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Uni Watch

If I Can Make It There…It’s My Kinda Town

By
Mago

By Phil Hecken, featuring Mark Peterson

Longtime reader and poster Mark Peterson, whom I first profiled way back in April of 2011 (and who has long been contributing fantastic uniform concepts) is back today with some new uniform concepts for my New York Mets and his Chicago White Sox. Mark is not just a talented graphic artist (and has thousands and thousands of graphics and logos hoarded on his computer), but he actually created, from scratch, the uni template he uses for all of his baseball concepts. It’s a great batch today, so sit back and enjoy. Here’s Mark:

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Meet the Mets, Meet the Mets, step up and greet the Mets concepts:

Well now that the Dark Plague has basically ended, this concept (which recently is now) makes for repetitiveness. Restoring the pre-Wilpon era Mets script, the idea was to offer something old, current and new, with emphasis on variety and most importantly: blue. Television characters were used as references.

Doug Hefferman – 30. On one episode of “The King of Queens”, Kevin James ate 30 White Castle hamburger Slyders & survived — which incidentally is a full “Crave Case” — hence the obligatory heads-up white Red Cross patches. In a blue jersey – no more slimming black alternate for you, fatboy!

Jerry Seinfeld “Jerry! Hello!” – 17. Because of Uncle Leo, it’s a softball top that’s gift shop rags/fodder, so there’s no place for seriousness. Jerry had a Mets cap in his apartment in the early years on the show. #42 was the Second Spitter.

Oscar Madison – ’62. A wool flannel & beat-up old faded cap & cigar for Oscar, there had to be a place for Broadway / television’s possibly first-ever Mets fan. He may had been the first to ever wear a MLB cap on TV.

Robert Barone – 24. Favorite baseball team along with brother Raymond was the Mets, and once got thrown out at a 1969 Mets convention in Cooperstown because Raymond prevented him from meeting his childhood favorite player Art Shamsky. Oh that fucker, Ray!

Two variations of the Dugout Jacket. One for home and one for road.

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White Sox concept 1.0

Alternate home: This started around a common idea of a pinstripeless home, which took about 2 seconds. Since silver doesn’t lead well to brimmed caps, I went with an alternate solid cap using the current secondary wordmark. Sock added to stirrups.

Obligatory current home pinstripe version. 1991-1994 primary cap correct & thinner flat-embroidered logo restored as opposed to the current distorted 3-D embroidered version.

Road: I always liked the old Chicago American Giants script, so I vertically arched it from radially arched because I found the regular cursive “Chicago” script to be boring. Diamond-sock patch restored to sleeve. All fat sleeve & pants trim removed.

Alternate color top: Revised to the 1991-92 style of white / silver, but darker gray for better contrast. Find the current alternate white/black/silver logo, numbers, NOB & sleeve trim to be excessive, too wide & clunky.

Modern throwback Dugout Jacket.

~~~

White Sox concept 2.0

Home: This is a retro version of going for a bold black & white look. Custom font roughly based on the 1982-86 look, with an O & X under and above the S loops. Created “Walking Socks” sleeve patch. NNOB homes with raised numbers. Slightly thinner & wider standard cap logo.

Alternate: Inverted home insignia but no jersey trim, tall & thin radially arched NOB, “Wild West” font. Different home & road stirrups. Alternate white cap with black squatchee & brim with black soutache; which some Sox fans really like a white cap. Trucker cap style considered, but does not fit the era.

Road: Gray version of the home with no white trim & tall & thin radially arched NOB. Small alternate TV graphics for white background (for whatever reason).

Dugout Jacket. Both stirrup striping patterns incorporated into it.

~~~

White Sox concept 3.0

Home: Retro custom variation of stacked “S-o-x” from Sox jerseys from 1912-48 in bold black & white, created a specific fine line “Flying Sock” sleeve patch with rope-like texture outline, “Wild West” font. NNOB. Slightly thinner & wider cap logo.

Road: Vertically arched Chicago American Giants font reprise. Vertically arched trimmed NOB. Different home & road stirrups.

