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Uni Watch

Timelessly Representing the Ballclub – CFL Edition

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Blue Bombers

By Phil Hecken

For those of you who read Uni Watch on the weekends, you’re very familiar with the “Timelessly Representing the Ballclub” series. For those who don’t, a brief primer:

Originally envisioned for baseball, several readers have submitted their thoughts on which uniform and stadium (or arena/building) would serve as a “snapshot,” if you will, of a club’s perfect uniform and home, if one were to consider a team’s entire history. It’s subjective, of course, and very likely can be heavily influenced by the ballclubs and stadia from a particular reader’s childhood, although this is not necessarily the case. But based on the more recent vintage chosen of both team and building, it seems like one’s formative years play a role in this.

Thus far, we’ve covered both leagues of Major League Baseball, and both conferences of the NFL, and both conferences of the NBA. I am planning on running one set for the NHL as well as at least three different conferences in college football. I want to thank those who volunteered to cover these sports, and there was more interest in all of these than I could have imagined. Obviously, it’s a popular topic.

Before we get into today’s “Timelessly Representing…”, which will take a look at the CFL, if you’d like to reacquaint yourself (or acquaint yourself, as the case may be) with the past “Timelessly Representing” series, you can check them out here: NBA, Part I; NBA, Part II NFL, NFC Edition; NFL AFC Edition; MLB, National League Edition; and, MLB, American League Edition.

Today I’m joined by a Canadian attorney (please try not to hold that against him), and a marathoner, and a fellow I can both call a friend and a gentleman, Mike Styczen. He’s worked with me on a number of pieces (not surprisingly, most of them dealing with Canadian sports), and he’s back today to bring you a look at that football league up north where they have some really crazy rules, eh? And like all Canadians, Mike will probably do things a little differently than the rest of use here in the States (and the rest of the world).

So, here’s Mike to give us a…

. . .

Timeless Look at the CFL
By Mike Styczen

A comment was made earlier that this ongoing feature “Representing” wasn’t so much of an analysis of the uniforms and teams as the writer writing about the uniforms that were in place when the writer became a sports fan. My first temptation was to pick nine CFL uniforms from the 1970s; I’ve avoided that temptation and have instead tried to be a little more thoughtful about which set best represents each team.

Eastern Conference

Toronto Argonauts: Early 1990s (Rocket Ismail period), Exhibition Stadium

Dishonourable mention: Argos worst

Hamilton Tiger Cats: Late 1960s (Angelo Mosca period), obviously Ivor Wynne

Dishonourable mention: TiCats worst

Ottawa Rough Riders: 1970s (Tony Gabriel period), obviously Lansdowne Park. Did you know there’s an NHL arena under there somewhere?

Dishonourable mention: Riders worst

Montreal Alouettes: Sorry, but I’m going with the current look and Molson Stadium. They’ve made it iconic. [Ed. note: is that Don King on that sideline? — PH]

Dishonourable mention: Montreal Concordes (yes I know the Concordes are not part of the same continuity)

Stadium dishonourable mention: Autostade. Its hard to believe this stadium isn’t imaginary.

.. .. ..

Western Conference

Winnipeg (yes, I know, technically in the east): 1970s (Dieter Brock era), Winnipeg Stadium. The new stadium is a beauty but its far too new to represent the franchise.

Dishonourable mention: Bombers worst. Drop the name “Reinebold” on a Winnipeg fan and see the reaction.

Saskatchewan Roughriders: 1960s (Ron Lancaster), Taylor Field.

Dishonourable mention: Roughriders worst

Calgary: 1990s (Doug Flutie), McMahon Stadium

Dishonourable mention: Stamps worst

Edmonton Eskimos: 1970s (Warren Moon), Commonwealth Stadium

Dishonourable mention: Eskimos worst

B.C. Lions: 1970s-1980s (Joe Paopao), B.C. Place before the renovation (again, the new stadium is a beauty but not yet iconic

Dishonourable mention: Lions worst

.. .. ..

The U.S. Experiment:

Best: Baltimore Stallions in Memorial Stadium

Dishonourable mention: Birmingham Barracudas, Memphis Mad Dogs

. . .

Thanks, Mike! I like the way you worked this, and especially incorporating the “worst” aspect into it all. And I think it’s safe to say that most Canadians, and probably almost all Americans, view the American experiment as, well…not so good. That it came at a nadir in uniform design (for the CFL anyway) also doesn’t help matters.

Well readers? I know many of you may not be familiar with that league up north, but I think Mike pretty much put this one out of the park (although I would strongly disagree with his choice of the current Montreal Al’s unis). Not that many of us remembers how they looked in 1958, but THAT is a football uni. But other than that, I’d say it’s a great job. Readers? What say you?

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And Now a Few Words from Paul”¦

Hi, people. Remember me? Before I say anything else, let’s have a round of applause for Phil, who’s been doing some seriously great work these past two weeks. Very impressive, no? I’ve been enjoying his content every morning, just like you.

I wish I could tell you that I’ve been spending my blogcation on a road trip, or in a hammock, or something along those lines. The reality is that I’ve been working on several ESPN projects, including the new edition of the Uni Watch Power Rankings, which will roll out during the week of Aug. 19.

