Vancouver Baseball – Treasures Uncovered by BSmile

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By Phil Hecken

I have a very special post for you all today, and as you can tell (I hope) from the splash photo, it deals with olde-tyme sporting — specifically, baseball in Vancouver from the early part of the 20th Century. A week ago, Bruce Menard, who posts as “BSmile,” approached UW and thought this would make for a wonderful lede. Paul demurred, as he was traveling, so I jumped in. Unfortunately, we couldn’t quite get together in time to run this last weekend (as it would have been an “anniversary” of sorts), but we’re all set today.

Part of that E-mail read as follows:

For a long time I’ve been sitting on some amazing photos from what seems to be the largely-unknown City of Vancouver Archives.

There’s some serious baseball gold in their baseball archives (The pic from the 1922 Spalding store opening is ridiculous!). I’ve been sitting on the photos because October 19th is the date that many of them were taken (1922 and 1934). Essentially the photos correspond to the 1922 and 1934 U.S. baseball trips to Japan…and I’m still in the process of editing a few of them. So maybe we could (re)launch them on the same day (19th)?

Obviously we didn’t make it for last Saturday, which was the 19th. We’re good now.

I don’t want to ruin any of the setup, so I’ll just turn this over to Bruce right now, as he takes you through a wonderful set of vintage photographs from the City of Vancouver archives (click on all photos to enlarge!).

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Vancouver Baseball Treasures
By Bruce Menard

While searching the web for vintage baseball photos (especially panoramics and anything Babe Ruth related), I stumbled across a site that I couldn’t believe I’d never seen before: The City of Vancouver Archives. Judging from the volume and quality of the high resolution scans, it quickly became apparent to me that this was a gold mine of untapped resources. The first photos that I found were perhaps the best and most historically interesting, as they related to the famous 1922-23 Baseball World Tour, sponsored by Spalding. More specifically they were from that All-Star team’s visit to Vancouver on October 19, 1922. The team was comprised of some serious major league talent: Casey Stengel, Herb Pennock, George “High Pockets” Kelly and Waite Hoyt among others. The first photo (which Phil used as the splash) shows the guys at the grand opening of the Spalding Sporting Goods Store, flanked by the gear of the day.

Here’s just a small sampling of the great stuff in those archives:

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1915 Opening Game Base Ball Season Vancouver vs Victoria:
Here’s an amazingly expansive panoramic of opening day 1915 in the old Northwestern League between the Vancouver Beavers and Victoria Bees.

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1917 Arnold & Quigly Baseball Team:

Some fantastic sweaters on the players for what seems to have been an amatuer team of the day.

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1918 Tacoma Tigers Team (PCIL):

The ’18 Tigers played in the old Pacific Coast International League. I don’t know what’s better, their uniforms or those amazing outfield wall ad signs behind them.

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1918 Vancouver Beavers Team (PCIL):

The Beavers were also a part of the old Pacific Coast International League. The league also had teams in Aberdeen, Portland, Seattle and Spokane.

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1920 Vancouver Beavers Team (PCIL):

The 1920 version of the Beavers featured some sweet monochrome uniforms. I’m not sure of the color, but they’re probably navy blue.

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1921 Vancouver Beavers Team (PCIL):

This pic of the ’21 Beavers features quite an assortment of different uniforms, including a great Pasadena (possibly Elks?) jersey on McNabb in the back row.

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1922 Vancouver BC American All-Stars:

The same players from the grand opening of the Spalding Sporting Goods Store (today’s splash photo). This shows the guys later that day before their exhibition game at Athletic Park in Vancouver.

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1932 Vancouver Old Timers Baseball Team:

Quite a few vintage major league uniforms in this incredible photo, including the Braves, Yankees, Cubs and Indians.

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1934 (Oct19.20) Babe & Connie Trade Hats

There’s also quite a few photos on the site of the 1934 Baseball Tour of Japan Team that was led by Connie Mack and Babe Ruth. Here’s a composite of Babe and Connie trading each others hats.

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1943 C.W.A.C. Team:

The Canadian Women’s Army Corps was established during WWII as part of Canada’s war effort. They also had a ballclub with some pretty cool logo shirts.”

