Thus Spake Henderson (again)

[Editor’s Note: If the first section of this entry sounds familiar, it’s because a good chunk of it was copied and pasted from an entry I posted three years ago, which was the last time Bill Henderson updated his MLB doubleknit-era jersey guide. The latest update is now upon us. If you don’t realize why that’s cause for celebration, read on. ”” Paul]

In the beginning, there was Okkonen, and it was Good. Because up until then there had been no record of base ball raiment. And so began the Period of Great Enlight’nment, and there was much rejoicing throughout the land.

And then, after a number of epochs, Okkonen joined forces with the mighty Shieber of Cooperstowne, and thus the two of them begat Dress’t to the Nynes. And this too was Good, for now the Master’s Wisdomme was available to all, even those who did not have a printed copy of the Illuminated Manuscript.

But as Time went by, certain scholars dared to voice doubts about the Master’s Wisdomme. The Wisdomme, they said, was flaw’d. In some places it was Mistak’n; in many others it was Inkomplete. And the Master’s colourful engrayvings, which had long been celebrayt’d as powerful tools to convey the Wisdomme to future generations, began to be seen as Too Limit’d, for they showed no Posterior View, nor did they show Fyne Detail, among several other Problemmes. Worst of all, the Master had been so fatigued by the initial compiling of the Wisdomme that he could not continue with the task in subsequent seasonnes. And so there was Diskontente across the land. And this was Not Good.

And then there came Henderson.

Henderson did not claim to proffer the Master’s Wisdomme. Indeed, he did not provide Informations regarding the millinery, or the trousers, or the all-important stockings, or for any raiment prior to the much-despis’d Age of Synthetux. But he did provide significant Knowledge on the subject of blouses — their colours, their regalia, their strypes. And instead of engrayvings that simulat’d the raiment, he employed a Great Magick that stopp’d time and show’d how the raiment actually look’d, in all its great Scope and Varyetee. And this was Very Good.

Even better, Henderson added new Informations to his Knowledge every 24 to 36 moons. These became known as the Great Updaytings, and the period between them became known as the Time of Much Eag’rness, so excited were the people to learne about the blouses.

I have journey’d here to informe you, O my children, that the latest Time of Much Eag’rness has now ended, and the Great Updayting is now upon us. And this is Very, Very Good indeed.

I should acknowledge that this latest Updayting, like the previous one, includes a preamble that I myself penned at Henderson’s gracious request. And it was a request I felt privileg’d to grant, so high is my esteem for all things Hendersonian.

And with that, O my children, I leave you to commence the Rejoicing. Remember not to spill mead on your keyboards.

———

The simpler version: The sixth edition of Bill Henderson’s Game Worn MLB Jersey Guide — absolutely the definitive uniform reference for the period beginning in 1970 — is now available. Like all previous editions, it includes encyclopedic team-by-team coverage of game jerseys, BP jerseys, and patches, along with more esoteric things like tagging, fabrics, and typefaces. It’s the bee’s pajamas!

The last edition came out in the summer of 2009, so the most obvious benefit of the new edition is that includes coverage of the 2010, ’11, and ’12 seasons. But there’s also a wealth of additional detail and information, above and beyond the level that’s been included in previous editions. Here are some highlights, as singled out by Bill himself:

• Lots of new details in the Orioles chapter (that’s just a tiny smidgen of them).

• Some interesting collector’s minutiae in the Astros chapter.

• Bill believes he may have spotted a fraudulent Brewers jersey on display at the Smithsonian.

• There’s a new chapter on All-Star BP jerseys, which Bill hadn’t been documenting until now.

And so on. The thing is over 2500 electronic pages long, so the material I’ve shown here is just the snowflake on the snowdrift on the tip of the iceberg. You can order yours here.

But wait: Bill has generously provided five copies of the new edition to give away to Uni Watch readers. You can try to win one by sending an e-mail with your name and shipping address to the giveaway address by 8pm Eastern this Thursday, July 19. One entry per reader. I’ll announce the five winners on Friday.

Perfect for watching a video replay of that iD-backs game: About two months ago, for very specific reasons not worth explaining here, I bought an iPad. Turns out I never used it and now, also for reasons not worth explaining, I’ve decided it’s not for me, so I’m going to sell it. I could put it up on eBay or Craigslist, but I’d rather give Uni Watch readers first crack at it, so here we are

I’ll sell you both of these for $429 (basically 20% off of retail), plus whatever the shipping to your area turns out to be. If you’re interested, give me a shout. Thanks. Well, that didn’t take long — the iPad is now spoken for. Thanks.

Membership news: Another new batch of card designs has been added to the membership card gallery (including Dan Twohig’s card, shown at right, which is based on the County Cork Athletic Association’s jersey). I expect to have the printed/laminated versions of these cards in the mail within a few days.

Also, in case you missed this news last week, the Membership Program will soon have a price increase, but you can still get in at the current price for another week. Details here.

Show-and-Tell update: My Show-and-Tell project, in which I invite people to bring an object of personal significance and talk about it for up to three minutes, has a new (and, I hope, permanent) home: the back room at Freddy’s Bar in the South Slope. Show-and-Tell will make its Freddy’s debut on Aug. 22 at 8pm; after that, we’ll be showing and telling on the second Wednesday of each month. I’m psyched about this — the back room is the perfect size for what I’m doing, and Freddy’s has an eclectic crowd of regulars who should bring some excellent new energy to the project, so come check it out. And if you want to join the Show-and-Tell mailing list, just say the word.