The Power Rankings will once again rank the uniforms for all 122 teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB over the course of five days. Last year, as you may recall, we broke the 122 teams into five quintiles and revealed one quintile per day, going worst to first. This year, though, we’ve made a change: For the first four days of the week, we’re going to rank the uniforms for one league per day (the sequence will be NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL), and then we’ll post the 122-team intermixed ranking chart on Friday.

Some of you may have questions. Allow me to anticipate a few of them:

Aren’t most of the teams just going to have the same rankings as last year?

Many teams will be in roughly (if not exactly) the same ranking spot as last year. But many teams have gotten new uniforms, and I’ve revised my thinking on several others, so there will definitely be some movement in the ranking charts. We’re going to add a “Trending” column, like the ones used in ESPN’s conventional league power rankings, to show each team’s positive or negative movement since last year.

In last year’s chart, each team’s name linked to photos of its uniform set. Will you have new photos for each team?

If a team made a uniform change in the past 12 months, of course we’ll have new photos. If the team hasn’t made a change, we’ll stick with last year’s photos.

Doesn’t that mean you’ll sometimes have photos of players who aren’t even on that particular team anymore?

Yes. Doesn’t really matter (at least not to me), since we’re talking about the uniforms, not about who’s wearing them.

Are you writing new comments for all 122 teams?

Again, any team with a new uniform will have new commentary. For the teams that haven’t changed their look, I’ve tried to come up with new comments whenever possible. Occasionally, though, I’ve looked what I wrote last year and thought to myself, “You know, that comment perfectly expresses what I think about this team’s uniforms. Why change it?” So some of the commentary is repeated from last time around.

Will the Phoenix Suns’ ranking be based on their new uniforms, which are due to be unveiled next Thursday, Aug. 15?

Yes.

Okay, that’s enough for now. Thanks again to Phil for doing such amazing work while I slave away on ESPN work recharge my batteries, and to Johnny Ek for handling the weekends. I’ll probably make another cameo appearance at some point in the next few weeks, and I’ll be back for real on Aug. 26. See you then.

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Weekday Uni Tweaks

WEEKDAY Uniform Concepts & Tweaks

Longtime and weekend readers know that I frequently run reader submissions for uniform concepts, revisions, or just plain tweaks. Usually they are in sets of three, but sometimes there are more and sometimes there are less. Sometimes they are so good these deserve their own lede.

During Paul’s monthlong Blogcation, I’ll occasionally run one (or maybe) two of these.

If you have any concept or tweak, and you would like to see it featured here, either during the week while I’m hosting the blog or on the weekends when I return to those, drop me an e-mail. For each particular design, please try to keep your description to ~50 words or so. OK? OK!

And now, here’s what we have for today (click any images to enlarge):

. . .

Today’s concept comes from W. Ross Clites, who (after his incredible project to remake the NBA) is back with a baseball tweak — for the Pirates:

pittsburgh pirates - W. Ross Clites

Phil,

How I spent my weekend…

Got back from a trip to Pittsburgh last week; saw the Buccos take 4 out of 5 from the Cards. Spending a lot of time in PNC (my personal favorite ballpark in the league) found me critiquing the current branding of the Pirates. Since they are allegedly in the market for a new image for 2014, I threw this together. Hope everyone enjoys. On to the next project…

Ross

. . .

Thanks! I’ll be back with more weekday tweaks/concepts again.