Dugout Jacket. Both stirrup striping patterns incorporated into it.

~~~

Some production notes on these:

• The improvements on the Mets concepts – originally all had #41. Added new numbers & last names which I got the idea from TV viewing, since I only watch a handful of new shows (mostly comedies) and a lot of retro sitcoms.

• Breaking out a new road wool flannel template, the texture pattern was used from Paul’s Under Amour gray faux wool swatch. More wrinkles and a much baggier pant. I really like how this looks, and the colors really pop off it. Eventually I will experiment with other wool flannel files and make it even more accurate. The trick to this is making a solid sheet without creating repetitive patterns.

• Improved new striping pattern smoothness on coats.

White Sox:

• When I finally got to these, the regular template had been altered since I started on these to show more wrinkles on the uniform; especially on the legs and slightly more stirrup color.

• Came up with new side stirrup / pant template, which was drawn based off a Uni Watch photograph, blown up to a very large size. Stirrup stripes were made with a single curved strip pasted over and spaced out by exact pixel measurements. Coming up with this new template, reducing the file size, and then getting the stripes to line up front & the side was kicking my ass.

• Also another long-time side project done, showing off “Wild West” font that was re-created using pics off 1976-81 Sox jerseys.

• For the NOBs, I used the 3 most common Chicago immigrants of Polish, Irish & German. “Jablonsky” is actually a 1991 “Married with Children” reference of actor Ted McGinley’s debut (but as a Christmas tale & pre-Jefferson D’Arcy episode) that featured the late-Sam Kinison as Al’s guardian angel.

~~~

Thanks, Mark. Terrific job on all of those. Now, how many days ’til pitchers and catchers?

~~~~~~~~~~

Mitt

What I did on my summer weekend vacation…

I won’t bore any of you with the details, especially since they weren’t uni-related, but I did spend a very cool weekend up in New Hampshire doing some research for my spring project. But lets just say it involved a few of the GOP candidates for President.

Thought I’d share a few of the photos I took:

Rick Santorum: Looked really tired, but he was actually not as much of a dick as I had feared. He even hopped aboard our bus after his speech (I didn’t take that one — but who’s the idiot in the back of that shot with the flip cam?).

Bret Baier: from Fox News was at one of our stops.

T-Paw: That’s right, the guy who probably dropped out of the race way too early, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty opened for Mitt Romney by covering a Bob Dylan tune “revving up the crowd”.

Mitt Romney: The favorite, and presumptive nominee, this guy had more facial expressions than you could shake a stick at. Seriously. He did manage a smile though, when his wife was introducing him.

Ron Paul: The best thing about Dr. Paul is he comes with his own groupies. And definitely appeals to the younger demo. He even had a real U.S. Senator to introduce him. Gave a good speech though, but please don’t stand on his lawn.

Occupy New Hampshire: What would any campaign season be without the 99% hanging out in the town square?

Jon The Huntsman Girls: Absolutely the best part of the trip was seeing those twitter sensations in the flesh. And they can sing, too.

Newt Gingrich: Gotta say this for the Speaker, he was the most intelligent and best speaker of all the candidates, and he actually listened to audience members and answered their questions, rather than relying on canned, sound-bytes. Dig?.

There are a ton more photos, plus videos and other crap, but that’s all I’ll subject the UW audience to. Thanks for indulging me.

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Uni Watch Ticker (compiled by Webmaster John Ekdahl): The Green Boy Packers? (Brinke Guthrie) … Jeff Brunelle sends along Notre Dame’s 2012 lacrosse gear. Check out those gold gloves! … The Blackhawks produced an infographic detailing how to grow Head Coach Joel Quenneville’s “Q-Stache” (Tim E. O’Brien). … Rooms to Go is selling gigantic NFL helmet tables (Jon Solomonson). … Jeff Flynn has been able to dig up shots of Notre Dame’s lime green uniforms. … Are the Houston Astros planning on updating their look for 2013? (Brinke Guthrie) … From A.J. Frey: “Dustin Penner of the Kings apparently was wearing last year’s third jersey the other day in their game against the Caps. I wasn’t watching too closely, so I don’t know if he ripped his regular one or anything, but the vector logo makes it pretty obvious.” … Andrew Primeau: “I found this on the Majestic website. I’ve heard rumors that the Giants were getting new road jerseys but haven’t seen any official release for them yet.” … Look At These English Football Clubs And Badges From 1962: Collector’s Card Photos (Thomas Moore). … Here’s a shot of Alabama’s Kevin Norwood’s armband right before it snaps. … This is what the Missouri Comets will be wearing for their 2nd annual retro game (Jeff Husted). … Erik Sundermann: “Providence revived their grey uniforms for their nationally televised game against Louisville on Tuesday”. … Traditional red returns to Candlestick end zones for playoffs (Dan Cichalski). … The Bulls signed Mike James on Wed., that night he got thrown in during “mop up” time. He had no name on the back. (Bob DeLano).

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That’s it for today, folks. Still busy as all get-out so it’s a *short* post (for me anyway) today. Big thanks to Mark Peterson for the concepts and Johnny Ek for the Ticker. Paul will be back tomorrow for our usual excellent uni-fare.

