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Uni Watch

Small Child Destined to Be First North Korean Executed by Kim Jong-un

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The video you segment see above was taken from TV coverage of yesterday’s Kim Jong-il funeral in North Korea. It features a lot of what you’ve probably already seen on the news — people crying, people marching, more crying, etc. But if you skip ahead to the 6:47 mark, you’ll see something truly remarkable. It only appears for a moment, but I’ve made these two screen shots:

Screen shot 2011-12-28 at 10.13.43 PM.png

That’s right — a North Korean woman (wearing a pretty sharp uniform, it’s worth noting) dressed her little boy in a Yankees hat for the funeral. (Update: It’s now been brought to my attention that there’s a much better view of the boy and his hat at the 5:04 mark of the video.)

This is the second time in a little over two months that Yankees headwear has intersected with the demise of a dictator. Back on Oct. 20, Moammar Gadhafi was captured by a guy wearing a Yankees baseball cap. But seeing a Bronx Bombers chapeau in Libya is one thing; seeing one in North fucking Korea — the most God-forsaken place on Earth, where virtually any trace of Western culture (to say nothing of American League East culture) is anathema — must surely qualify as one of the least likely uni sightings in history. I’d think it must also qualify as an act of high treason, especially when worn during the Dear Leader’s funeral procession. Compounding matters, Chan Ho Park pitched for the Yanks in 2010 — and he’s South Korean.

This shows yet again the extraordinary reach of the Yankees, whose brand seems able to penetrate even the most remote corners of the globe. Hell, equip a few Yanks caps with embedded microchips, drop them over Pyongyang, and we’ll probably have all the intelligence we need by the time pitchers and catchers are due to report.

Then again, maybe the Yankees cap wasn’t so unusual after all, because there was another iconic totem of Western culture on display at the funeral. As you may have heard, the vehicles of choice for the procession were mid-’70s Lincolns. Maybe next time they can get one of these.

(Special thanks to eagle-eyed Scott Szymendera, who spotted the Yankees hat in the funeral video.)

+ + + + +

Screen shot 2011-12-28 at 11.27.08 PM.png

Research query: Franklin & Marshall is the name of a small college in Pennsylvania. It’s also the name of a popular European sportswear line, founded by two Italian guys who found one of the college’s sweatshirts in a London thrift shop. They didn’t even know that the sweatshirt was for a college — they just liked the logo. A decade later, their clothing is trendy all over the continent.

I’d never heard about any of this until yesterday, when my ESPN boss, Lynn Hoppes, sent me this article, which spells out the full story. It’s a pretty fascinating tale.

Do any of you know about the Franklin & Marshall phenomenon? Do any of you have any of their clothing? I’m sort of picturing it as a Euro version of Abercrombie & Fitch, but what do I know. If you can clue me in, please do.

+ + + + +

Uni Watch News Ticker: Here’s a better look at Oregon’s Rose Bowl helmet. I think I liked it better when I couldn’t make out all the details. … And here’s an article about the company that makes the helmets (from Mike McLaughlin). … “Brett Connolly of the Lightning is on loan to Team Canada, but it appears the equipment guys screwed up his NOB for the Finland game on Dec. 26 by skipping an L,” says Teebz. “The weird part is that Connolly played in all three pre-tournament games with no misspellings.” … British troops don’t like their new combat fatigues, in part because they look “too American” (from Jeremy Brahm). … This is pretty good: a “Dressed to the Nines”-style breakdown of Batman costumes through the years (great find by Kyle Allebach). … Ross Clites has ranked something we don’t often see assessments of: the best pants in the NHL. … Toledo wore a completely illegible stars/stripes helmet logo in last night’s Military Bowl, while Air Force went with the very nice stars/stripes lightning bolt we’ve seen before. ”¦ Yesterday I Ticker-linked to this Kellogg’s poster about the evolution of the baseball uni. Turns out they also made one on the evolution of the cap, a copy of which is in Alex Shuman’s collection. ”¦ A Manchester City fan has made her wedding dress out of old jerseys (from Joe Hollomon). ”¦ Texas A&M and Northwestern, getting set to face off in the Car Care Bowl, will both wear a memorial decal for Aggies lineman Joey Villavisencio, who died in a car wreck on Thursday (from Glenn Stern). ”¦ Yesterday’s post about the 2012 prexydential candidates in uniform prompted Matt Fedorka to send along these shots of John Kerry in a hockey uni and a young John Edwards as a Clemson football player. ”¦ Is Sporting KC getting a jersey sponsor? At least one writer thinks so (from Ben Traxel). ”¦ “The Nike Team Uniform Builder has an area where you can buy crazy helmet designs — not through them, but through other companies,” says Terry Duroncelet. “Quote from the top of the page: ‘Nike does not manufacture or sell helmets or graphic films. Shown on niketeam.com for display purposes only, pricing and availability of helmet graphics is solely the discretion of helmet graphic providers. Available through non-Nike companies.'” ”¦ Although I haven’t been able to find a close-up photo, it appears that the “Mr. D” memorial for Bill Davidson is no longer on the Pistons’ back collar (good spot by Jay Winkler). ”¦ Here are Notre Dame’s cleats for whatever silly-named bowl game they’re playing in. I like them — a lot (from Warren Junium). ”¦ New swimsuit designs are being tested for the Olympics (Jeremy Brahm again). ”¦ New article on rugby kits here (from Caleb Borchers). ”¦ The NFL’s changeover from Reebok to Nike may soon result in some jersey shortages (from Tom Sullivan). … Really interesting little video clip about Viktor Stalberg suffering a cut in his skate (from Tim E. O’Brien):