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ticker 2

Uni Watch News Ticker: “New Everton kits!” exclaims Andrew Rader. Everton Unveil ‘It’s in Our DNA’ Away Kit. … And in a different article on the same topic, “This is hardly what I’d call a change kit,” says George Chilvers. …Meanwhile, the “concussion hysteria continues,” says Scott R. Jamison. … Bills to wear white at home? Based on the Panthers jersey schedule, it looks as though the Bills will open at home in White jerseys (great spot by Joe Bozek). … The Notre Dame equipment manager explains Shamrock uni process, which includes player reactions (thanks to Warren Junium). … Perpignan Rugby’s (French Top 14) jerseys were revealed yesterday morning (h/t to Robert J. Hudson). … A bit of a new uni-mystery from Michael Rich, who writes, “Last Sunday night, Braves pitcher Alex Wood has some initials written in white on his cap. (I think it was BM, but may have been LM, I can’t remember.) Unfortunately I didn’t get a screen grab and I can’t find a good picture but this picture clearly show a white smudge on his hat, but they aren’t close enough to read it.” Anyone know more? … Eric Leach writes, “Not sure if I have ever seen this before on a Nebraska practice jersey, but Taylor Martinez has a captains “C” on it. As above, anyone aware of this practice previously? … Not a uniform topic here, but a warning sticker on Schutt football helmets. “Make sure to read the last line,” says Marc Mandin. … Our friends at Retro College Cuts, who specialize in selling throwback college basketball shorts, are branching out with a line of retro track jackets, which will debut next month (thanks Paul). … As Johnny Football is in a photo-related flap, ‘Heisman’ Howard is embroiled in one of his own (that submission ripped straight from the Yahoo hed by Jason Hillyer). … Here’s an outstanding (but unfortunately small) picture of two U of Kentucky players that played for Bear Bryant. The two players were twin brothers and Bear’s choice of numbers for them seems fairly unique. Brandon Roberts, who found that, notes, “I have confirmed through my elders in the UK community that those numbers were actually worn on the field. You can see the picture and read about the brothers at this link.” … Since concussion-protection gear has been in the news lately, take a gander at the splash photo in this Philly.com article entitled, “Temple running backs eager to make an impact.” … Good to hear from uni historian Ricko Pearson, who always knew the last Kansas City Blues had nothing on their home jerseys but a number on the back. Well, he finally found a photo (from the 1952 season). … We don’t normally post cheerleader photos (for what should be obvious reasons) on UW, but this is an exception — a nice slideshow of cheerleader uniforms since the 1950s. … A reader who just goes (in e-mail, anyway) by Moulden, notes: “Looks like the Packers player ‘event’ jersey, not game cut, has some pretty bad mismatched nameplates.” … In a day mercifully short on College Football news, we learn that Stanford will retire John Elway’s #7 jersey. … Don’t you just hate it when the NCAA gets all high and mighty hypocritical about profiting off player jerseys and merch, while the players themselves receive nothing? It’s interesting because one of the defendants in a pair of lawsuits concerning the use of college athletes’ names and likenesses said in a court filing Monday products bearing college athletes’ jersey numbers do not represent actual college athletes (emphasis mine). … Hadyn Green was chatting to Caleb Borchers (with whom I will soon be doing an article) on twitter and he thought UWers might be interested in a Rugby Uniform Bracket he’s running. Round One has just finished and they’re into the Sweet 16. Haydn looked at Super Rugby jerseys and International jerseys ranked them and then put it up for a vote. … Yesterday we say the NC State Wolfpack uniforms, and today we see what they look like in pads. … More fun with A-rod, courtesy of 12th Man (@SeattleFan77), who notes this is this is the wrong spelling, but it’ll do. … We’ve (undoubtedly?) covered this before, but I was watching the Rockies/Mets game last night, and just noticed Adam Ottavino sports a “0” on his uni. Very odd to see a pitcher with that number. … ICYMI, there have been some bad MLB.com Photoshops recently, including this one covered by Deadspin. Britton Thomas thinks this might be worse. … And here’s some cool stuff from the old PCL (thanks to Nicole Haase). … If you’re wondering what outfits Tiger Woods will be wearing for the PGA Championship, wonder no more. … And in non-uni, but logo news, Yahoo will be getting a new logo on September 5th. Good news? It’s a slightly more adult font. Bad news? It’s still purple (thanks, Brinke).

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And with that, we’ll tie a bow on this fine Wednesday article. Big thanks to Mike Styczen for tackling (pun firmly intended) the CFL “Timelessly Representing” portion of this series (I’ll have a few more of these before my weekday run ends). Speaking of which, great to hear from Paul, who should be enjoying his blog-cation and not slaving away at a hot ESPN stove (but we love him for it). Looking forward to those rankings! Gotta think the Vikings and Astros (among others) will move up a slot or two this time around.

You fine folks have a wonderful hump day and I’ll be back again with more uniform news and views on the morrow.

Follow me on Twitter @PhilHecken.

Peace.

.. … ..

“I’m just hoping that the increasing popularity of uniform season will help boost my interest in my uniform fantasy league. I drafted chrome, matte, & extraneous sparkly shit this year, so I’m hoping for big things.”
–Hugh C. McBride

 
  
 
Comments (122)

    The two tone everton strip is odd. Still annoyed they got rid of the stripe on the shorts.

    I’ll join Paul’s round of applause for Phil’s weekday work. You’ve stepped up your game this year, Skip. Very nicely done so far. Now don’t fuck it up.

    Thanks JB!

    I think you’re going to very much enjoy the next two days (and hopefully next two weeks as well).

    Assuming there is no breaking uni news to bump tomorrow’s planned lede, this one will literally be out of the park.

    And Friday, of course, I’ll have Morris Levin’s always awesome wit and wisdom (and historical genius).

    Won’t tip my hand on tomorrow, but trust me when I say it’s going to be one of the best UW ledes ever.

    Fellow hoser here. Technically, the present day Als are a direct descendant of the Baltimore Stallions. Imo, the classic look was the late 70’s era, link

    Yes, I like that uniform too, but with the Alouettes having a truly Frankenstein-esque patch quilt of histories that puts the Cleveland Browns to shame, I too begrudgingly would give the nod the Calvillo to Cahoon uniforms. It is impossible to associate any other uniform with McGill Stadium, which was a franchise-rescuing smash hit.

    Ah, Exhibition Stadium. I once saw an Argo football game there in July when it was 98 degrees in TO. Later that same year I was at a Blue Jays game when it snowed. The wind off the lake could be very frigid. As to the Argos best uniforms my choice is the late 1970s.

    And FYI those 1952 Yankee-backed Kansas City Blues lost the seventh game of the Little World Series at Rochester to the Cardinal-owned Red Wings.

