Uni Watch DIY Project: What, No Life-Size Statue of Daniel Snyder?

[Editor’s Note: Today we have a guest entry from Steve Brookman, who recently converted a room in his house into his own personal Redskins sanctuary. ”” PL]

By Steve Brookman

I recently bought a new home and decided to turn the downstairs area into Redskins room. I painted it to resemble the Redskins’ alternate away uniform — white jerseys with gold pants. The top two-thirds of each wall is white, with six-inch burgundy and gold stripes painted in the center to represent the sleeve stripes. The bottom third is wood paneling that I painted gold to represent the team’s awesome gold pants.

These pics were taken right after I bought the house and show the room in its previous state:

The top portion of the walls were a light buttermilk-ish color, while the bottom wood portion was the color of Gulden’s mustard. Not bad, but not what I envisioned as the ideal room for watching football.

These next few pics show what the room looked like while I was painting the stripes:

I wish I had taken more pics of this process. After painting the walls white, I used one of those Black & Decker laser levels that are typically used for leveling pictures. With the laser beam flashing across the wall, I taped off the top of what would become the red stripe, then the bottom. I used three coats of flat paint for each stripe. For the red stripe, I used standard blue painter’s tape. Bad idea — after pulling up the tape, there were lots of areas where the paint had bled under the tape. So for the yellow stripe, I used the green Frog Brand tape, which made a big difference — I think I had one little area where yellow paint slipped under the tape, but it took all of 30 seconds to correct.

Here we have some shots showing the process of painting “Hail” on the wall:

I started by creating a quick transparent png file in Photoshop, then projecting it ontp the wall with a computer projector I borrowed from work. I had a hell of a time getting the projector level, so I went back to Photoshop and got the measurements of each letter. I knew I wanted the letters to measure 14-1/4″ from top to bottom, so I used that as my benchmark. From there, I was able to get the scale of each letter. So after taping the “H” to the wall, I measured out how far the tip of the “A” should be, and so on. I used a razor to cut out the triangles that would make the crosses in the H and the A. I painted four coats, then peeled the tape off. It looked great! I spent about an hour after that touching up lines that weren’t quite perfect.

And here we have the finished product (well, it’s not entirely finished, as I’m having three jerseys framed as we speak):

That last photo shows an old Shorpy shot of Sammy Baugh that I colorized, then had blown up and put on canvas. It looks much better in real life, honest.

Finally, there’s this, which proves that I’m as immature as my wife thinks I am:

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Watch the squatch, continued: Paul here. Remember last week’s entry about helmet squatchees, and how I said I liked the idea but thought they weren’t high enough?

Pro Helmet Decals honcho David Sulecki, who supplied the helmet squatchees to the Mets and White Sox, has now provided me with some samples of the product (all I had to go on until now were photos that he had supplied and whatever I could spot during spring training game broadcasts). So I got out a Mets cap and compared the helmet squatchees to a cap squatchee (click photos to enlarge):

As you can see, the helmet squatchee is wider than its cap cousin (reasonable, since a helmet is bigger than a cap) but, as I suspected, sits much lower. A big part of the problem is that a cap squatchee is a true three-dimensional button — you can see its curves and the edge of its curved underside — while the helmet squatchee is really just a half-button, because it’s flat on the bottom.

In case you missed it in last Tuesday’s comments, reader Dan Fuller explained that making the helmet squatchees higher isn’t as simple as it sounds. Who knew designing such a simple-seeming uni element would prove to be so challenging?

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Insert Jimmy Hoffa/Giants Stadium joke here: My latest vintage uni acquisition is this swell Teamsters softball jersey that I scored on eBay for $25 (click images to enlarge):

Lots of history in this one. Local 507 was formed in Cleveland in 1966 and helped launch Jackie Presser on the path that would eventually lead him to the Teamsters presidency (and also to a heavy involvement with organized crime, a role as an FBI informant, a Federal indictment, etc.). The jersey lists Presser’s title as Secretary-Treasurer, indicating that it’s from the late 1970s.

The jersey fits me just fine, which means it must have been worn by one of the smallest Teamsters in the organized labor history.

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What does Calvin Klein (shown at left) have to do with a 90-year-old report card? Find out in the latest entry on the Permanent Record blog.

Meanwhile, in case you missed it on Friday, Robert Marshall is now taking orders for a new batch of stirrups. Ordering deadline is the end of tomorrow, so get crackin’.

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’Tis the Season

By Vince Grzegorek

Hello, folks. The annual Uni Watch March Madness bracket competition is back for those of you who love college basketball and/or have interest in acquiring some of the stuff Paul has sitting around his apartment. You can join here (password: stirrups). There’s also a second group if the first one fills up, which has happened each of the last two years. Password for that one is the same as the first. Standard scoring: 1 point for correct picks in the first round, 2 points in the second, 4 points in the third, and so on. 32 points will be your reward for correctly picking the champion. Only one entry per person, please.

The top three winners will get to choose from some of the swag that Paul has accumulated since last December’s reader-appreciation raffle. Good luck to all.