 
  
 
Comments (143)

    Americans and their ignorance about the rest of the world. keep doing sports, that’s what you know.

    How is anything Paul wrote demonstrating ignorance of the rest of the world? The Kim Jong-Un headline was clearly a joke. The point he made about seeing something iconic from western culture in such an isolated place as North Korea was spot-on. The Franklin & Marshall info isn’t surprising–there’s nothing “ignorant” about not being particularly informed or interested in fashion trends half a world away. Is there anything else in particular that caused you to write such a comment?

    The rest of the world and their ignorance about Americans. Keep doing “rude.” That’s obviously what you know.

    The rest of the world and their ignorance about Americans.

    So true. Living in Europe a few years back, I used to encounter quite frequently condescension based on the assumption that Americans know bupkis about the rest of the world. Which is true as far as it goes – most Americans get their news from TV, and the one iron law of broadcasting is that every minute spent watching news on TV makes a person stupider. When encountering this attitude, I’d often steer the conversation to current events related to North or South America or Asia, and lo and behold it would usually turn out that the Europeans knew bupkis about anything other than Europe. And fair enough, Europeans live in Europe, so that’s what they should focus their attention on.

    But an American in New York who knows about ballot initiatives in Arizona or budget crises in California but not about the fragile coalition government in Belgium is not actually any more ignorant of the world than a European in Italy who knows about German state elections and British austerity protests but not about petition drives in Wisconsin.

    Also, living in Europe back then, Yankees caps were everywhere. At the big rallies in Amsterdam against the Iraq invasion during Feb and March of 2003, you’d see crowds of 100,000 young people all wearing camo pants and Yankees caps throwing rocks at the American consulate and chanting “Yankee go home.” Violent peace protesters chanting anti-American slogans while wearing American army surplus and Yankees caps. It’s the darnedest thing how the Yankees cap has become so ubiquitous. In Holland, my bike mechanic was a ballcap-obsessed guy – pride of his collection was a graphite Blue Jays cap – and he thought that the Yankees cap exploded as a fashion statement immediately after 9/11. Don’t know if that’s true, but it sort of fits the timeline of my own experience visiting Europe before and after 2001.

    you’d see crowds of 100,000 young people all wearing camo pants and Yankees caps throwing rocks at the American consulate and chanting “Yankee go home.”

    and

    Violent peace protesters

    ~~~

    such delicious irony and scrumptuous oxymoron in one single post

    I guess making cars is something we do too. It should be noted that Kim Jung Il’s last ride was in a Lincoln Continental!

    “You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.” Surely, the official line is that, thanks to the spirit of Juche, Great Leader Kim personally designed the Lincoln Contenental, which was then built by noble and free North Korean workers, and then the design stolen by Americans and cheap knock-offs built for American bourgeois exploiters in the capitalist slave factories of Michigan. You can tell the North Korean models are the superior originals because they’re still running 40 years later, while Americans are forced to replace their inferior cars after just a few years.

