As you can see in the animation above, the Fox folks were having a bit of fun with their score bugs yesterday. The falling snow was a nice touch. Even better, the snow accumulated as time went on. You can see a full analysis of all this in a really fun piece that Business Insider put together — look here.
As for yesterday’s uniform news from around the league:
• The Rams wore their throwbacks, which still have those awful neck rolls. Hope they get rid of that element next season.
• The Dolphins wore their aqua pants, which means they once again wore those weird blue-topped socks. Additional views here and here.
• The Browns wore their brown britches against the Jets. Additional photos here.
• Speaking of the Jets, former quarterback Vinny Testaverde wore his own jersey to the game.
• Panthers quarterback Cam Newton did the Superman thing again during pregame warm-ups. (He didn’t wear those shoes or socks in the game, natch.)
• Although Newton restricts his footwear shenanigans to pregame, one of his teammates — defensive end Greg Hardy — wore gold shoes in yesterday’s game against the Saints. He’ll presumably be fined.
• Referee Bill Leavy, who was working the Cowboys/’Skins game, once again wore a jersey with the outdated number font. Surprising that nobody from the league office has spotted this.
• Speaking of outdated designs, after the Pats won their game and clinched the AFC East, Fox tweeted a graphic with the old AFC logo. Not sure if they also used that graphic on TV.
• A fan at the Bengals/Vikings game in Cincinnati was wearing a creatively repurposed Chad Ochocinco jersey.
• Speaking of fans, this guy in Green Bay was trying a bit too hard.
• I think we may have noted this before, but just in case: The guys who handle the footballs on the sidelines have their first names printed on their vests.
(My thanks to all contributors, including Brian Parker, JJ Sledge, Keith Winney, Matthew Wolfram, and of course Phil.)
Membership update: If you want to stick a Uni Watch Membership Voucher in someone’s stocking or under your tree, I suggest that you order it now. I’ll email the voucher to you today, so you can print it out and enclose it in a card, or whatever. (If you want to order a membership card — not a voucher — you can do that too, but it won’t arrive in time for Christmas.)
Raffle reminder: Today’s your last chance to enter the annual Uni Watch year-end reader-appreciation raffle. Deadline for entering is tonight at 7pm Eastern.
’Skins Watch: Daniel Snyder has been quietly visiting Indian reservations (from Tommy Turner). … People sometimes ask me, “What’s the problem with a team name like ‘Chiefs’? It’s completely honorific!” Yup, not problematic at all (from Nik Streng).
Baseball News: With double-flapper Shin-Soo Choo apparently headed for the Rangers, Nolan Brett wondered which other players in Rangers history had gone double-flapped. He came up with the following: Jack Daugherty in 1991, John Cangelosi in 1992, and Milt Cuyler in 1998, although Cuyler’s inclusion on the list is provisional: “He was only with the team for seven games and six at-bats, and I couldn’t find any photos of him in a Texas batting helmet, but he went double-flapped in Detroit, so it’s an assumption that he carried that style to Texas,” says Nolan. … Here’s an early scale model of Shea Stadium (thanks, Phil). ”¦ Hmmm, do the A’s have a new road cap? I’ll try to find out more today (from Ethan Kassel). ”¦ Blake Pass spotted this Braves duck ornament while doing some Christmas shopping. “It’s supposed to be a Braves duck, but every one of them had the Alabama ‘A’ instead of the Braves ‘A,'” he says.
College Football News: Here’s a shot of the Rose Bowl end zones being painted (thanks, Phil). ”¦ ECU will be wearing solid black in tonight’s Embarrassingly Named Restaurant Chain Bowl. ”¦ Boise State will wear blue-white-white in tomorrow night’s Hotel Bowl.
Hockey News: ” I stumbled upon an Instagram account with 161 vintage NHL videos from the ’70s through the ’90s,” says the Hungry Hungry Hipster. “The videos only 20 to 30 seconds long, so it’s a great way to see a treasure trove of old-school hockey without too much effort. There are some interesting uni-related things, like the Whalers wearing helmets in non-matching shades of green (that comes from this video) and Red Wings player Errol Thompson wearing a very awkward-looking facemask to protect a broken jaw (that’s from this video). ”¦ The Hershey Bears wore their Christmas jerseys yesterday. ”¦ The Alaska Aces wore “Hawaiian” uniforms on Saturday. “The jersey doesn’t offend me as much as the socks do,” says Brian Widman. ”¦ The Huntsville Havoc lived up to their name by wearing these ugly sweater jerseys on Saturday (thanks, Phil).