~~~

“Little known fact: The domain names “uniwatch.com” and “uni-watch.com” were unavailable as Paul was getting this site going, so he considered going with “giantdismissivewankingmotion.com” instead.” — James Huening

 
  
 
Comments (87)

    That Giants road alternate is much better than the 1983-93 roads I was expecting (maybe it was just style mimicked/not the actual thing rumored?).

    Can’t remember the last time I saw an alternate road gray. A very welcome change of pace from the abundance & oversaturation of alternate color tops.

    I disagree. (Shocking, I know) An alternate jersey should be more distinctive from the regular one. Having 2 jerseys that are the same color is just asking for a player to grab the wrong one, as we saw happen last year with the Brewers.

    To me, it sort of seems like the Giants are trying to gauge interest in this design, and then in a year or two switch it over to the main road uni if they get the response they want.

    And I disagree with this.

    I don’t agree that an alternate jersey should be more distinctive than the regular one. It only has to be alternate.

    Of course, I dislike the softball top approach in general. I’m not one for flash for flash’s sake.

    so are they also altering their primary roads?

    link

    those also have a head spoon, which previous years road jerseys did not have

    It appears the Giants have gotten rid of last years road jersey all together. Last years road jersey was no where to be found on the Majestic site before Christmas. The two new roads are identical except for the logo on one and the name San Francisco on the other. They took off the orange trim around the neck. Looks like they are keeping the orange as well.

    The headspoon is … unfortunate. On both road jerseys. Just doesn’t balance with either the script/emblem or the sleeve piping. Plus, that’s the kind of detailing that absolutely needs to be consistent from home to road within a uni set. If the Giants are going to go headspoon, they need to do it home and road, and they need to find a way to make the piping either consistent within the jersey or somehow more complementary. Perhaps switch from a triple-stripe piping on the sleeve to a double-stripe of orange and black for sleeve and headspoon alike, sort of like the Nats wear at home?

    The Red Sox used to split up their one set of headspoon & sleeve piping between the home and roads. I wonder if that was by design or accident.

    link

    While I’m in no way a fan of softball tops, I just don’t really get the point of having two gray aways. Shouldn’t they at least tweak the shade on one of them, or something? And while this “new” jersey looks fine, I still prefer what they are currently using. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I like the way it harks back to their days as the New York Giants (the font, that is).

    they’re gonna have two road uni’s this year. the usual SAN FRANCISCO and then the SF as an alt. Saw news of this month, month and a half ago.

    For some reason, I thought it was a little sooner.

    Dammit. Maybe I’m thinking of truck day.

    Once we get that damn Super Bowl out of the way, it’ll be just around the corner. Read on M&N yesterday that Super Bowl IV was played on 01/11/70, wow.

    There’s something sloppy and wrong about the regular season extending into the new year.

    Playoffs should start around Christmas. Think it’s in the Bible.

    As long as the NFL insists on waiting until the weekend after Labor Day to start, we’ll be stuck with it. Just wait and see when the regular season ends if/when they go to an 18 game schedule.

    Being English some of the subtelties of American football pass me by.

    But this isn’t right, is it?

    link

    It’s a seldom run play called “Sweep Left, Pitch, Reverse Spazz, Reverse some more, Toss”.

    It’s a fave with the Vegas crowd.

    I love Mark Peterson’s White Sox concept 3.0. That rounded S isn’t something the White Sox have ever officially used, is it? And I like the ’70s “Wild West” font. It looks best with no name above it at all, but if you’re going to have a NOB, plain block lettering looks a lot better than also doing the NOB in that font, which looked link when the Sox tried it.

    I also really like the template. Mark, any chance you’d let the rest of us amateurs use it for our own creations?

    Thanks, Mark!

    And sure:
    link
    link

    My template actually evolved from Scott M.X. Turner’s circa 2005 template which was based on MLB’s template. Over the years I made a few adjustments & added some of my own bits. Everything should be easily to flood & stripes and placket are guides or could be used.

    “That rounded S isn’t something the White Sox have ever officially used, is it?”

    Not that I know of. Process went of making these from scratch to be authentic, then checked on their history. As a fan, I wish the Sox looked more retro than they currently do over their modern faux retro set.

    Yes it is! It is definitely my favorite of the 3 sets. If the Sox has to have an alternate jersey, I would like to see them go back to red – maybe with a little black trim.

    ” …My only thing would be for the White Sox is to actually wear white socks…”

    Yes, yes, yes. Yes.

