and one designated road alt. Then have a limit on how many times each one can be worn in a season.

    It’s not baseball tradition to be wearing colored jerseys with white or gray pants. It just looks wrong. Sort of like an NBA team wearing, say, a blue top over white shorts. Now, if the Rangers want to wear blue jerseys, I say go all out and also wear blue pants. THAT would at least be somewhat more akin in keeping with baseball tradition.

    True, it isn’t traditional, but it is recent history.
    Color tops with lighter pants were commonplace in the 70’s and into the 80s, and again for the past decade or so.

    As I said, absent the colorful stirrups that helped make teams recognizable until this new century, I’ll take the dark tops, just for the color they add. Not because I love them, but because they seem about the only option. Mono color would be a swing TOO far the other way.

    Just don’t need royal vs. black, or red vs. royal or….whatever.

    I mean the color tops once in a while, not every frickin’ game.
    (Thought I’d best be clear on that).

    Good point about the socks. Going back to the discussion about the Sox black tops, Juan Pierre makes (made?) that jersey look good. Jim Thome looked good. Joe Crede looked good…

    Mark Buehrle? No. AJ Pierzynski? No. Alex Rios?

    You get the point.

    Well, the broncos said a few weeks back that they aren’t changing anything other than moving orange as the new ‘home’ jersey, so I doubt this is real. Probably just a prototype, but who knows these days…

    I don’t know… I’m a Denver fan, and I’m fine with the return to orange jerseys. But that helmet I’m not sure I like. Maybe it would grow on me, but I doubt it. It reminds me of the helmet for Bowling Green. Sorry, but when I look at my NFL team, I don’t want the first thing that pops in my mind to be a crappy MAC school. The Broncos are crappy enough as it is, thanks.

    In the half-century plus of the Broncos, they wore orange helmets for only six seasons (’62-’66), so it’s a bit hard to believe there’s some deep desire to return to them.

    But these days, who knows. Our collective short attention span seems to be getting even shorter. I figure we’re about five years away from uni changes at halftime. Y’know, to keep everyone (players, fans) from getting bored with nothing to watch but the game.

    That picture has been floating around for a while, I know I’ve seen it before. That being said, I wouldn’t be opposed to it.

    Didn’t watch the pregame last night, but saw two odd things in the opening of OTL on ESPN just now:

    1. It looked like any Texas player with something on over his jersey in pre-game introductions was wearing bright pink. I assume it’s October-related, but still stood out (not in a good way).

    2. While most of the Texas players were wearing the sweatshirts, a brief scan of the St. Louis pre-game introduction line showed all players in game-ready uniform and nothing else. It seemed to me to either a) be a sign of professionalism and respect for the game, or b) a “cold weather? What cold weather?” kind of statement. I hate the Cardinals, but I respect the move, no matter the meaning behind it.

    While we’re arguing about softball tops and pant length, baseball style is being eaten from the inside by the sweatshirts everybody seems to be wearing.

    Hoodies look terrible on-field!

    They’re casual clothing, not part of a uniform – and this is coming from someone who has an emotional attachment to his hoodie. I blame Belicheck, but somebody at MLB needs to put their foot down.

    This is a photo gallery from late September for the Marlins new ballpark. Of interest: A new “M” being placed (not much indication on color), and pictures of the framing for the “home run feature” (image #10). It looks like it’s going to be … large. I don’t know how close the final design will match up to the original concept drawings, but it does appear the general shape seems to be carrying over.

    link

    That home run … thing:

    link

    That is just, beyond tacky. I’d rather they contract the Marlins. That is the worst thing I have ever seen in a ballpark.

    We talked about that last week, I think, and your point is well-taken.

    However, in being so unflinchingly tacky is it practically perfect for a city that is now symbolized by the self-determined coolness of South Beach. All shine, no substance, and will change with every new trend and claim the new trend was all their idea.

    So put on your Horatio Caine mirror shades (dramatically, of course, right before the commercial break) and watch the Marlins slot machine home run festival light up Biscayne Blvd.

    I just watched all of that ND video. Very interesting and detailed. Rather long but I sure explained a lot.

    Seems like a lot of locker rooms have helmets from other teams. I noticed some Big Ten helmets in that clip.

    I’m surprised nobody made reference to it, but the helmets appear to take on the same hammered look. Cool

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