    I remember hearing Gary Bettman interview John Kerry a few years ago, where there were talking about his participation in the Congressional Hockey League.

    link

    Oregon’s helmets are way too shiny. Ugh. They might look good on a shelf in someone’s den, but they are gonna look like crap on the field. They should have done either a shiny wing on a matte helmet or a matte wing on a shiny helmet. Making the whole helmet shiny is a fail.

    “Oregon’s helmets are way too shiny. Ugh. They might look good on a shelf in someone’s den, but they are gonna look like crap on the field. They should have done either a shiny wing on a matte helmet or a matte wing on a shiny helmet.”

    ~~~

    (fixed)

    That kid is likely to be one of Kim Jong Il’s great-grandsons. The caption states that the woman is Jang Eun Hwa who is his granddaughter.

    Seeing that the jerseys used in the Kellogg’s poster came from the Barry Halper collection casts a shadow of doubt over at least some of the older examples.

    A couple I know with initials F&M just got engaged over Christmas and was looking for F&M hats to give them. I wasn’t expecting to see all the Franklin & Marshall sportswear instead of just the college. Thanks for enlightening me.

    I’m still trying to figure out why anyone would think they SHOULD look like disco balls.

    Or golf balls, for that matter.

    The same people who think shoes should look like Skittles.

    Thanks to technology, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD.

    Before reading any of the comments, I watched the video and at the 5:04 mark it also shows up. This is so awesome.

    That’s my plan.

    I swear I’m pretty much cursed with getting t-shirts/jerseys of cult players who don’t last long, but my last Pats jersey was recently extended Jerod Mayo, so who knows.

    /wearing a Josh Reddick shirsey to work today

    What’s really messed up is that they retail their College Jerseys for about $60, which means keeping the price at $85 would still mean they are making more money.

    Hopefully the $100 price tag will be for their version of the Reebok Premier Jersey (logos and numbers are somewhere between tackle twill and screen printed). The Nike site has those retailing for $75, and you can really only get the replicas (with screen printed numbers) from each individual school’s site. They’d still be too much but at least there would be an upgrade of sorts with that price increase.

    Here’s a page showing off the nike jerseys I’m talking about:
    link

    I remember when I got my first jersey ($40), I thought the hike to $65 was bad, then out of nowhere they up it to $85. I’m glad Academy Sports was having a black friday sale where I was able to get a Woodson jersey for $30.

    Cripes! The cheapest NFL jersey will go from $75 to a $100 Nike jersey?! Ridiculous! Not that I would buy any Nike product (long-time personal vendetta before this site even existed) but that’s just ridiculous. No amount of technology can justify that much of a mark-up. What ever happened to gradual price increases? Everything from Netflix to tolls to food seems to really jump. Where is the sanity & restraint?

    Glad I’m not an NFL jersey collector. I’ll stick to vintage thrifty gear & cheaper sweat/shirts. $250 for a shirt. Blasphemy. Absurd.

    Just buy a $50 knockoff on ebay…

    /Let’s increase prices by $25 for absolutely no reason and then wonder why people buy “counterfeit” jerseys… derp

    I guess that depends on exactly what you want. If you want something relatively unique or obscure, DIY. If you just want a #15 Broncos jersey with a “JESUS” NOB, let someone else DIFY (do it for you) and buy the fake.

    “If you just want a #15 Broncos jersey with a “JESUS” NOB…”

    ~~~

    and who wouldn’t want that?

    I’d rather make a DIY (I have the know how in graphics resources to do it) than buy a most-likely foreign made counterfeit jersey (which are almost always poor in quality & incorrect anyway; plus outrageous shipping costs). It doesn’t help the American economy, either.

    Having the *real* thing brand new isn’t fun or practical anymore – it’s been ruined by trends, mass marketing, the leagues themselves & lazy/sloppy/crappy merchandise practices. But people will still buy it by the boatload because they’re fiscally irresponsible.

    Fiscal responsibility is bad for the economy.

    /I wish that was a joke. Now that most of the stuff we buy is imported, our economy really is based on the majority of people buying shit they don’t actually need.

    Who are you to judge what is “responsible” in terms of an individual’s spending? You don’t control their bank account. The way I look at it, the NFL probably won’t be around in 100 years, so stop with your “save the planet” BS. If someone wants to spend their own money, let them. Worry about your own bank account.

