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Uni Watch

A Story Tailor-Made for Uni Watch

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I got a great submission the other day from reader Andrew Rader, as follows:

I went to a tailor’s shop in Philadelphia [shown above ”” PL] to get some pants hemmed. Turns out that the proprietor (who speaks broken English) and his wife — Pat and Anna Scioli — have been the tailors for the Philadelphia Eagles for 14 years. Pat was more than happy to show me some of the current work for the team, and he said he had just finished the practice jerseys — about 300 of them. I asked if he noticed any differences between Nike and Reebok, and he said no. He also does all of Andy Reid’s game day alterations (black mock turtle necks and such).

Pat and Anna were delightful. Their primary business is formalwear alternations (cash only). Such a great guy who’s passionate about his work and spent an extra 20 minutes chatting with me and showing me many of his favorite photos.

I plan to ask more questions next week when I pick up my pants, so if you or the readers have any questions, I may be able to come in ready and get some good responses from Pat (even with the broken English). People can submit their questions to me here.

How great is that? Big thanks to Andrew for offering to be the Uni Watch emissary to the Eagles’ tailor.

That’s it for today. Everyone have a great Memorial Day, and I’ll see you back here with full-length content tomorrow.

 
  
 
Comments (60)

    My entire sports worldview has been shattered by today’s entry. Not just a Philly team, but the Eagles, behaving in such a totally non-evil manner as to maintain a relationship with a local mom-and-pop like this? Wow. Great find, Andrew.

    If it’d help your worldview, we can always pretend that all of the actual tailoring is done by a 6yr old girl who’s chained up in the backroom.

    I’ll continue to believe that the numbers are not tackle-twill but seal pelts dyed with ground rhino horn, sewn with thread made from puppy fur.

    Great post, as usual. As for me, I’m blaming the Braves recent poor play on their beautiful new weekend uniforms. At least they’re not camo!

    No gnats in North GA Phil.

    Take it from a south GA boy. Gnats don’t go north of the Fall Line (on a map, it runs from Augusta through Macon to Columbus). North of that line is clay-based soil and gnats can’t live in it. South of that line is sand-based soil and gnats thrive in it.

    I’m currently at my mom’s in Savannah and I’m sending prayers and well wishes to those south of me experiencing Beryl. They sure need the rain, but the other stuff, not so much. We lucked out and got plenty of wind, butlittle rainfall last night.

    I understand the confusion – Atlanta fans expected the Nationals to come to town, but instead some other team in red unis that can actually hit and score runs came to town. Still wondering where they put the actual Nats, who have a quota of two runs per game.

    Speaking of gnats and the fall line, before Camp David was established, President Hoover tasked an aide with finding a good trout stream within 100 miles of the White House above 2500 feet to minimize the mosquitos. A stream was found, Hoover bought land on it and built a cabin, and established the first presidential retreat. After he was defeated for reelection, Hoover donated the place to the Commonwealth of Virginia, and you can still visit Camp Hoover today. Supposedly still good fishing and no mosquitos.

    yeah, arr…what did you do with the nats?

    if you’d have asked the odds on the nats and the mets being 1-2 in the NL east at memorial day, i’m sure you’d have gotten some incredible odds

    good luck to your team…hope they stay 1-2 on 7/4 and 9/3

    with two wild cards in each league this year, there is hope for both of us

    heh…i was referring to the “(g)Nat(ional)s”

    blame the “nats”?

    nationals?

    sorry…i guess that wasn’t punny

    Is this where I wonder why there’s never been a team called…
    the New York Daily Gnus?

    He also does all of Andy Reid’s game day alterations

    Wow. Talk about major overtime charges.

    “Andy really digs this black polo shirt. Can you stitch an Eagles logo on it… and…. ummm… kinda make it 5 sizes larger?”

    Scott, that is one interesting / helpful bit of info. What and where is the highest elevation in M’land? How high is Camp David?

    And yes! Nats slugging!

    you haven’t even moved there and you’re already deserting the mets?

    oh wait…you never did bleed blue & orange, did you…

    Haven’t bled anything since the BoSox of the 60s and 70s… I have moved a fair amount during adulthood, and tend to “root for” (in a mild way) the local teams in whatever town I happen to be in. I’ve always liked the Mets, especially this year’s edition. Since I can’t possibly root for the Redskins, my new DC loyalties go to the Nats. Like many of the players, appreciate the manager, absolutely adore the curly W.

    Highest elevation in Maryland is Blackborne Mountain on the West Virginia border out on the panhandle. Much cooler, though, is the Cumberland cut on I-68 a little north of there, where the highway cuts through 800 feet of brilliant syncline in the mountain. Camp David is lower, at about 1800 feet. So, if President Hoover was right about this sort of thing, it has mosquitos. Here’s the info on Camp Hoover:

    link

    Lots of talk about the us mens footy kits, with their hard to read numbers.

    Grant wahl had 2 interesting tweets about them

    1.they might violate fifa rules for not being contrasting enough.

    2. They will be changed for their match vs brazil this week, with the gray/silver numbers changing to “probably navy.”

    The Reds are wearing black hats with red bills and a camouflage-y logo. Yuck… I believe it’s the first time the Redlegs have worn black lids since 2006.

    I don’t find the camo logos anywhere NEAR as offensive as the monstrosities they’ve trotted out the last few years. Something about seeing The A’s and Rockies with red hats, etc left a much more bitter taste in my mouth than altered logos that can only be made out in extreme HD close-up. I still hate it, just not as much

    The good news is that the link has very little camo. The bad news is that’s its a Black Mets Hat.