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Uni Watch News Ticker: As expected, the Astros wil wear the gun on their Colt .45s throwbacks after all. But ugh, they’ve totally botched the design — the “C” is all wrong. Should look like this. Is it really that hard to do this correctly? … Nike’s NFL uniforms will be unveiled in New York on April 3. … In what I believe is our first-ever chess item, the European Chess Union has enacted a new dress code for female players. Apparently those pernicious womenfolk were distracting the male players with their feminine wiles. How dare they! So now they’ve basically been told, “Stop flashing your tits and gams already.” And if they don’t like it, hey, they can go play beach volleyball instead. No word on whether the new rules apply to the Queen chess piece. … Love the “Rawlings Knit” tag on this old football jersey. … “I noticed that the recently unveiled statue of Mario Lemieux portrays him in a Cooper helmet, not the hemispherical Jofa helmet I always remembered him wearing,” writes Luke Rosnick. “A little digging revealed that he wore a Cooper lid in his early career and didn’t make the switch over to Jofa until the late ’90s. Jofa helmets are considered by a lot of young hockey players to be pretty ugly (“only Gretzky could pull that off”), so I’m glad the sculptor went with that helmet. One other interesting fun fact about the Cooper SK2000 helmet: It was used to make the illuminated helmets in the original Tron movie.” … New lacrosse helmets for Thailand (from Jeff Brunelle). … The Seattle Sounders wore their new “super cyan” kits for the first time last Wednesday in the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals against Santos. “Several players decided to play with collars flipped up,” notes Matt Glass. … Remember my ESPN column last week about the Padres supplying uniforms to local Little Leaguers? I mentioned that the team’s four current jerseys were among the program’s six most-requested designs, and that the camo design was the most popular option of all, but I didn’t provide the full listing of where all 20 design options ranked, because I didn’t realize such a listing existed. But it does. … Interesting note toward the bottom of this page: “[OSU coach Urban] Meyer recently apologized to a gay and lesbian rights group at Ohio State after it learned that he planned to distribute lavender shirts to players who are underperforming at practice. ”¦ The group said lavender is the predominant color associated with the gay and lesbian community” (from Jason Hillyer). ”¦ I’ve run this photo several times before, but once more won’t hurt: spring training Chucks! … Here’s a bizarre image: Paul Henderson of the Red Wings wearing a surgeon’s mask on the ice in 1966. “Apparently he had some sort of virus he didn’t want to pass on to other players,” says Kevin Wilson. Anyone know more about this? … Check this out: an Arena League game featuring white vs. gray — and both teams with black helmets! “I saw it while scrolling through the channels,” says Eric Klimtzak. “Really couldn’t tell either team from each other.” … Check this out: The ’84 Tigers had a bullpen catcher with TNOB (great find by Jeffrey Moulden and Gary Olson). … A high school hoops team in Illinois had to wear another school’s uniforms due to a uni mix-up (from Nick Yelverton). … Get this: It turns out that the first broadcaster to grace the airwaves of the very first Mets spring training game was — wait for it — Howard Cosell. The story behind that, including an audio file, is available here. … The very existence of the Euskaltel-Euskadi cycling team is being threatened by a logo issue (from Steve King). … It had already been announced that MLB umpires would be wearing a memorial patch this season for former ump Marty Springstead. They may end up modifying that patch, or adding another one, now that former ump Harry Wendlestedt has died. … Speaking of officials, zebras wore shoe-borne shout-outs to a colleague during the ACC tourney (from Rex Henry). … Interesting visual effect on Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin’s jacket. “Ironically, it matches the Bearcats’ new shorts design,” notes Paul Pass. ”¦ Good spot by Todd Kortemeier, who notes that the University of Alaska-Anchorage hockey team uses the same number font as the San Diego Chargers. ”¦ Omaha Central High’s basketball team wears some crazy-ass socks. ” They started doing it early in the year and ended up going 30-0 to win their sixth state title in seve years,” says David Ashby. ”¦ Anyone know why Ohio’s uni numbers on Saturday looked like crayon rubbings? Like, was that supposed to be a camo thing or what? ”¦ Anyone ever seen a New Balance undershirt before? That’s Hanley Ramirez, who’s been going seriously unbuttoned throughout spring training. ”¦ No photo, but several readers report that Bosox backstop Kelly Shoppach’s usual No. 10 jersey went missing prior to yesterday’s spring training game, so he had to wear a No. 96 NNOB jersey. ”¦ Rajon Rondo recently took a nasty poke in the eye and wanted to wear shades on the court yesterday, but the league said no, because the other players need to be able to see his eyes (thanks, Kek). ”¦ Tim Burke reports that Xavier’s Andre Walker blew out two pairs of shoes duringthe A-10 tourney, forcing him to wear a mismatched pair. ”¦ St. John’s baseball has a new alternate jersey that features the NYC skyline (from Dylan Jenkins). ”¦ All of this year’s NHL goalie masks can be found in this slideshow (from Ryan Mandel). ”¦ Sure hope Ozzie Martinez makes the Chisox roster, cuz he’s sporting a very nice lower-leg look (from Mike Braam). ”¦ Andrew Luck wears a brace on his left knee, so Arin Mitchell assumed Luck had had an injury to that knee at some point. But then he saw this photo of Stanford QBs in the latest SI. “Makes me wonder whether the Stanford training staff requires right-handed QBs to wear a brace on their left knee for protection/prevention,” he says. ”¦ Surreal case of douchebaggery playing out in Australian rugby, as Murray Conallin explains: “The Penrith Panthers have a new major sponsor Oak milk. They do flavoured milks. The idea was that a fridge filled with milk would make a good backdrop during press conferences, but the league has told them to get rid of it because the fridge doesn’t have enough logos for Telstra, the league’s main sponsor.” … It’s the end of an era up in Binghamton, as the mighty Union Hotel tavern — a sensational bar situated in a really cool little flatiron-ish building, has shut down. I’ve half a mind to purchase it myself (photo by my buddy Shane Arbogast, who discovered the sad news while passing through Bingoland over the weekend).