    “our economy really is based on the majority of people buying shit they don’t actually need.”

    Like an 85″ 3D TV with a surround sound system for their 300 sq. ft. efficiency apartment.

    And something that will vacuum while they’re out because, well, vacuuming is a lot like, I dunno, work.

    (Not zinging you at all, The. Agreeing with you, and just thinking about some of the things we apparently can’t live without.)

    Like an 85″ 3D TV with a surround sound system for their 300 sq. ft. efficiency apartment.

    I don’t know, I think if I lived in a 300 sq. ft. efficiency apartment I’d need the escape from reality that an 85″ 3D TV might provide.

    As it is I live in a decent-sized house, so I can get by with only a 46″.

    I live in a 1300 sq ft house and have a 37 inch that has really nice picture quality. It actually look pretty big in my living room, but I do go “man that tv is huge and awesome” every time I walk into an electronics section. Then I realize my budget won’t allow it. This is why I’m a fan of the shirsey. Cheaper option, you can still support the team and also wear it as a normal t-shirt.

    @ Paul – lol, awful. So true, tho.

    @ Jeff – I’ve said the same thing, but overspending at Target or on a big house you don’t need mortgage & going into deep debt doesn’t really do any good – the last stimulus proved that.

    There has be a good balance between saving, loans, debt and spending. Don’t spend more than you take in – simple – but not always possible, but it’s one government should ALWAYS abide by. We also need to be better & smarter shoppers in this country, but that takes a lot of effort and I’m sure most of us just don’t care if something is from China or not anymore.

    I also think people in general today are a bunch of entitled spoiled rotten chronic whiners who think they deserve a better standard of life with every passing year (and technology is only making those expectations worse), but that’s another topic for another day (and yes, I am worse off than I was years ago but I deal with it).

    @ – Mr. Boojangly

    It is fiscally irresponsible to spend $250 on a t-shirt. It fiscally irresponsible for city employees to spend taxpayer dollars on frivolous fancy lunches & travel. It fiscally irresponsible for the Government or military to be paying $600 or whatever it does for things like haircuts or toilet seats or outrageous mark-up on goods & services.

    I don’t know what angle you’re coming from, but I’m not some damn hippie who wants to save the planet nor am I one to say we should make talking on our cell phones illegal while driving – but I DO say we should use some common sense & put the god damn phone down & DRIVE. You’re not one of those cell phone driving yapper folk, are ya? Anybody can say whatever they want & overspend on all the stupid shit they want since it’s a free country, just don’t expect a bailout when you can’t pay your bills due to fiscally irresponsible and poor choices. I know deprivement is a bitch, but people spending beyond their means is what got us into this mess today with the banks who enabled it. So yeah, I think we SHOULD all be worried about the economy in the United States.

    Somebody’s gotta pay for the rights fee that Nike gave the NFL, and they want to make sure that it’s not them.

    I got the same sour taste in my mouth reading the ESPN history about how the WWL jacked up subscriber fees when they got the NFL for the first time.

    Glad to see somebody with an eye for detail regarding hockey breezers; I always thought them overlooked. As a youth (mid-1970s) I worried they never matched the sweaters or stockings (three different materials) and always came with a crinkly white stripe which attracted shmutz. It looked as if it fell upon each team to accessorize said stripe with a line of the teams’ third color. So, I admired the teams that went outside the box: Los Angeles, Vancouver, Pittsburgh, The Rangers, and Washington. I especially liked Minnesota’s black breezers with the yellow+green stars. The ’90s were a Dark Age, when most teams went solid black. So what are your favorites?

    -Walter

    In response to Reebok changing over to Nike and having a shortage of merchandise:

    This hits home because during the winter months I work for a local sporting goods store in Wisconsin. I have been having this conversation with customers for over a month. When customers are debating on if they should buy a jersey, I explain to them we won’t be getting more jerseys in, and that next year Nike will be raising the prices.

    In worse news, the company I work for is just a small local company. Not a chain. Just one location. My boss said that on December 15th, he was informed by the regional Nike rep. that they will not be offering us the licensing for jerseys next year. They will only be giving the licensing out to major chains. My boss has been selling authentic replica uniforms since they came out, and he is really heartbroken that he wont be able to sell them until Nike changes their mind. We will be able to sell sideline gear, and the hats by New Era, but no jerseys.