    Yeah, the 1.0 set is my pick of the day too. I love the Chicago American Giants’ lettering; the Chisox have to find a place for it. I also share the contempt for the puffy cap logos. Get rid of ’em!

    -Walter

    Majestic has also seemed to have leaked the Rockies new road Jersey:

    link

    The replica and Authentic are very different it seems.

    Two hundred and seventy-seven dollars for an authentic jersey that isn’t even all that complicated?

    They’ve got to be kidding.

    $45 for a blank jersey, which probably costs $10 to make. Leaving $232 for wordmark, numbers & customized NOB. The lettering costs about $2 each, figure the union name is probably $30 to $45 of that, sleeve patch $15. That’s still some incredible mark-up. Great scam if you can pull it off.

    Back in ’96, $120 for a blank authentic & the full-out jersey cost $170:
    link

    Concealed, I notice that the number font isn’t quite perfect for the Yankees in the 1996 ad.

    I thought Majestic, rather than charging one price for everything, based their prices on the actual complexity of the jersey. A year or so ago, the Cubs (light complexity) were about $199, and the quadruple-layer Marlins were something like $240. The Yankess were the cheapest of all, with a simple logo, only one layer, and no NOBs.

    If the Rockies’ new jerseys, which don’t look too complex, are that much, what will the 4-layer teams be charging?

    Concealed, I notice that the number font isn’t quite perfect for the Yankees in the 1996 ad.

    I thought Majestic, rather than charging one price for everything, based their prices on the actual complexity of the jersey. A year or so ago, the Cubs (light complexity) were about $199, and the quadruple-layer Marlins were something like $240. The Yankess were the cheapest of all, with a simple logo, only one layer, and no NOBs.

    If the Rockies’ new jerseys, which don’t look too complex, are that much, what will the 4-layer teams be charging?

    I’m sure MLB isn’t going to be bothered with charging more or less for each team & just average it out, which is surprising since a few teams do stitched embroidery wordmarks. I always figured they’d charge more for the Padres old brown & gold front panel caps since they involve more labor & a special specific cut, but they don’t.

    As for the Yankees jersey, they wouldn’t dare charge less for an extremely popular item.

    It’s been a while since I’ve investigated prices of authentic MLB jerseys, but I certainly remember variable pricing. The Marlins always had expensive jerseys due to many layers of sewing, and, more significantly, their use of an expensive and rare-ish metallic silver thread.
    The replicas are all the same though. Everything is dumbed down to single-layer sewing.

    The NFL wholesale catalog has been done this way as well, though I don’t know if the difference was ever passed on to retail.

    I think HD means one of two things – either High Dollar, as in “costs far more than it should”. Or Heavy Duty, as in “durable and well made”. Take your pick.

    All that pricing may or may not be true but what about royalties to MLB and overhead, and profit for Majestic? And don’t forget wholesale price is typically half of retail for all products (not just jerseys).

    Of course they make money. What is a reasonable markup? 20% of cost? Where do royalties come out of that? Overhead? Salaries? Profit for Majestic and the retailer?

    Having previously worked for Majestic, yes the authentic jerseys were “Tier” priced, teams such as the Cardinals were the most expensive. I think there were 4 tiers to the entire league.

    If I could back seat drive for just a moment…I really like the White Sox 1.0 alternate but I think the hat would look better with the sock instead of the 80’s SOX. Just the plain sock to match the stirrups. Just a thought.

    Phil, I’m interested in why you made the comment that Santorum “was actually not as much of a dick as I had feared.”

    It’s really not a complex issue.

    Surely you’ve had instances where friends or co-workers have told you that a certain person is an asshole – then you actually talk to that person and they aren’t that bad.

    Really nice pics, Phil.

    Looking just at the candidates’ “unis”:

    Santorum – I like the vest.

    Romney – Got that whole “sleeves rolled up and ready to go to work” look going on.

    Paul – Cozy sweater.

    Gingrich – Nice tie.

    Vilk nails it cold.

    While I don’t want to turn this into a political blog, I will add something that is a strict non-partisan observation about Ron Paul that is usually only evident when you see him in the flesh – and that is: he is quite old and seems to look it. I’ve heard he appears to be very frail in person. Phil, did he look that way to you?