    I grew up with the Ex, the Blue Jays and the Argos (note the pattern; like Pittsburgh, the baseball, football and hockey teams all share the Blue and White, or Double Blue and White as the case may be, and I’m not counting those nasty Raptor unis). To me, the 70s were the heyday of the Boatmen uniforms, whether it was the Steeler style stripes of the early 70s, or the Redskins’ simple wide stripes of the late 70s.

    Coming from the Detroit area, the Ex and the Blue Jays were 180 degrees from what I knew of the Tigers and Tiger Stadium; open, airy and bright. Not necessarily better, just different. Saw Lance Parrish hit the lights above the left field grandstand with a line drive home run that was still going up almost 400 feet from the plate. The best part about it was that it was on the Exhibition grounds. That meant that for the last two weeks of August, a $7 ticket to the game meant you didn’t have to buy a $10 ticket to the Canadian National Exhibition, or a $6 admission to Ontario Place (hey, we’re talking the early 80s here, and for a recent high school graduate, that meant something!).

    Paul, in 1977, the Jays first year you had to buy a ticket to the Ex just to get on the grounds. That did not go over very well and was soon changed that you just had to show your game ticket at the gate to get on the grounds. I saw the ’77 Tigers with Ralph Houk managing and The Bird was still pitching. I used to stay at the Holiday Inn on Chestnut St. When the Tigers were in town that was where all of the Detroit fans stayed. Rooms then were only $29.95 a night with a 20% premium on US currency. We went to T.O. from Rochester four or five times a summer. There was absolutely no hassle at the border. Oh, for those good old days!

    I think (and I’m going from memory here) was that reserved seating got you into the grounds for free but that grandstand seats (which were $2) did not.

    But you’re right – they were the good old days. You could get $2 grandstand tickets for $1 at the grocery store, and they were undated – show up at any game and grab a seat. If it was the Yankees on the weekend you might be 200 feet behind the centre field fence, out past the batters eye, but if it was the Indians on a chilly Tuesday night you could be right on the left field foul line. For $1.

    I have to say that adding the “Worst Look” to the Timeless Representation was a master stroke! Ads a great new dimension to an already brilliant concept. Kudos!

    W. Ross Clites – As a Pittsburgher I have to praise that beautiful logo and alternate jersey choices. I wouldn’t mess with the lettering at all, the colors and styles are perfect I feel, but everything else, especially that logo, would be a welcome addition.

    Great leading article too, I really enjoy these “representing the ballclub” themed articles and this one, with the dishonorable mentions, is probably the best so far.

    I’m not a Pittsburgher. Just FYI.
    I never liked the red in the Pittsburgh Pirates uniforms. Do Pittsburghers like it? I don’t understand why it was ever added if the team colors have always (as far as I know) been black and yellow.
    My feeling has been that just because the pirate character is wearing a red bandana does not mean that the color has to be incorporated into the uniform.

    I am a Pittsburgher, a Pirates fan, and I hated the red. I don’t even think it belongs in the bandana.

    I am a Pirates fan, and I like just a touch of red. Outline on the chest lettering was probably too much, but I dug the red bill on the caps, and the red vest was just SO ugly and inappropriate that I almost had to admire it.

    The Pittsburgh colors have never, EVER been black and yellow. It’s black and GOLD. Gold, do you hear me, G. O. L. D.

    (Yes, this is a peeve of mine.)

    Enjoyed the tweak. I traveled back to the ‘Burgh from NC for Saturday’s win against Colorado. I liked bringing back the Pittsburgh script / wordmark from the late ’80’s It looked sharp back then atop the gray w/black pinstripe roadies. The late ’80s logo was missing from the logo progression between the Disco Bucco and the current Holly Roger.

    Yeah, in the logo evolution I skipped over the mustachioed buc from my Pittsburgh childhood (or as we call it, the skinny Barry Bonds era) because that logo is rooted in the team’s 1936-1947 logo seen at the beginning of the timeline. It seemed redundant to put both, so I went with just the original.

    Thanks to Chris Creamer’s site, as with any of my projects: link

    The Bills will be wearing their white throwbacks for Week 2 vs the Panthers, based on this image from a Bills email: link

    And they won’t open in white, they play the Patriots Week 1 at home and will wear blue.

    What a stupid team to wear the throwback against. I mean, if you’re going to wear a uniform from 1964, why do it against a team that didn’t even exist then? This is exactly why I tend to get annoyed with throwback uniforms.

    /Besides, the Bills alternate/throwback uniform should be the 1990’s era now, since their current uniform is already a fauxback to the 70’s.

    The captaincy patches for Nebraska are new this year. In Pelini’s first 5 years they elected different captains for each game. This year they have permanent season captains and gave each of those players the patches. Not sure if it will make it to the game jerseys or not.

    Re: Uni Watch Power Rankings

    Last year compiled city rankings based on Paul’s ranking of each uniform. It wasn’t perfect (there were questions about if it should be by market and not city, for instance), but it was still interesting. I’m eager to see how cities will stack up this year. Here are my original comments with a link to the rankings:

    (2012) CITY RANKINGS

    I threw together a spreadsheet to figure out which city averages out to have the best uniforms based on Paul’s rankings. The last time Paul tackled link, he stipulated that a city had to be represented in at least 3 of the 4 major sports. So, with that in mind, link. Cities that are grayed out qualify with at least 3/4 teams. Using this criteria, Oakland is Number 1.