    Ever get the feeling that the mothers of every designer at Nike (most of the big suppliers, actually, but especially Nike) hung everything they ever drew on the refrigerator?

    “Of course it’s good. It was us who did it, wasn’t it?”

    I guess there are two things for sure you can’t do in North Korea…
    1. Get on the Internet
    2. Buy Nike stuff

    These, of course, are regarded worldwide as the number one and number two ways to identify a truly isolated nation.

    Ricko, I don’t understand your argument. “Designers”? At Nike? There are no designers at Nike. Nike doesn’t do design. Design is a discipline in which function drives form to meet client needs. Nike hasn’t done anything even remotely resembling design for at least 20 years. What Nike does is a combination of art – form precedes function – and merchandising – Nike brand extension always trumps client needs. The people at Nike who think up stuff are, therefore, not designers. They are artists and merchandisers. Nothing wrong with that, but what they’re doing ain’t design, so they’re not designers.

    [Not really quibbling with you, Ricko, just with Nike’s pretense to be engaged in “design,” which it is not.]

    Can’t quibble with you.

    But, designers or artists, their moms still hung everything on the fridge, I’ll bet. :)

    Did anyone notice the awesome hockey gloves John Kerry was wearing in that picture? Stars and Stripes, that’s awesome!!
    Tell me someone knows what brand and where I could get them. Please

    I’m hugely disappointed in your choice of headline for this blog entry, Paul. I found it to be tasteless and completely insensitive. The North Korean regime executes people on a daily basis. To insinuate that a child will be executed for wearing a cap is in garishly bad taste. This is a sad day for the loyal fans of this blog like myself.

    Let me get this straight.

    Humor, exaggeration and facetiousness no longer are viable tools to use in pointing out how out of whack something is?

    Extending that reasoning, all editorial cartoons (no matter their subject) and all satires are tasteless and insensitive simply because they exist.

    Because the respectful way to recognize tyranny is never to speak of it. Shhhh! If we remain silent long enough, oppression will cease.

    As a matter of fact, to insinuate that a child might be executed for wearing the wrong cap is more or less true. Certainly not this child and this cap, but even a glancing familiarity with the history of China’s Cultural Revolution, or Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge nightmare, or even the actions of the North Korean state, would confirm that aesthetic violations can and do get people killed in this type of regime. And as Vaclav Havel, among others, pointed out in the struggle against similar regimes in Europe, tyranny relies on fear and an acceptance of absurdity as a normal condition. To point out an absurdity, even a horrible one, and to joke about it, breaks the reign of fear and undermines the tyrant. A regime like North Korea’s is ridiculous. Ridicule, then, is precisely the appropriate response to it. Kudos to Paul from this loyal fan of the blog.

    “…tyranny relies on fear and an acceptance of absurdity as a normal condition.”

    So we can count the Music Industry as a third form of Totalitarianism?

    Given what a New York Yankees cap represents to a large part of the world, and given that what a New York Yankees cap represents to a large part of the world is anathema to much of the foundation of the nation of North Korea and its society, making the statement is not out of line.

    Either the Yankees or the Royals, I figure.

    The Yankees makes sense, but the Royals are like North Korea as a whole. The owner makes lots of money because he pays his workers nothing, gives them no hope every year, and no one else wants to help them out of fear that the entire system may set off a catastrophic event.

    I was going to use Pittsburgh as the example, but the Pirates actually saw improvement last year by spending money on baseball players. LOL

    Also, speaking of North Korea and Nike, I remember Diane Sawyer did a piece a few years ago when she went into North Korea and did whatever journalists can do in North Korea. She met a woman farming, and she was wearing a Nike hat, thinking that Nike was a Chinese brand.

    I think American products have a wider range than any of us anticipate. Just like with the Yankee’s caps.

    I always find it interesting to see a logo or American team name on jersey in places you would never expect them. It does not happen often. So the Yankee hat today was a good find.

    Anybody else find themselves sometimes loving AND hating this blog? And Paul, don’t take that as any slight at you. I love your work, else I wouldn’t come here every day. The love/hate thing is mostly said in jest. It’s just, sometimes I’m up for the political discussions that spawn out of that day’s entry, and some days… I just want no part of it. I got suckered into one a few months back and vowed to take a break from commenting on anyting political. As it stands, I don’t post too much anyway, but I’m always reading. FWIW, I find nothing wrong with today’s headline or that you didn’t know about Franklin & Marshall (I didn’t either).