    “Phil, did he look that way to you?”

    the oversized jackets and shirts he wears don’t belie that impression…and i think he’s 74 years old

    he didn’t come off too much as a curmudgeon, but rather what i’d expect of an old, family physician you’d invited over to dinner and didn’t want to talk shop

    i won’t go there, as per connie…but THE basically has it correct — when someone with whom i disagree on a number of issues (but have never met or heard speak) does so, i have a number of preconceived notions about said person…i have to say that he impressed me with his candor and steadfastness; basically, while i may still disagree with him, i came away with the impression that he was a decent and upstanding gentleman (which wasn’t the image either i or the media had created in my head)

    that’s really it

    Hey, that’s mine!

    Although Champ’s right…someone else could improve upon my idea and make it look like an actual uniform.

    Nice article Chris posted on Astros rebranding! One comment regarding the Junction Jack lack of cohesiveness:

    The Junction Jack was an attempt to tie in the coolness of the Union Station building because of the lousy naming rights produced Enron Field title – when it should have been called The Ballpark at Union Station!

    Working at NASA and the team having routes in Astronauts from early in franchise history, I would pray the Astros name sticks (in fact, they may be dead to me if they lose it)! Although – we need to go back to some kind of heritage colors. I talked to to Woody at the last weekend Biggio played (they wore the rainbow sleeves jerseys) and he said they guys LOVED those throwbacks and hated what they were wearing now. I always felt it a huge slap in the face to put pinstripes on our unis… especially with the bad taste that Yankee Rocket left in our mouth!

    Junction Jack was the tip of the very large iceberg of institutional incoherence that marked the McLane years. In the late 90’s, McLane rebranded the Astrodome as “Astrodome U.S.A.” and did his best to make it look old-timey. Plastic flowers behind the outfield fences, cheapo fountains, a corny, “Howdy, friends!” vibe, in that weird, wonderful building: It was a little like Esquivel recording an album of bluegrass music.

    They wanted to play up the railroad angle after moving to Union Station, which was OK, I guess, if they had coupled it with a complete rebranding, including a nickname change. You had all this steam trains and Wild West imagery — the outfield choo-choo, the “brick, coal and sand” color combination, food stands with names like “Sheriff Blaycock’s Honest Texan Bar-B-Que” and of course, that stupid rabbit — and the team on the field had the most Space Age of nicknames. It was a mess.

    Years ago, when Biggio, Caminiti and Bagwell were just coming up, Larry Dierker suggested the club ditch the rocketman motif, and rechristen themselves the Houston Colts. He argued that colts are young, and feisty, and ready for a fight. I sort of wish they’d taken his advice.

    In your link to the “King of Queens” jersey, you have “Doug Hefferman”. It should be “Heffernan”.

    Also, what episode does Doug eat 30 White Castle burgers? I will have to check that one out.

    I got it right on the jersey; damn my typos! Could you fix it please, Phil?

    The King of Queens episode where I thought I saw a Craver’s Case was “Rayny Day”, Sea. 1 eps. 19; Ray Romano was on it, Doug ditched Richie to go play golf in the rain w/ Ray; Doug later invites Richie to watch a Mets game in the garage den, Doug has Slyders, time passes, empty cartons, Doug passes out, etc.

    Thanks!

    Unfortunately, I do remember an episode where Doug is wearing a BFBS Mets #1 jersey. *sigh*

    I think link would look great if it had some type of sleeve and pants piping.

    Without the piping it’s

    A) pretty lifeless
    B) like a black & white copy of Boston’s (equally lifeless) road unis.

    but the wordmark looks really nice.

    I was at a high school game the other night and the first thing I noticed was the size of the players numbers on the back. Not a great photo, but you can still see how big these monsters are.

    link

    This is what the Missouri Comets will be wearing for their 2nd annual retro game
    link
    Very nice, but I like last year’s better.
    link
    I do like the fact that they moved the sponsor to the back of this year’s throwback. If you *have* to have a sponsor name, at least keep it off the front. Replace the NOB or something, but keep it off the front.

    That Joel Quenneville “Q-Stache” image is clearly copied from the McSweeney’s “How to Beard Yourself Like Brian Wilson” poster.

    Poster image: link

    McSweeney’s URL: link

    The drawing style looks a bit different and none of the typefaces appear to be the same, but it certainly is possible…

    Remember when ice cream men wore uniforms? Nowadays it’s some scruffy looking college kid or some over the hill wastoid selling more than just ice cream out of that truck. At least the truck that plies my neighborhood in the summer has actual bells the driver rings. I really want a bomb pop now.

    Referring to the sleeve patch for the second White Sox design, one thought might be to rearrange the position of the Sox to form a “S” on the home jersey and jacket and a “C” on the away jersey and jacket.

    Bill Madlock used to have “Mad Dog” on the back of his warm-up jacket when he was with the Giants back in the late ’70’s too.

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