    Note: I gave the Warriors to both Oakland (because they play there) and San Fran (because they plan to move there). If/when they move to San Fran, Oakland will be eliminated (only 2 teams) and Pittsburgh will be Number 1 (by a comfortable margin, I might add.)

    Great series of blogs on Deadspin last night chronicling Jay Bilas and his endless tweets pointing out the hypocrisy that is the NCAA “player profiting” rule.

    link

    The NCAA later removed the search tool from their website yesterday after his posts. However you can still search for college players jerseys by their name on affiliate websites: reminder-johnny-manziel-may-not-profit-from-the-use-of-1043958657

    The NCAA is such a joke.

    Not just a joke, I think someone from the NCAA was testifying in court or a deposition (the O’Bannon case I think, I can’t find the link), and said, under oath, that a numbered jersey doesn’t represent any player, and then Bilas went off on Twitter.

    I’m not sure if the searches were entered as evidence or not, but I think they were.

    Damn I wish I could find the story I was reading about this

    Cheerleader Uni slideshow:

    Oh the horror of the late 80’s!

    (Don’t get me wrong, the girls are hot, but in retrospect the fashion is putrid!)

    Holy smokes. It seems like they were all wearing ugly leotard outfits in the 80s!

    Gotta love the big hair, though.

    I’m not a fan of the new Yahoo logo. It’s not terrible. But I preferred the old one. The font made it unique and all they had to do was put their Y! and you instantly knew it was Yahoo.

    These bland sans-serif fonts are all the rage now, apparently. Everyone is trying to go with the minimalist thing. Well, when everyone does it, it’s not unique anymore. In 30 years, people will look back and probably say, “Dang, that was a boring era.”

    As for the purple (which I generally do like), not everyone can be red and/or blue. Someone has to use the secondary colors, including purple. (Yes, we all know Paul loves green.)

    Unless I’m mistaken, they haven’t actually unveiled the new logo yet. According to the link, they’ll be using a different logo every day for the next 30 days before finally unveiling the real one.

    Speaking of the CFL, I noticed last night the new Ottawa team is the REDBLACKS? In all caps?

    It makes sense in French (Le Rouge et Noir d’Ottawa) but in English it’s kind of awkward, plus the all caps thing is odd.

    I guess I’ll just think of it along the lines of the New Zealand AllBlacks

    Yes. For reasons that passeth all understanding, the new Ottawa CFL team wants its nickname to be printed in all caps in all printed media.

    Are you thinking of Real Salt Lake? Yes, it reads “ReAL” on their logo, but I don’t think they insisted it appear that way in print. Or if they did, they got roasted for it, and no longer insist.

    Not specific to RSL, just seeing that type of usage here and there outside of sports teams. I kind of get why RSL did that on the logo, given the dearth of Spanish-speakers (and monarchists FWIW) in Utah.

    Timelessly representing the CFL – good job. For the Argos best, I prefer the wide stripe double blues of the early 80’s, the Terry Greer / Condredge Holloway era.

    The “worst” for the Eskimos and Sask Roughriders are two of my favorites. Granted, I haven’t been watching the CFL long enough to see several different uniforms. I agree with pretty much everything else on that list though.

    For my money, the best looking CFL USA franchise wasn’t Baltimore. The Sacramento Gold Miners combined a unique nickname with a sharp uniform.

    I’m surprised he even bothered to mention the CFL-US teams, actually. It’s kinda sad that experiment failed so badly though. I think the league could really use more teams. CFL style football is entertaining to watch, but when the league only has 8 or 9 teams, I can’t bring myself to care about it. They play a 20 game season, and you have 6 of the 8 teams in the playoffs… it’s just silly when you compare it to any other modern professional league.

    I don’t know enough CFL history, but probably. I think when you have more than half of the league in the playoffs, you’re nearly guaranteed to include a team with a losing record. I don’t care what sport or how big or small the league is, you should never have more than half of the teams in the playoffs. For what it is, the CFL should probably just have the two best records play each other and be done with it.

    Yeah, the 5-11 Ottawa Rough Riders reached the 69th Grey Cup and lost to the 14-1-1 Edmonton Eskimos 26-23, back in 1981. Ottawa actually led 20-1 at half-time before the Eskies woke up.

    ————

    Great job, Mike and Phil! Thanks for covering the CFL.

    Yes, thank you for your work.

    As Phil mentioned, I’ve been looking of a photo of those home unis for a long, long time.

    Yeah, I grew up with the Argonauts’ football/boat logo, so it has a soft spot.

    link

    I also prefer a helmet stripe for the Samps:
    link

    The Daily Mail kit asking “But what will they wear against Chelsea?!?!?!” is kinda silly. Teams have had change kits that don’t really resolve clashes for a while now (AC Milan has had all-black and all-red away kits, for example), and change kits often come with change shorts. Arsenal, for example has had an yellow-red-yellow away kit with alternate yellow shorts.

    Everton will simply wear a third kit (which could be last year’s away kit) or wear yellow shorts with their yellow away shirts.

    Everton has not released a third kit…yet…if they even will. That’s what they stated.

