There’s No Service Like Wire Service, Vol. 40

It’s been a long time — over five months! — since our last roundup of wire photos. These are all baseball-related and all but one are from Bruce Menard, who’s one of our most astute photo archivists. Let’s take a look:

• When a new baseball manager is introduced at a press conference, it’s common for him to put his jersey on over his suit. But I didn’t know that was happening way back in 1943.

• Speaking of managers mixing a jersey with civvies, who’s this? None other than Walter Johnson, during his stint skippering the Newark Bears. Love the textured look of his undersleeves, and his suit pants look nice to boot!

• Awesome find here: In 1967, the umps were given new lightweight shirts for hot weather.

• I absolutely love this shot of uniforms being issued to kids in Chicago.

• I wish teams would do Kids Day again. Kinda bogus that the Reds called it “Father-Son Day,” given that two of the kids in the photo are girls! And why no uni for Barby Ruiz?

• For a second I thought this was the Babe. But the gent in the uniform is actually comedian Jonathan Winters, and the one in the suit is Leo the Lip.

• At first glance, there’s nothing uni-relevant about this 1954 shot of Tigers infielder Fred Hatfield. “What caught my eye was the bobblehead behind him,” says Bruce. “This would be a very early bobblehead sighting.”

• Here’s St. Louis Browns manager Dan Howley in 1927. “What’s up with the different ‘StL’ logo on his jacket?” asks Bruce. “Almost looks backwards (but it’s not).”

• In 1959, the Denver Bears wore centennial throwbacks.

• You think Pete Rose put down a bet on this game? (Here’s the full episode that shot is taken from.)

•  Everyone looked good in an Astros shooting star uni, even comedian Jerry Lewis.

• Chew Red Man, get a free baseball cap. (Okay, so that isn’t a wire photo, but it’s still interesting.)

•  And here’s the one shot that isn’t from Bruce: Ron Santo’s fan club sure had some my-t-fine jackets! Big thanks to Scott Sidor for sending that one in.

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Culinary Corner: Remember my recent fascination with blow-torching a steak? As you may recall, it involves freezing the steak, torching the exterior to achieve a nicely charred crust, and then putting the steak in a very low/slow oven.

Recently something occurred to me that I should have thought of sooner: If the frozen/torched steak can be finished in a slow oven, why not finish it in the smoker? After all, I usually keep the temperature in the smoker down around 200 º, which is about how low my oven goes. And the smoker has the added benefit of smokiness (duh), so I figured it’d be a win-win.

I tried this on Saturday, and it was a big success. The steak came out uniformly red throughout, with no interior color gradations, just like when I use the torch method indoors. But it had a distinctly smoky aroma, which is something I’m always a sucker for. I’ll definitely be doing this again soon.

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U.S. Open Uni Preview

By Brinke Guthrie

The U.S. Open gets underway today in New York. It’s the last chance for the apparel and gear manufacturers to show off their stuff until next spring. (Yes, the Aussie Open is in January, but who can ever watch it given the time difference?) Here’s some of what you can expect to see.

Nike’s big guns are always well turned out. Check out Sharapova, Serena, and Fed. Speaking of whom, this tennis fan thread seems to think that Fed’s classy “RF” Nike line will morph into its own stand-alone brand like Jordan’s, once he retires. You’ll also want to see this series of Head racket spots with Sharapova.

Kim Clijsters is hanging it up at years end (again,) and she’ll say so long in this Fila look. Djokovic’s “replica” line from Japanese maker Uniqlo is here, and here.

Wozzy’s Stella McCartney/Adidas line is usually made up of bright colors owing to her “Sunshine” nickname, but this year, it’s — wait for it — black. More Adidas looks for Ivanovic, Murray, Kirilenko, and Verdasco here.

Did You Know Dept.: There are official ball boy shoes. Curiously, they’re made by New Balance, but with the Polo logo on the sides.

Finally, you might not know the name Camilla Giorgi. She wears Adidas shoes and uses a Babolat frame. Both of those companies have clothing lines, but she prefers to have her mom make her tennis attire for her. [That’s awesome! I’ll root for her on that basis alone. ”” PL]

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Paul here (thanks for that piece, Brinke!). You know, I’ve lived in New York for 25 years but have never attended the Open. Part of it is that it can be really expensive, part of it is that the Skippy and Muffy factor gets to be a bit much, and part of it is that I just don’t follow tennis as closely as I once did. But this Thursday I’ll be joining one of my ESPN editors for part of the daytime session, and I’m really looking forward to it. Full report to follow (well, if I spot anything uni-notable, that is).