    As far as Nike and their latest exploits go, does anybody else get the feeling that they are becoming too powerful in the sports world (if they weren’t already)? Companies already take their design cues from them. I really hope that the fans reject the price increases they plan. If they know you’ll pay it, they’ll be happy to take an extra 25 bucks from you. The ol’ “vote with your wallet” phrase comes to mind.

    I don’t think there’s anything particularly political about today’s post. It’s about a team logo in an unlikely place, which is a Uni Watch 101 (well, maybe 201).

    This site attracts over 10,000 visitors daily. The vast, vast majority of them don’t read the comments, and less than 1% of them actually *participate* in the comments. While I generally enjoy and appreciate the discussions that ensue, they’re not representative of the readership — or the blog — as a whole. Okay, so one guy who lacks the gene for irony got bent out of shape by today’s headline. Big deal.

    If you love/hate the comments, well, that’s up to you. But the blog’s content is rarely driven by them. If you simply ignore the comments, I think you’ll find the site to be a very different experience (maybe better, maybe worse — YMMV, etc.).

    I don’t think there was anything political in your post, either. Usually it’s a troll or two that stirs things up. Like I said, my post was mostly in jest. Sometimes I enjoy reading the political banter, but then there are days when you just want to shake your head over a seemingly innocent comment being taken the wrong way. This cold I have is probably giving me a low tolerance today for idiocy. Oh well.

    I don’t know if this has come up here before, but some friends and I were talking about it when Oregon released their bowl threads….

    One friend mentioned that it seems that Oregon doesn’t always wear yellow and green (or whatever the official colors might be) and someone else said “I wonder if Phil Knight could get the school colors changed if he wanted.”

    My answer: yes

    Yellow definitely seems to be disappearing from their uniforms. The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if just the name “yellow” is enough to make them phase it out. To me, their original “green and yellow” was a great, unique color combination. I don’t know when it was (maybe 2010), but they had a throwback look that was beautiful, in my eyes. I guess the color is just not cool with the kids though. Not when you can use dark forest green and highlight it with black, or grey, or silver, or whatever other neutral color they can think of.

    I said that yesterday. Or was thinking it. Don’t you think Oregon could do all these changes and use green and yellow instead of neutral colors. Was emerald green a school color?

    Doesn’t emerald green have a bluish tint? When I think of the Oregon of old, I sort of picture “John Deere” colors. And joking aside, that was their colors, and it was unique.

    Ok I actually did a search, and link of the throwback from last year that I really liked. THOSE are the colors Oregon should use. But I’m not a fan, alum, or let’s be honest, an 18 year old, so they don’t care what I think.

    I agree. Surely nike can use those colors and do all the uniforms they want using the colors.

    The Rose Bowl unis would look better using that green.

    Like this…
    link
    Or this…
    link
    Or even this…
    link
    Or this…
    link

    Gotta admit, that last set is one my uni guilty pleasures. At the time, generally unique and innovative, and totally true to the school’s colors.

    I mean the years when they had a forest set, a yellow set and a white set…and only one helmet. Before they added black.

    mike did a fantastic look back at some of oregon’s older unis and in that post, i chronicled every civil war from 1994…

    check it out

    yes, for a long time, oregon actually wore school colors…then somewhere along the way, dark green begat black…and well…the rest is history

    Would Oregon ever ditch the yellow on their track uniforms? I hope not — there’s something to wearing the same colors as Nike talisman Steve Prefontaine (as well as all the other great track stars that went to UO).

    Oregon already has ditched the yellow on the track uniforms. Like the football team, the track squad has several options for its uniforms, including a black uniform: link

    There is a yellow uni with a huge “O” on front: link

    Also, a yellow uni with a tiny “O” on the shoulder: link

    I think both have a green stripe from armpit to hip with “oregon” or “ducks” written in yellow.

    The classic yellow track singlet is still sold at the campus bookstore: link

    Joey Villavisencio was from my hometown, Jacksonville, TX. That’s a very nice decal and very classy move by N’western to wear them too. Thanks for posting the link here, Paul. RIP #67. Gig ’em Ags!