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Thanks Bruce! Truly amazing photographs — thanks for finding and sharing! Hey colorizers — you won’t find a better set of photos in higher resolution than this — maybe a few of you can take a crack at a couple of these.

If you fine readers like these, be sure to check out all of the rest of his Bruce’s projects in the various corners of the Internet:

Bruce Menard

Visit his blog on Tumblr: Babe Ruth, Vintage Panoramics & Beyond. Bruce is also on Twitter and Pinterest.

Now that you’ve seen the pics, readers — what say you?

Guess The Game…From The Scoreboard

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It’s baaaaaack.

You guys are too good at this game. Today’s scoreboard might just stump you (or at least cause you to scratch your head). I’ll give you two tiny hints — pay careful attention TO the scoreboard itself. Things are not always as they seem. You might also need to link your answer from ESPN rather than Baseball Reference. Maybe. Think outside the box for this one.

If you solve it, as a courtesy to other readers, simply LINK (go to Baseball Reference) to the game and post that link in your comment — feel free to describe HOW you solved it, using any clues you may have gleaned from the Scoreboard.

OK? OK! Post your answer (in link form) in the comments section below. Good luck.

Last week’s scoreboard/answer: July 20, 1950.

Uni Tweaks Concepts

We have another new set of tweaks, er…concepts today. After discussion with a number of readers, it’s probably more apropos to call most of the reader submissions “concepts” rather than tweaks. So that’s that.

So if you’ve concept for any sport, or just a tweak or wholesale revision, send them my way.

Please do try to keep your descriptions to ~50 words (give or take) per image — if you have three uniform concepts in one image, then obviously, you can go a little over, but no novels, OK? OK!. You guys have usually been good with keeping the descriptions pretty short, and I thank you for that.

Like the colorizations, I’m going to run these as inline pics — click on each one to enlarge.

And so, lets begin:

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We begin today with Adam Cain, with a “Thanksgiving Cowboys” concept:

Hi Phil,

I haven’t really seen many Cowboys’ tweaks, so here is mine. The 60’s throwback is played out, so I am moving ahead a decade. This is a nod to 1976 when Dallas added the red stripe for the Bicentennial. This would be a great Thanksgiving type uniform, or prime time when all of America can watch America’s Team, which is centered on the chest.

Thanks,

Adam Cain

. . .

Next up is Dylan Desimine, whose Rangers concepts I’d featured during a weekday edition of UW (scroll down) back in August:

Hey Phil,

Good Afternoon.

In response to a request for the back view of my previous Rangers tweak, I whipped up a little something. Simple, yet effective. I also have a small Yankees tweak. I slimmed the trim used on their NEW YORK text, and on the sleeves. I’ve included the Yankees’ current roadies for comparison.

Dylan Desimine

. . .

We close today with Blake Pass who thought Tennessee’s new “Smokey” uniforms would look better with an orange hat:

Phil,

Not much to say except the fact that Tennessee could have gone with an orange helmet on top of the Smokey uniform.

Blake Pass

. . .

And that’s it for today. Back with more next time.

U.W.F.F.L. Week 8 Update

By Rob Holecko

Here’s what’s going on in the UWFFL this week: We got all kinds of stuff going on! To paraphrase Cheech Marin, this week we got all kinds of uniforms this week — we got teams wearing 1920s throwback uniforms with grip strips, we got teams wearing 1960s throwbacks, we got teams wearing fauxbacks to teams that didn’t exist, we got teams wearing blackout uniforms, we got teams wearing whiteout uniforms, we got teams wearing Vietnam War hero tributes, we got teams wearing tributes to dead goldfish, we got Russian teams, we got Swedish teams, heck, we might even have a team wearing a Halloween themed uniform.

In the big matchups of the week, Detroit (5-2) and Minnesota (6-1) face off in a key Central Division game, plus San Francisco went uncharacteristically white at home to force the New York Sharks, who prefer their white jerseys, to wear their seldom seen blue road tops (sound familiar?). Also the league has announced a new “BCS” ranking system for all of the minor league teams, Dallas at 7-0 is the first #1, while Anchorage, Sacramento, Florida and Vancouver round out the Top 5.