    They also went on further to write about the Liverpool/Arsenal match where there was a swapping of shorts. It is a simple fix, yes.

    But, they probably wrote it because there are some Everton fans or Chelsea fans who are pondering the change kit decision by Everton (ahem, Nike).

    I think it’s a law that Everton’s change kits must inspire ennui, tedium, and malaise.

    I’ve got nothing against the club — they thrive in the shadow of a much more powerful rival, they’re usually well-coached and competitive, their nickname is the Toffees, and who doesn’t like toffee? — but they always look so…blah. Especially in their change kits. Everton manage to make pink look blase: not bold, not even obnoxious, just sort of there.

    Everton manage to make pink look blase: not bold, not even obnoxious, just sort of there.

    Ha!

    I don’t know, the new away yellows are actually pretty interesting. I can see it getting traction on High Street, as they say.

    But the home shirt – the white bands on the sleeves seem fine in theory, but look awful on TV.

    I like the colors, I just don’t like the execution. It looks off.

    Those sleeve stripes are awful, indeed.

    Everton has not released a third kit…yet

    Right, though until very recently, “third kit” simply meant “last year’s away kit”. Either the white or the black will do (albeit with the new crest).

    I just thought it was weird that it was some weird occurrence that a change kit might cause a color clash.

    I was at the Met game and loved Ottavino wearing zero…I assume it is for the first letter of his last name.

    But it’s funny how (at least to me) a shortstop wearing 0 doesn’t look as odd as a pitcher. Maybe it’s just the whole single digit thing, I wonder how 00 would look, although I guess that wouldn’t make sense unless his name was Otto.

    My personal “Timelessly Representing” usually has more to do with the appearance of the team when they were at their most successful than when I started becoming a sports fan.

    Agreed, to a point. I don’t know about the CFL, but going back to the NFL, take the Bucs – they won the Superbowl in pewter, but they wore orange for far longer. Even though they weren’t exactly successful in the orange, from a historical standpoint, it probably does represent the team better.

    I tend to give credit also to looks that made a team particularly distinctive. All in all, the Phillies of today probably represent the team’s most successful era, but their current uniforms are “blah” at best. Hey, look, a red cap with a white letter! How unique, right? Whereas the Schmidt-era burgundy uniforms are distinctive not only for Philadelphia in the 1970s and 80s, but in all of baseball history. That carries enough weight for me that for some teams, I’d choose their most distinctive uniform even if it doesn’t represent the pinnacle of their on-field achievement.

    I can understand why that might be deemed Ottawa’s worst, since it’s so far outside of their tradition and glory days. But I absolutely adore that logo.

    Steve D, I was watching on tv last night and was thinking the same thing. Gotta be, right?

    I can’t believe that I’ve never posted this before… don’t think I’ve seen anyone else post it either. (arrScott maybe?)

    link Got a very 70s Rangers/Twins look to it – not surprising considering both franchises were in DC at one point.

    link

    Back in 2011 there was a mention of it in the ticker:

    “Many of you have probably seen the uniform that the Padres would have worn if they’d followed through on their plans to move to Washington in 1974. But here it is again, just in case.” link

    link

    Indeed!
    I’m sure there’s plenty of readers who missed that old post, so it’s good to be reminded of that uni again.

    I take a special affront to the “concussion hysteria” comment. That type of language is ignorant at best. From someone who has had multiple concussions and played through them, and someone who has a history of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, dementia, and ALS in his family, I just don’t understand the belittling of being more attentive to brain trauma. It’s a real thing, and peoples’ lives are being affected by this in a very negative way. People who are uninformed and misled about things shouldn’t be commenting on them. Besides, this is mostly a blog about aesthetics. Protective material requirements aren’t aesthetics. What they look like is. Stop belittling those who are trying to help.

    I was by no means “belittling brain trauma.” Rather, I was characterizing a school district’s non-scientifically-based adoption of a helmet mandate for certain sports an overreaction to what is, from a relative standpoint, a negligible area of concern. Did you know, for instance, that the incidence of concussions amongst both female lacrosse players and high school field hockey players only increased after protective eyewear mandates were implemented for those sports? So how does perhaps further endangering those individuals qualify as “helping”? Do you know the concussion incidence rates for those sports relative to other athletic activities such as basketball or cheerleading? And if so, why there’s not similar mandates for them? So yeah, I think “hysteria” is not a hyperbolic or inapt characterization.

    FWIW, I too have a history of ALS in my family. And as for your quip about what this blog “should” be about, take it up with the editors, not me.

    Sorry Scott, but when you say the “concussion hysteria continues”, you do belittle head injury concerns. That is a broad and sweeping statement, much larger than the actions of one district. I don’t know if any scientific research informed the decision or not. I do know that I teach at a public high school, and those kids are way too young to be risking their futures with a serious head injury. I also know that you pulled a bit of a bait and switch when you presented your data about protective eyewear and concussions as evidence of “hysteria”, since protective eyewear is designed to protect eyes (hence the name), not prevent concussions. But as I said, I don’t know if scientific research played in the decision or not. In any case, concussions, particularly in the young, are a serious issue, and people who are concerned about it aren’t just being “hysterical”.