    I mean, I love black (it’s slimming!), but the black Mets logo is way too damn busy.

    no way is that teal cap better than the normal marlins orange cap

    #2? sure…but the orange lid is #1

    james is right…the all teal is way better than the hybrid

    not sure the all black is better than the hybrid, because the all black sucks

    but black & teal don’t work

    Don’t be dissin’ the teal/black cap now.

    The all-teal moves to #2, just a smidge above the orange cap.

    I have no problem with the teal/black combo. It’s just that they got the colors backwards. The crown should have been black and the brim teal. That would have been a decent look.

    I dunno…I had a black/teal link but it didn’t move me as much as my teal/black Marlins cap.

    Teal and black definitely work. link not so much.

    “The crown should have been black and the brim teal. That would have been a decent look.”

    ~~~

    was actually gonna say that — ifn yer gonna wear a hybrid, the crown needs to be darker than the brim…in ANY combo

    ~~~

    THE — did you really use the pistons uni to try to prove a point? that may have been the worst NBA uni of all time

    ~~~

    movi…green and black work great together…unfortunately…a rather questionable mascot mars an otherwise divine uni

    If you’re trying to say the ’71 Pirates would have looked better in a black cap with a mustard brim, I’d have to question your already tenuous grasp of reality.

    That teal Pistons look may have come from the worst *era* of NBA unis, but it wasn’t the worst of the bunch.

    Green and black just don’t have enough…what is that phrase I always use…
    Oh yeah…
    Contrast, baby. Contrast.

    black numbers on a green field?

    i’ll give you that…but white #s on a green field with black shorts (a la the UND puck squad)…that’s perfect

    and the 71 buccos would have looked better with an all mustard lid…

    You’ve mentioned some *acceptable* versions, but not necessarily perfect. A black squatchee might make your case even more acceptable.

    Now Seahawk green with black (or black with Seahawk green)…there you go.

    Paul/Phil: If you every decide to bag “The Obsessive Study of Athletics Aesthetics” as the Uni Watch tag line, I suggest you give *strong* consideration to “Sharing in Delicious.”

    Would you prefer “Bad English” or “Somewhat Hard to Understand English”? Since when is using “Broken English” an issue?

    It’s a perjorative term and inappropriate in today’s multicultural, multilingual America.

    Uh, of course he didn’t notice a difference between Nike and Reebok, Philly was one of the teams that kept the old design and material.

    As for the tailor, I get it on the old stuff vibe/we love things that aren’t with the times, but taking cash only? No excuse for that. Get with the times, the amount of business this guy has given to other tailors is inexcusable.

    “Inexcusable”? The man chooses not to let some corporation skim a few percent off of what’s probably already an extremely slim margin. My guess is he made the intuitive decision that his customers are loyal enough to make a quick ATM run on the few occasions a year they visit his shop. The fact that he’s still in business seems to indicate his intuition wasn’t exactly wrong.

    Don’t get me wrong, I love paying $2.37 bills with a swipe of a card. But I can’t begrudge any small business owner deciding that he can’t afford to afford me that luxury. And if he’s friendly/competent/reliable/willing-to-an-extra-mile enough, I’ll come back anyway, and we can cut out the middleman. Why that should be “inexcusable”, I don’t know.

    Gee make an unnecessary trip to the ATM or pay with my cc or debit. And take it from me, I’m a pay-with-cash guy. I don’t like to not have the option. There’s only one cash only business I deal with (lunch restaurant) that I’ll go to if I have cash, if not, he loses out. Really? For the 1/2 percent the cc company will take? He loses out on his 8% profit for not giving up 1/2 percent? Good luck. Like I said, the business he’s lost is inexcusable.

    Think about it. I wanna go to this guys restaurant. Do I have enough cash? Do I wanna stop at the ATM? If not? Business lost. No skin off my back.

    And again, his competitors are reaping his profits. But good for him for being old school.

    My boss uses all the latest gadgets, he’s in his mid 50’s. Iphones and Ipads and all that crap, he’s literally gone paperless giving presentations from his I pad. When you find someone like him who’s as enthusiastic about technology its definitely a plus. Who do you choose, the guy who’s gotta use your phone to call his office to have something faxed over or the guy who pulls it up instantaneously on his Ipad. Technology is your friend if you’re in business.

    Paul, to go back to your comments last week, GET THE IPAD NOW.

    Matt Kemp hitting a HR in his rehab stint in AAA wearing his Dodger helmet while the rest of the team is wearing the usual Isotopes black helmet. Is it normal for pros to do this when they make rehab starts?

    link

    Yes, very common. Minor leaguers are required to wear double-flapped S100 helmets; most big leaguers don’t want to go double-flapped and don’t want to wear the S100, so they’re allowed to wear their usual single-flapped models during rehab stints.

    Hey Paul,

    I completed GB size logos for all of the MLB Stars and Stripes CAMO logos today. I sent them to you via email, but I was not sure if I had the correct address. If you did not get them, send me a note and I will re-submit them.

    Bill

    Watching the TX Rangers on MLB TV. Michael Young was wearing a Gazoo earlier in the game, but when he came up in the 6th he was back to wearing his normal helmet.

    I just noticed something for the first time.

    How long has link been at the top of the post? has that always been there since the site was redesigned or is that a recent thing?

    (Yeah, I know the old header logo had the stirrup hanging from it.)

    You can certainly see your skills in the paintings you write. The world hopes for even more passionate writers like you who aren’t afraid to mention how they believe. Always follow your heart.

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