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Uni Watch News Ticker: Stanford’s volleyball team will wear a memorial on their shorts for a teammate who died back in March (from Jeremy Brahm). ”¦ Here’s a page covering Marshall football uniform history (from Jake Keys). … Douchebags of the Month award goes to the clowns at the Collegiate Licensing Company, who have bullied an Alabama bakery that was putting a script “A” on some cookies (from Andrew Hoenig). … Good article on what the Notre Dame equipment staff is doing for that one game in Ireland (from Joseph Lombardo). … “Morris Brown College, a historically black college in Atlanta, is experiencing extreme financial difficulties and may have to close,” says Austin Gillis. “I wanted to find out a little more about the history of the school, so I went to Wikipedia and found this pretty amazing photo of the 1900 Morris Brown baseball team.” … Everyone likes stories about weird college mascots, right? (From Kurt Esposito.) … Some high school in St. Louis is now in the running for the world’s silliest-looking football helmet (from Ronnie Poore and Andrew Edwards). … New third kit for Chelsea (from Leo Thornton). … The single-A Lowell Spinners put their logo on a Bruins-style pullover as a fan giveaway (from Dan Cichalski). ”¦ The Mets wore blue “Los Mets” jerseys on Friday. ”¦ Interesting piece on the retailing of college football jerseys. ”¦ Here’s Oregon’s “You should wear this color” schedule, which usually matches up with what the Ducks are wearing, for the upcoming season. ”¦ Pflugerville High in Texas uses some very interesting protective headgear during football practice. “Not all of the kids wear it, so it must be optional, but it’s good to see people taking concussions seriously,” says Jaime Galindo. … Someone on eBay is selling a bunch of Fleer MLB jersey stickers. … Hosier hijinks at Booker High in Florida, where a football player was wearing Stewie Griffin socks the other day (from Nick Hanson). ”¦ You already know that Penn State will wear a blue ribbon patch this season, in support of child abuse victims. Now their opponent for the season opener, Ohio, has announced plans to wear a blue ribbon helmet decal for that game. It’ll be interesting to see if Penn State’s subsequent opponents end up doing this for the rest of the season (from Johnny Bruno). … Good article on Oklahoma State’s equipment staff (from Darrell Hatfield). … “It’s breast cancer awareness time for the WNBA again,” writes Kevin Brown. “The Atlanta Dream used unis with pink numbers, but the uniform for No. 22 Armintie Price was mistakenly printed as No. 20. Since Atlanta already has a 20 (Sancho Lyttle), Price’s 0 was peeled off and she played as No. 2 with a very off-center number.” … Longtime lacrosse, hockey, and soccer outfitter Warrior is now getting into football (from Christopher Drouin). … The St. Kilda Saints — that’s Aussie football — recently wore a special kit in which the black and red panels of the home jumper were made up of names of their longest-serving members (from Leo Strawn). … Whoa, look at the hairdos on the 1964 Texas women’s track team. Full story here (from James McClure). … Good question from William Barker, who writes: “While I was watching the Redskins/Colts game in Washington, the Colts challenged a call and, as always, the television coverage followed the ref to the replay hood. The security guys helped lift the cover and stood guard. These security guys were wearing the same shade of burgundy as the Redskins and had matching hats with NFL shields. Are they supplied by the home team and therefore attired to match the team, or does the NFL supply and attire these guys? Does this protocol apply to all of these individuals that work the games?” Anyone know more about this? … New beach-themed basketball court design for Long Beach State (from Bill Radocy). … Pretty funny piece about Liverpool fans who run around town wearing the team’s full kit (from George Chilvers). … Soccer mystery from Gregory Koch, who writes: “When I got to the stadium for Saturday’s UConn/St. Francis men’s soccer game, I noticed the Terriers warming up in red, with numbers on the front but not the back. This struck me as strange, because I distinctly remembered them wearing blue when we played them the last two years. However, a few minutes before the game, St. Francis went into the dressing room and reemerged wearing blue uniforms, with numbers on the back but not the front. Both those and the warm-ups appeared to be legitimate uniforms for game use. My theory is that the red uniforms are alternates, and they wear them as warm-ups when not wearing them for the game. Can any St. Francis fans shed light on this?” … I’ve seen photos of Frank Sinkwich’s unusual faceguard rig before, not this photo (nice find by Greg Trandel). … Phil has spotted something disturbing: The Saints’ maker’s marks are positioned unusually high, so they crowd the TV numbers. In some cases they’re actually positioned north of the sleeve/shoulder seam, which is seriously bad news. … Chet Miller was helping his parents clean out their basement and came across a bunch of sports-related stuff, including a Jr. Charlotte Hornets membership card, a Bengals ice cream tub, a 1988 MLB All-Star Game pillow, and two jigsaw puzzles. You can see it all here. … Great article about some folks in Detroit who break into Tiger Stadium to care for it (big thanks to my buddy Jon Hammer). … New logo package for the U. of San Francisco (from Ed Wright). ”¦ We all know the Raiders wore striped socks in their early days. But look closely at this photo from 1960 — looks like the white crew sock has an “R” on it! “I thought it was stickum at first,” says Willie Gabel. … I think I linked to this last month, but just in case: Here’s a good infographic on MLB team colors (from Kurt Esposito). ”¦ Speaking of infographics, move your cursor along this Champions League timeline (nice find by Jay Gallagher). ”¦ Here’s something you don’t often see: Kobe Bryant in a Bulls jersey (from Will McGillis). ”¦ Many of the Cardinals have been going high-cuffed on Sundays, so outfielder Jon Jay had these T-shirts made (should say “high-cuffed,” not “high sock,” grrrr). That inspired reader Thomas Qualls to create this Twitter account. “The plan is to send out a pic of myself every Sunday doing ordinary tasks — in stirrups,” he says. Everyone should sign up to follow that, yes?