    As for your quip about jrod’s quip, he didn’t name you there, and I didn’t read it as beig targeted at you. Any reasonable person I think would see that was meant for the blog editors, in this case Phil. No need for you to take that comment personally or redirect it.

    My dictionary defines “hysteria” as “excessive or uncontrollable emotion, such as fear or panic.” Implementing a mandate for which no empirical evidence is (or can be) cited, solely in the guise of “protecting the children” from a risk that hasn’t been demonstrated, falls squarely within that meaning. Particularly where the available evidence if anything points to the opposite conclusion w/r/t lacrosse and especially field hockey (a sport I have a particular interest in). Pointing that out is hardly tantamount to not taking head injuries seriously, much less endorsing the notion that children should court them as your post seems to suggest.

    If you click the link and read through, Yahoo will be trotting out 30 different variations of their logo between now and the official, real, permanent new logo on September 5. Expect to see some lovely spec versions, some versions that look like they were created by a high school kid with an overstuffed collection of free shareware fonts, and a whole lotta purple.

    Yeah it switched last night at 9pm PT, and I had just opened up my email and my eyes immediately went to it and I thought- ‘what is that?’ I mean, it’s significant to me, as the previous version is the only one I (or anyone) has ever seen, and I’ve used Y Mail since 1997.

    I tweeted Marissa Mayer on it- she hasn’t responded yet. Never does, as a matter of fact.

    I like that UW Power Rankings logo a LOT!! I’d vote for that to be the new logo/masthead in a heartbeat.

    When you look at the “timeless” uniforms for each team (and I’m with Harry – for me, the late 70’s Als uniform is their classic look), has there ever been a better-looking league than the CFL?

    Every one of those uniforms is beautiful.

    Thanks for the positive comments guys.

    I don’t disagree that the late 1970s were great uniforms for both the Argos and the Alouettes. Those two were close calls, and to be frank part of my thinking was that I wanted this to be more than just a slideshow of what the CFL looked like in the late 1970s.

    Phil – you’re right that the 1958 Alouette look is a thing of beauty. They threw back to that look in 2009 (with a white helmet, which would put it about 1960). I didn’t go with that one because, as beautiful as it is, its not iconic of the team.

    link

    And as I mentioned above, I ignored the fact that the Alouettes from 1970 to the present are at least 3, perhaps 4 separate teams.

    And on the CFL US experiment, the definitive guide was done by Teebz a few years back. A must-read for anyone who read this and said “wait, the CFL had American teams?”

    link

    Anyone notice in the Panthers article that they are boasting about having “The Greatest Uniform in NFL History” with the black jersey and black pants combination? REALLY? THAT’S WHAT ENDED UP WINNING THAT POLL? Granted, the Panthers are probably the only post-merger NFL team that actually has decent uniforms, but there are other options that are better than black pants and black jerseys.

    Well, either the Panthers fans *really* liked that uniform and voted excessively, or there’s some 4chan trolling involved. It was an internet poll, after all.

    I dare the Panthers, DOUBLE DOG DARE THEM, in fact, to completely jump the shark and – for October, at least – become the Pink Panthers.

    If the Mighty Ducks survived as long as they did, why not?

    I see that the Panthers are wearing white when the Giants come down to Charlotte for week three. They might as well since last year it felt like we are the Meadowlands anyway! Probably 70 percent Big Blue fans.

    7 uniforms? Seeing them laid out next to each other makes me realize things really have gotten out of hand. Why not just have home/away and then make the throwback a special one worn a couple times a season. You definitely don’t need a batting practice anything…

    That would be a better remake than changing the design.

    I hear you and echo your sentiments on some accounts. But this is baseball, a 162 season. I’m as big of a lover of the old-school in baseball as anyone, but a jersey variety is a nice modern innovation. This isn’t 11 football games and 11 different jerseys. This is a road gray jersey that will get at least 50 games in front of the eyes of the fans. That can get boring; I don’t mind a home and road alternate.

    Throw in a Sunday variation and all I really lay out there is five uniforms. Four is fine; I will respect if you say that extra is too much. I won’t disagree, but I just wanted to keep designing things and didn’t want to edit it out.

    The throwback is just laid out there as my preferred classic jersey for the Pirates to select in 2014. They have over 120 years to choose from, but that is my favorite era. The batting practice top never gets worn for games.

    Poor representation on my part, but it is not seven and it is not thaaaat out of hand. Only a little. Thanks for reading.

    Thanks for the response Ross and I can understand where you are coming from uni-wise. Personally, I would love nothing more than to see your Home/Road ALTERNATES used for daily games with the throwback for Sundays.

    Just think if we could get past the bland white for home games and (mostly) grey for away games in the league. We would see a lot more color on the field and likely have more dynamic designs.

    Thank you for your insights. I agree and we are certainly trending towards color vs. color in all sporting events.

    Agreed. In my opinion throwbacks or one-offs really shouldn’t be included in the graphic, and really no more than three uniforms and an alt top are warranted for a baseball team. My Mets (and I’m not a fan but they’re the best example) theme would be:

    Home M-Tu-W-Th-Sa: Home white headspoons
    Home F and/or Sa: Alt color top, white pants
    Home Su: Pinstrips

    Away Su-M-Tu-W-Th-Sa: Road grays
    Away F: Alt color top gray pants unless it clashes with home team color top, then away gray tops.