Read all about all the stories going on in the league here, and be sure to come to the website and vote at www.uwfantasyfootballleague.com.

Alex Rocklein’s MLB Playoffs Uni Tracker

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The World Series moves from Boston to St. Louis today, with the two teams having split the games in Beantown.

Sartorially, this is one of the better looking World Series’, and we’ll see no ‘softball’ tops throughout (Boston does have both a red and a blue alternate jersey, but they only wear those on Fridays. As luck would have it, they won’t play on Friday). St. Louis does possess a cream alternate, with “St. Louis” script, and they’ll wear that today, as they have worn it for every Saturday home game throughout the season and playoffs.

Uni Watch News Ticker:

Baseball News: They were getting ready for the World Series in St. Louis yesterday. …According to The New York Times, “The World Series is a showcase for not only the finest teams in the game, but also, for about the 15th year running, the regrettable fashion trend of the baggy, pajama-pant look.” … More goodness from the NYT, this time from writer Tyler Kepner, who notes that, sartorially, the Cardinals never wear a colored, softball-style jersey, and they never deviate from their schedule. … Jeff Wilk noticed that Bret Barberie wore a double flap helmet when he was with the Expos, but moved to a single flag when he was a Marlin. “Bret was a switch hitter, but I guess the Expos couldn’t afford two hemets,” says Jeff. You see direct examples at these links: Expos; Marlin lefty; and, Marlin righty … The nutjobs in the Westboro Baptist Church don’t really ever deserve a mention, much less a ticker entry, but they’ve decided to boycott the World Series today, and according to this flyer, “This nation pours billions into worshipping this sport instead of worshipping God. Indeed, if you spent one tiny fraction of what you spend on your baseball-worship on learning what the Bible actually says, this would be a blessed righteous nation.” So how is this uni-related? Westboro also doesn’t approve of the red uniforms donned by the Sox and the Cardinals, saying they are “symbolic of the blood of murdered unborn children, and that of thousands killed in ”˜unrighteous wars’,” (according to the Christian Post). Uh-huh.

College Football News: Check out the turf designs being considered for Missouri State (from Paulie Sumner). … “Something is wrong with me,” writes Chris Mycoskie who sends in this video of a Wisconsin HS waterboy with Down syndrome scoring a 35-yard touchdown. “Main takeaway from story: he’s not wearing right color pants.” He adds, “Oh, and he has NOB. Nobody else does.” … Auburn is putting pink ribbons on the helmet with ribbons on the field (thanks to Clint Richardson).

NBA News: Interesting observation/find from Dallas-area Mavericks fan Kevin Wang who writes, “We’ve already seen the “crowd sourcing” that the Mavericks have enlisted in designing an alternate uniform. It seems that they liked the idea so much that they are extending the concept to game program art. Once again, rather than pay professional or up and coming artists for their work, the Mavs are not going to compensate the artists for their work. Rather,’we will spotlight your name inside the publication, along with any interesting information you’d like to provide us. All fans who have their submissions chosen for publication will receive a copy of the issue featuring their artwork.’ A free copy of the program they hand out for free at home games? Give me a break. I love my sports teams, but living with Mark Cuban and Jerry Jones as owners of two of my teams is downright embarrassing most of the time.” … So, yeah, the Knicks unveiled their orange alternate yesterday, to the surprise of no one. Here’s more if you want to read more.

Hockey News: New Rochester Red Wings Logo? “Just got this in my inbox,” writes Richard Jurnack. “I had heard zero rumors about this, so color me intrigued. I’ll try to attend the unveiling and report back.” … Sweden’s gold hockey jersey for the Olympics has been leaked/released. Says submitter Bobby Pinkham, “Of all the jerseys we’ve seen so far, this is by far the cleanest and most traditional, except for Nike’s stupid faux-laces and the Viking ships on the shoulders.” … Last evening the Kitchener Rangers wore “Remembrance Day” sweaters (scroll down) Here’s a writeup with photo of the game.