Basketball News: As you know, all 10 NBA teams playing on Xmas Day will be wearing sleeved jerseys, and at least one star player hasn’t been happy about it so the Heat prepared yesterday by wearing sleeved practice jerseys (thanks, Phil). ”¦ In a related item, was last night’s Clippers/Timberwolves game the first all-sleeves game in NBA history? Could be (Phil again). … Louisiana-Monroe honored the school’s old name by wearing Southeast Louisiana throwbacks (from Chris LaHaye).
Grab Bag: Got a note last night from Cort McMurray with the following subject line: “The most dissolute Christmas display, ever.” Attached was this photo. … Aston Villa wore their away claret shorts with their home kits for the first time this year on Saturday (from Tanner Welch).
What Paul did last night yesterday afternoon: Every holiday season the MTA — that’s the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the agency that runs the New York subways, buses, etc. — takes a bunch of old subway cars that had been taken out of service decades ago, restores them, outfits them with vintage advertising and signage, and puts them into service. This is the Nostalgia Train, and it’s been running every Sunday for the past month or so.
Yesterday a bunch of my friends and I met at the 2nd Ave. station — the Nostalgia Train’s southern terminus — to go for a ride. As the train headed north and then east into Queens, we walked from car to car, because each car was different. Some of them were from the ’30s, others from the ’60s, others from in between. Many of the passengers, including several of my friends from our group, were dressed in period vintagewear, and some folks even brought vintage cameras to document everything. The whole thing was a blast, and way better than spending the day watching football.
I didn’t take any photos myself — I was in more of a “Let’s just enjoy this” mood, plus I figured I’d be able to find lots of other people’s photos online. And I was right about that, as you can see in the slideshow below. Enjoy:
I got a lot of problems with you people.
And now you’re gonna hear about it!
What time do the FOS’s (as my family likes to say) begin??
Sorry Phil, I have to go. I have to work a double shift over at H&H
Bagel no! Festivus yes!
I find your belief system fascinating.
NOBAGELNOBAGELNOBAGELNOBAGELNOBAGELNOBAGELNOBAGELNOBAGEL
This holiday season a donation has been made in the name of Uni-Watch to the Human Fund!
Just to let anyone know (who cares)… the UWFFL playoff game between Miami and San Diego ended regulation tied at 85, voting will continue until 10 AM Eastern Tuesday for the first overtime period, please feel free to continue voting at:
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The Christmas lights were not timeout indicators like years past. The yellow dots below the team name still represented those. The lights did flash and change colors when teams scored though.
The article got that part wrong, which is amusing since their own pictures show the normal time-out indicators being used (some shots show when the Saints had used a time-out).
Besides, with the lights on each side, and the scores stacked vertically, there was no clear way to indicate which side represents which team (unless you were to do the lights in team colors, which clearly didn’t happen).
Yeah when they first did the snow thing, back in 2011, the teams were on each side, so the Christmas lights did represent the time outs then:
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Still dumb.
A minor correction to the Panther wearing gold shoes: It is actually DE Greg Hardy, not Greg Olsen. Greg Olsen is a TE.
Thanks. Fixed.
jC is correct. The small yellow arrows under each team name indicating remaining timeouts were still there
Fixed.
La-Monroe was northeast, not southeast. Game was true to tradition, tech fans outnumbered ulm fans in their building and Tech won by 20.
While Nike does a much better job than Reebok ever did on the Jets’ sleeve/shoulder treatment for the game jerseys, that picture of Vinny shows what an absolute train wreck the retail jerseys are.
Paul,
Two years ago, I went on something similar on the CTA known as the “Snowflake Special.” It was a tour of the CTA on some 2200 series cars. I made a video series about the tour.
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Nike can’t do a good job with the link though.
(If it’s hard to tell, link of showing it)
@Kyle, that’s for sure. It’s especially maddening when you consider the Packers green is fine.
The Jets’ green looks better or worse depending on lighting conditions. In night games it looks OK. Day games under cloudy conditions, meh. In sunlight it looks like Army olive drab, almost brown. Ych.
I think he is referring to the fact that the green on the single sleeve stripe and the cuff does not match the Green used for the rest of the jersey. Yes the olive looking green is unattractive but its made worse by the fact that there are clearly 2 different greens being used on the jersey.
Also the Packers Green may only be correct because they chose to stick with the old cut/fabric. There’s a chance that if they had gone with the Elite 51 (or whatever the template is named), that they may suffer from the same washed-out green look.
@Douglas, yes; there are actually more than 2 different greens being used on the jersey. It seems to me that the main fabric (sleeves on the white jerseys), sides/nameplates, shoulder inserts and numerals are all different shades of green. The shoulder inserts appear to be the same (or nearly the same) shade as the helmet decals, which are the correct shade.