Uni Watch News Ticker: More Olympics fun: Remember that parody logo that spells out “Shit,” which I used for Friday’s post? A Denver TV station “mistakenly” ran that logo on the air the other day. Hmmmm. ”¦ Meanwhile, the parade of organizational miscues in London continues to provide one fiasco after another. It’s like the whole thing is a series of outtakes from In the Loop. ”¦ But don’t worry — the USA’s uniforms will be made in America after all — for 2014, that is. ”¦ In non-farcical Olympics news — yes, such a category still exists, if just barely — here’s a good piece on how the Olympic rings were devised. ”¦ We’ve heard this before, but the Dolphins are considering a logo update for 2013. ”¦ New throwback caps for the NFL. Basic sideline caps, too. ”¦ New kit for Kaizer Chiefs FC (from Leo Thornton). … Here’s something I’ve never seen before: a blue Red Wings jersey. Just fashion merch, obviously, but still (from Gregory Mitchell). … Here’s a look back at the Predators’ yellow jerseys after one year (from Dirk Hoag). … Ladies and gentlemen, your New York football Rangers! “That was found on the street in Cambodia,” says Alan Kreit. … New kits for Rayados del Monterrey (from Carlos Garza). … What’s even better than baseball bat groundbreaking shovels? Hockey stick groundbreakings shovels (from John Muir). … New uniforms for the Pensacola Ice Flyers. “A big improvement,” says Ryan Bohannon. … I’ll say this much for the USA’s Olympic cycling uniforms: Nobody will be confused about which country they’re representing. … No change for Liverpool’s badge (from Anthony Nuccio). … The Columbus Clippers will mark the city of Columbus’s bicentennial by wearing jerseys with the Columbus skyline on the front and the number 200 on the back (from Jeff Emhuff). … We’ve talked about how Reds players sometimes wore red shoes in the mid-1970s All-Star Games. But check out these shots of Don Gullett and Dave Concepcion. Those are both from 1970 or ’71, and they’re not from All-Star Games (I’ll spare you the details, but a variety of factors rule out the ASG factor). The color shot is from an ad, and Ricko thinks it was staged, although it’s still odd that Concepcion would’ve had red shoes on hand. The black-and-white shot of Gullet is definitely a game shot, and I suppose his cleats could be black, although I think they look red. Either way, the Reds didn’t wear shoe stipes in those days, so it’s all very odd (thanks to Brice Wallace for his help on this one) ”¦ College hoops! Remember that? Here’s a reminder: New uniforms for Portland (from Travis McGuire). … The Nats usually wear blue batting helmets on the road, but they wore their red home helmets over the weekend, even though they were wearing the blue road caps in the field. Apparently it was one of those “What the hell, let’s see how this looks” kinda things (screen shot by Doug Robb, tweet link from William Yurasko). … Very nice slideshow of the 1950s Vancouver Mounties (from Marc Viquez). … Clint Barmes was using rookie Jordy Mercer’s bat in the 8th inning of Friday night’s game. “Interesting that the veteran is using the rookie’s bat and not the other way around,” says Brian Skokowski. “Anyway, it didn’t help. Barmes struck out.” … Bobcats rookie Michael Kidd-Gilchrist will apparently be going with a double-decker hyphenated NOB! Yowza (from Robert Silverman). … The St. Kilda Saints are raffling off a corporate jersey sponsorship (from Leo Strawn). … New cleats for Notre Dame football (from Warren Junium). … Most improbable logo rip-off of recent times: A Canadian junior lacrosse tournament has poached its design from the Golden State Warriors (from John Muir). … Guess what some group of lunatic Christian wackos and I have in common? We both hate Nike (from Zach Brady). ”¦ “There’s a new Brewers-themed Miller lite ad in rotation on Wisconsin TV,” says Geoff Poole. “Apparently they didn’t have permission to use the MLB logo.” ”¦ Can anyone explain why A’s pitcher Travis Blackley needed to wear — or, rather, not wear — two pairs of sunglasses on Saturday? (As noted by Domenico Delgado.) ”¦ Very odd NOB for Astros pitcher Enerio Del Rosario (from David Taub). ”¦ You know those old NFL Chiquita Banana stickers that Brinke has often featured in Collector’s Corner? Got a note over the weekend from G.D. Tarver, who fondly recalled those stickers and added, “It seemed like I ate 500 bananas that year until I collected every NFL helmet sticker.” ”¦ Heavyweight fighter Dereck Chisora, who was knocked out by David Haye on Saturday night, entered the ring wearing a seriously weird outfit. The pattern on the robe was repeated on his trunks. ”¦ UMass football is apparently going BFBS. Sigh. … Marty Hick has a doozy of a DIY project up his sleeve, which I’ll be telling you about later this week. For now, though, there’s this: Marty’s nephew Brendan just turned five years old, so Marty made him a pair of Yankees jersey cakes. The label is a particularly nice touch, no? ”¦ Everyone’s going bonkers over this liquid chrome Auburn helmet, but I’m fairly certain it’ll never make it onto the field. ”¦ Good infographic on pro football in Ohio (from Tony Crespo). ”¦ “I was watching an old episode from one of my favorite shows, Psych, and Inoticed that one of the main characters had a Nike logo blocked out while the other one did not,” notes James Connolly. ”¦ Warner Bailey had the opportunity to spend Sunday’s NASCAR race in the pits and noticed that driver Kasey Kahne has a little four-leaf clover sticker inside his car.