    Or something like that, I think wearing home pins on Sundays should be like wearing your Sunday best. Keep in mind each team will only have about 12 Sunday games so it would keep them relatively special.

    I’m with you. I was actually going to lay out the graphic as a calendar. It seems like seven (which is a lot, agree with you Bryan) but it is not really seven. The batting practice top never gets worn for games, ever. That was just showcasing the new logo as it would appear on the pregame top. Like Tom states, the throwback doesn’t really count or — you could argue — shouldn’t have been included in the set. They will get worn twice a season, max.

    So what I really have laid out is five jerseys:

    hypothetical weekend home series:
    Friday – White
    Saturday – Yellow/Gold (likely only for a day game, white otherwise)
    Sunday – White vest with rep cap

    hypothetical weekday road series:
    Tuesday – Gray
    Wednesday – Black
    Thursday – Gray

    What you end up with is not a Brewers smorgasbord of jerseys, but two (a home white and a road gray) that get worn 70% of the time. The yellow/gold and black sporadically supplement home stands and road trips for get-away day. The home Sunday jersey gets about 10 appearances and the throwback 2. So it really isn’t as alarming as you make it out to be. It just looks like Oregon’s locker room when it’s all laid out as such. Bad representation on my part. If it were an infographic it would have made the jersey larger based on percentage of gameday appearances.

    The CFL has a rich tradition and two teams that have great uniform history tradition are the Montréal Al’s and the Hamilton Tiger cats Hamilton with the great Princeton looking uniforms in their history and Montréal with the art deco look of the 60s and 70s are rich with cultural tradition it’s something that should be really worked on this website

    Anybody else have a medium sized white rectangle fixed on the blog page? It does not move, even when I scroll down.

    I have something like that in the archaic version of IE that is on my workplace desktop, but it also says “access denied”. Don’t have that problem in better browsers on other devices(chrome, firefox, silk) though.

    I remember watching the Senior Bowl as a kid and John Sullivan and John Reaves both wore number 7 so for the Senior Bowl they wore 7S & 7R.

    link

    As a 52-year-old man and a big sports fanatic I have identified some of my sports teams based off of their uniforms and I have to say in my opinion the Pittsburgh Pirates late 70s set ,the Nate Colbert San Diego Padres and you have to add the Chicago White Sox uniforms as some great uniforms and if you remarket them right now major-league baseball would make up mental

    What sort of software do people use to create the concepts? I have some ideas but don’t know how to create them.

    Wilson,

    Honestly, it’s not the tools that make the art, it’s how you use them. Just get out the paper and pencil and start scratching. If your design has merit, it can always be converted – or you can plunk down some serious coin and get Adobe Creative Suite (industry standard) and learn how to use em and then try your luck.

    The best graphic designs that I can recall all started out with cave tools (paper and pencil). I would bet my house that the nearly all the uni watchin’ devotees in the universe (ArrScott, Duh Jeff, Todd Radom and Jerry Reuss notwithstanding) would starve to death if they had to design a REAL no kiddin’ team uniform.

    However, you can damn well be sure the Uni-watching fanboys and girls abso-freakin’lootly know their sheet from shinola when assessing a designs strengths and weaknesses. Ask them… they will tell you.

    All kidding aside – you could not ask for a better crew to give honest appraisals of any design you care to share. Simply because they are among the few who care enough to ask why does the interlocking NY lettering work so well? – How come there are eleventy brazillion different University of Oregon unis? Did Satan really create the color purple?

    So give it a shot, you sure can’t do any worse than UnderArmwear

    Believe it or not, I use the archaic (by industry standards) Adobe PhotoShop CS2. Not only is that outdated by about 8 years of upgrades, but it is the one product in the Adobe suite that isn’t designed for creatively building from scratch. InDesign and Illustrator are better served for that. But I am set in my ways, and I will never upgrade. I was forced to learn a few photo doctoring tricks in PhotoShop in order to make design boards for my architecture degree(s). Year after year after year, I got quicker with it and found out I could do much more than import a found artifact and modify it.

    Now, I challenge anyone to be better with a meaningless software product. It’s like getting into a Nintendo GameCube competition in 2013, haha. But whatever works and whatever you can get your hands on bootlegged for free (which is how it started for me). I think the results are just as professional, for it is the wizard and not the wand. The real designs are what are critiqued and even I know you can’t polish a turd. Even the most amazing spread I create — with a poor conceptual base — is not “good design.”

    If I got the newest stuff I would fail miserably in churning out projects. But if you want a free copy of CS2 I can charge you for remote lessons on how to make it work, haha.

    Alouettes uniforms from 73-81 and the Argos uniforms from late 70’s thru 1988 are best.

    It seems like each of the last few times I’ve visited this website on my laptop i’ve gotten different types of ads. Once was a pop up with sound that started right away, another time it was slider ads on each side of the margins, and this time it was a bar on the bottom. Is this something new you’re trying out, or is it me and my computer?

    Pac 12 Network has been showing Varsity Days. Half hour highlight shows from the 1970s. Very interesting show for the old uniforms.

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