Again, the effect depends on lighting conditions. In sunlight the color differences are plainly noticeable. In cloudy or nighttime conditions, not so much.
Northeast Louisiana Indians is in Monroe, Southeastern Louisiana Lions is in Hammond.
Can’t believe you aren’t digging the Green Bay facial hair! Maybe trying too hard if he wears it around regularly, to work, etc. But a game day? Love it.
I was sitting next to him at the game yesterday, I thought it was awesome.
I like the ochocinco repurpose. Quite clever.
I noticed Tottenham did link (AKFAKS?) against Southampton this weekend.
Although I do not care for the NBA Xmas Jerseys, the Clippers/Wolves matchup looked quite nice.
The Clippers set is probably the best sleeved uni in NBA history. Granted, there’s not exactly a lot of competition…
Paul questioned my use of “dissolute” in describing the enormous Texans logo (which rolls through a programmed display of alternating red, white, and blue hues – the photo doesn’t do it justice).
At first, I agreed. The more I think about it, what word better describes the choice to adorn your home with an enormous, garish, glowing symbol of a club whose signature achievements are signing an offensive lineman so physically incapacitated, he could no longer lift his hands above his head; having the team’s woefulness yield a gameday stroke for their head coach; and giving the world the rallying slogan “We Have The Spirit of the Bull!”
“Happy birthday, Jesus! I got you a big Texans logo!” “Dissolute” about covers it.
I’ll change it back to “dissolute”!
Definitely.
“Nolan Brett wondered which other players in Rangers history had gone double-flapped.”
Does Travis Hafner qualify?
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Video of the Orange Bowl patches being added to the Buckeye uniforms.. also note they will be wearing this years “rivalry” jerseys
If only they’d wear that as their regular jersey, without screwing around with chrome ultra-wide-striped helmets or white pants.
Paul,
Two years ago, I went on something similar on the CTA known as the “Snowflake Special.” It was a tour of the CTA on some 2200 series cars. I made a video series about the tour.
link
the rams navy and the oldschool yellow combo on the helmet looks good.
if they went back to the old LA Rams word mark and replaced the gold with yellow the Rams would have good uniforms
Eh… the helmet looks alright, but the navy helmet with the royal jersey is (and always was) so freakin annoying. If they go retro and bring back the yellow, I hope to Celestia they follow the Giants lead and use a helmet that better matches the jersey. I guess they could go navy & yellow, but depending on their choice of pants, they could end up looking too Charger-like.
Navy and yellow would look good (think of the Indiana Pacers) but the priority is to drop the stupid Nikelace in favor of a simple yellow V-neck. Remember the ’70s when the Rams were still in LA, and it seemed the Rams and Chargers were making a deliberate effort to ape one another? Betcha San Diego had navy blue shells just like all the royal blue teams.
Many thanks to Hungry Hungry Hipster for combining a couple of my favorites, old-school hockey and minimal effort. Only negative was clip of Jaque Lemaire beating Tony Esposito from center ice in game seven of the 1971 finals. That loss hurt for a long time.
That was also the game that forced Chicago to have Tony Esposito’s eyes tested before the following season. And he actually did need glasses! LOL
Whatever happened to the Cubs alternate road jersey? I thought it was supposed to already be unveiled. Did they change their minds and shelf it?
Looks like Ohio State will wear scarlet rivalry unis vs Clemson.
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Any word on the A’s hat in the baseball part of the ticker? Replacement for their previous road hat? Keeping both and using the new one as an alt. road hat? Other options?
No confirmation yet.
Tough week to get solid info from people, for obvious reasons, so it may be a little while before we learn the real deal on this…
Red Wings wearing white-at-home tonight against the Isles. I thought it might be a league-wide thing but the Flyers are wearing orange in Philly. I’ll just enjoy it as is (-:
Third or fourth time I’ve seen you mention the blue added to the Dolphins uni. Take a look at the new (this year’s) logo… they added blue as an accent color (on the dolphin’s belly) even though it’s not listed as an official team color. It’s on the pant striping and the numbers, too, I believe.
The blue itself isn’t notable — it’s the blue as an extra color at the top of the socks that’s notable. Nothing else like it in the NFL.
48 comments on a Monday? Creeeeeeeepy.
People comment here when they’re at work, and I can’t imagine too many people were working today. (The ones who were were likely doublebusy too.)
But aren’t they supposed to be, I dunno, working at work?
Didn’t see this noted last week:
Dec. 17 was 80’s night at TD Garden, complete with Terry O’Reilly bobbleheads and 80’s-era team logos on the scoreboard. Check out the Bruins and Flames logos:
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Great subway shots! Thanks for sharing.