Soccer News: Boy this sure sounds familiar: Kenny Loo notes Independiente of Colombia forgot to bring their jerseys and tape white numbers on their training jerseys. Then went out and bought fake jerseys and used RED MARKER for the NOB. … Nicole Haase forwarded a tweet to me with the exclamation, “Whoah, Cameroon.” … The Brazilian Soccer Confederation (CBF) unveiled a PDF document of all the uniforms worn by all three soccer divisions. Submitter Igor Mello thought it was pretty interesting. Here’s the link to the release (in Portuguese), and here’s the link to the PDF.

College & Other Hoops News: Big submission from Clay Brown, who writes, he “came across pictures of the Jersey Shore Warriors AAU team. I think the stripes match up best when the shirt is untucked (like the kid on the far right). There aren’t a lot of great pics, but I really love these with the “cross-body” stripes…Reminds me of the non-matching hoops unis from the 70s like K-State. Here’s the link to their site.” … Good stuff from Tom Morris, who notes the fun night Thursday night at Louisiana Tech’s Basketball Madness, where Raheem Appleby went throwback in the dunk contest. Tom notes Appleby wore a uniform from 1971-72 Bulldog team which averaged 101.1 per game and more than 100 for 18 of their games. There’s also video of the event (from Matt Lange). … Here’s an update on the Providence Friars’ new court (thanks to Matt Bessette). … Presbyterian has added 100 year patches to their jerseys (h/t John Reynolds). … The Montana State Bobcats have new hoops unis. … Check out the Mizzou hoops throwbacks worn last night.

Grab Bag: “Long an icon of the Seattle skyline, the script ‘R’ from Rainier Beer is back atop the old Rainier brewery just south of downtown,” writes Markus Kamp It really is a gorgeous letter, and the Seattle Times had an appropriately gorgeous photo of it yesterday morning. … Here’s a pretty interesting piece from The New York Times, entitled “Winning Sports Fans’ Hearts by Giving Them Somewhere to Go.” If you couldn’t glean it from the title, it entails porta-potties (thanks to Tommy Turner). … Pinktober rears its head (Part I) on the caps on prescription bottles at Walgreens (spotted by Jim Brunetti). … A bit of sarcasm from Maks Skuz who notes he was watching a video and a commercial came up for American Cancer Society (ACS). It showed that birthdays are sponsored by ACS. “I didnt realize that my birthday is sponsored by ACS (of course, I do understand its to help cure life and all). It now makes me feel like, ‘so if I want to celebrate my birthday, I have to make sure I have ACS logo so I wouldn’t be sued? Does this mean I can’t use Chicago Blackhawks deco or any other deco? My family and friends can’t sing Happy Birthday?'” … “Someone designed this flag?” asks Tom Mulgrew. Two counties in Northern California hope to join some of their neighbors in southern Oregon counties in seceding from their respective states. The goal is to form the new 51st state, Jefferson. “Whether or not their logic is flawed,” says Tom, “their flag certainly is terrible.” … And some comedic relief comes from David Firestone who notes “The mark of the Beast has hit new lows.” … Pinktober rears its head (Part II): “Ohio State’s student newspaper has taken Pinktober to another level. Every page is pink.” (h/t Jay Mazzone). … Don’t you just hate when you show up for a golf tourney and someone else is wearing the same outfit as you? (thanks to Johnny Ekdahl).

And that’s a wrap for this fine last Saturday in Pinktober. Thankfully. Next month some teams will play soldier, but we’ll tackle that (no pun intended) when we get there.

Big thanks to Bruce “BSmile” Menard for the wonderful photographic finds, plus the concepters, Rob and Alex.

Make sure if you see anything “odd” or just a uni-quirk in general, you post it in the comments, or e-mail or tweet it at me, and I’ll make sure I get it to Terry for tomorrow’s SMUW. And if you have a game (or 6) you think would be good (or bad) in Catherine’s 5 & 1, post ’em below or shoot her an e-mail at UW5and1@gmail.com.

You guys have a great Saturday — enjoy the football & World Series — and I’ll catch you guys tomorrow.

Follow me on Twitter @PhilHecken.

Peace.

.. … ..

“It’s a convenient logical fallacy — no matter what the cause it, there’s *always* something more important. What’s the point of ever doing anything if we’re not physically saving lives of dying seals?”
–“terriblehuman”