    Bill Simmons published a hilarious mailbag entry comparing Kim Jong Il to Hank Steinbrenner. They both ascended to power after the deaths of their still-revered fathers, they’re both a little pudgy, they both have a ton of money lying around, and they both enjoy Marlboros and Jennifer Love Hewitt. I’m a Yankee fan, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.

    The Franklin & Marshall thing reminds me of the story of Cecil McBee, an accomplished jazz bassist who is pretty much unknown outside of serious jazz circles whose name was appropriated by a Japanese clothing boutique. Cecil discovered this during a tour of Japan and was not amused: link

    That is too funny! I happen to like Cecil McBee a lot, he most notably appears on the 1964 Wayne Shorter CD Et Cetera, on Blue Note Records. Thanks for sharing!

    Actually I learned about WSU crimson.

    69W at Nike is the color we chose: A crimson matching with the blood of a Cougar.”

    Well if the kid didn’t have a bulls-eye on him from the N. Koreans, he does now, thanks to this!

    The ND helmets look especially gold today- like Christmas tree ornaments. Have they been doing it all year or is this a bowl thing?

    “like Christmas tree ornaments”

    ~~~

    i think ricko believes they look like golf balls…

    Notre Dame added NOB for the bowl game.

    There was a quick zoom in, but I couldn’t tell whether or not the apostrophe on Manti Te’o was the going in the correct direction.

    As they should be. NCAA needs to make it a rule to require NOB and TV numbers. Yeah I’m talking to YOU Penn State & Alabama. get them off the helmet and on the uniforms where they belong. And while you’re at it add logos to the helmets and get rid of the gray facemasks. Then again anything Penn State does I’ll hate because they’re our rivals. But still, it’s not 1950 anymore. Move on people!!!

    TV numbers, yes (including the helmet, if desired).

    NOB, no.

    People breathed in oxygen and breathed out carbon dioxide in 1950…should we change that for the sake of “moving on”? No, it still works. So do TV numbers.

    NOB was invented for the TV viewer. Now, with today’s whiz-bang TV graphics departments, NOB is more clutter than necessity.

    Anyone else see the FSU TD with 13:18 left where the defender pulled the glove off of the WR’s hand while attempting to cover the defender?

    Probably a product of skill players that like to wear their gloves un-velcrowed. I still don’t know why some players prefer that. All looks, no doubt…

    Some gloves are one step ahead and have their branding inside of the glove because they know the skill players wont velcrow and likely flip the wrist of the glove down, thus showing off their branding…

    Pretty sure that was a Nike thing.

    Is it the lighting or are Notre Dame’s helmets the newer sparkly gold on top and the old metallic gold on the bottom? I am seeing a difference between the upper and lower parts.

    Baylor and Washington both have sharp regular helmets. Tonight they both have goofy helmets.

    And I like Washington in their purple and gold unis. Why they keep messing with those is beyond me.

    i don’t mind warshington’s stormtrooper look…nice and clean

    baylor…WTF — wear the damn gold lids…and normally i love a nice matte finish, but it just doesn’t look right on da bears…do they have ANY gold on that uni?

    You know I hate the all white look on the road in football. Technically if Washington is the “road team” tonight I have to say WTF are they doing??? White pants AND a white helmet? They look well beyond awful.
    I give Baylor a pass on their just as awful white pants only because they are wearing a helmet that finally got rid of the stupid gray facemasks that the gold ones have. Only teams with gray in their color scheme should be allowed to wear gray facemasks.

    link

    I have to say, I think Greg Wyshynski of Puck Daddy “gets it.” I can’t quibble too much with this list–it’s intelligently constructed and ranked!

    Except you know, the sample size is so small – there’s only been 4 (pending 5) games & 7 (8) different teams kinda takes the wind out of the sails. It’s basically like rearranging french fries.

    I saw the Oregon “O” on the inside of the gloves while looking at the pictures yesterday of their Rose Bowl unis.

    I wore my gloves like that in college and it was for comfort not looks but I know that its probably 50-50 on the comfort vs looks with players.

    And this talk of disco ball helmets… don’t give them any ideas.

    Since it is the Rose Bowl, I’m surprised Nike hasn’t used this opportunity to add red to the unis, so they could keep it for a future uni color.

    Does anyone else think of the football playing robots on FOX when they look at that helmet?

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